Dear Spanish Lime Families,
Welcome to our 2016-2017 school year. I am thrilled to be teaching in the Spanish Lime classroom. Being sent to training at MMTTC over the summer has inspire 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. 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 actives 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.
Rather than following the tradition approach of presenting facts as belonging to individual subjects, the elementary curriculum uses what they call “Great Lessons” 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 and considered the most memorable one of the Great Lessons is The Coming of the Universe and the Earth. This lesson leads to the study of:
Astronomy, meteorology, chemistry, physics, geology, and geography. Ask your child to retell the story of The Coming to the Universe and the Earth.
Sincerely,
Ms. Sally
