Lower School Curriculum By Grade Level

Our first grade students focus on community, learning what a community is and does while they themselves become members of the Lower School community. Through the amazing experience of participating in a community helper play, students combine their growing knowledge of community with the art of performance, music speaking.

Students learn the many facets of what it takes to build and service a community. They study the community roles of banks, grocery stores, public services, medical facilities, entertainment, emergency workers, schools, shopping, and much more. They experience many of these types of establishments first hand through fields trips in our local communities of Newnan and Peachtree City.

Students experience “traveling” through the community on “Transportation Day.” The “tools of the trade” unit allows them to interview and use their speech abilities to research their parents’ jobs. Science is incorporated through studying the community’s weather as well as examining animals and their habitats as another type of community. Students’ vocabulary is enriched through learning about weather and animals. Students get to see the habitats and communities of animals up close during one of their favorite field trips to the Atlanta Zoo.

The culminating activity for first grade’s community is the creation of “Box City.” The students use their cumulative knowledge and problem solving skills to create and engineer an entire community in the classroom. This activity requires collaboration, creativity, communication, and critical thinking, which are the 4 C’s of 21st Century Learning.

 

 

 

 

Third grade students at The Heritage School learn about the United States of America. They begin the year studying the geography of our nation so they can better understand westward expansion. In science, they study the spiders native to our country while incorporating literature and the reading Charlotte’s Web.

They become Native Americans of the plains, converting the classroom into a teepee. This collaborative activity and unit incorporates reading, art, and social studies skills. A favorite visitor, Mr. Hall (a Lakota Sioux), visits to share exciting history and Native American artifacts to enhance the experience of learning about this topic.

After learning about the natives of our land, the students become pioneers and move west into the territories of the Native Americans. The classroom becomes a Conestoga wagon where the students read, write, and participate in what it was like to be a pioneer. They use their research skills to prepare them for their overnight field trip where, while dressed in pioneer attire, they will sleep in Conestoga wagons and experience what it was like to sleep and cook on the trail, like the pioneers.

 

As the students continue travelling west, they focus on the gold rush. A trip to Dahlonega, Georgia, incorporates a gold mining experience that integrates the science of rocks and minerals along with the historical aspects that time period. These experiences allow our third grade students to delve into the past while making connections to their own lives.

Fourth grade students start the year as philanthropists and economists. They create a product of snack mix to sell to the students at The Heritage School. With their profits, they purchase children’s pajamas for the local charitable organization, One Roof. At Kohl’s, students use real-world math skills to calculate the number of pairs of pajamas they can purchase with their profits.

 

STEAM skills are incorporated through the engineering of simple machines with Kinex and through InVenture, a new science program in partnership with Georgia Tech. During InVenture, students will survey others to uncover a problem they will attempt to solve by creating their own inventions. This will involve science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) as they creatively and collaboratively problem-solve.

The highlight of the fourth grade year is the Civil War unit. Reading, writing, social studies, and science are all incorporated throughout this experience. Students write in their journal as drummer boys, sharing their own unique creative evaluation of the war. Students visit the Port Columbus Naval Museum to see what life was like for sailors during the Civil War. They see many artifacts from the time period, both from home life and from the battlefield, when they go to the Atlanta History Center. At the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History, students experience a train chase with a movie, and then see the actual train involved. A soldier in uniform explains the necessity of his equipment and fires his musket. They explore the artifacts in the museum during a scavenger hunt. The unit ends with our own Civil War day where the students dress in historical attire, participate in activities of the period, and observe a live cannon being fired!