Dear Spanish Lime Families,
Welcome to our 2017-2018 school year. I am thrilled to be teaching another year in the Spanish Lime classroom. Being sent to training at MMTTC over the past two summers has inspired me to share and instill knowledge about the lower elementary curriculum and the next plane of development, six to twelve year olds. The elementary age is full of awe and wonder about the world in which he/she lives. The curriculum is created to inspire love and spark the imagination of learning by going beyond the usual goals of skill development and addressing the development of the whole person. The goal of the elementary curriculum is to guide the child toward an initial examination of the question, “who am I?” The “who am I?” question is really three questions in one. The other two parts of the question are “where do I come from?” And “why am I here?” (Or “where am I going?”).
Rather than following the tradition approach of presenting facts as belonging to individual subjects, the elementary curriculum uses what they called “The Great Lessons” also known as the cosmic education, to present a holistic vision of knowledge, building the subject skills into each theme. Reading, writing, geography, science and history are all studied in terms of these cultural contexts. We take the children from the whole to the parts and back to the whole again.
The first of five Great Lessons and considered the most memorable one is, “The Coming of the Universe.” Along with the story there are twenty special science demonstrations, called history experiments that give an impressionistic background and setting for the First Great Lesson. The history experiments are key, concrete, sensorial experiences of this tale. This lesson leads to the study of:
Time, Astronomy, meteorology, chemistry, physics, geology, and geography.
The remaining great lessons are told throughout the year and are, The Coming of Life, The Coming of Humans, The Story of Language and the Story of Mathematics.
For the first several weeks of school your child will be introduced to daily character education activities that promote citizenship, compassion, fairness, honesty, integrity, perseverance, responsibility, respect, self discipline and trustworthiness. These activities are thought-provoking lessons that will introduce the basic concepts through story telling, rhymes, and open conversation that will lead to follow up discussion and opportunities for (role play, games, etc.) to demonstrate that they comprehend the topic. These activities will lay the foundation of the classroom so your child will feel safe, respected and eager to learn, explore and research.
I look forward to an exciting year learning and growing together.
Sincerely,
Ms. Sally
