Core (ages 5 – 8)
In “Core” class, we seek to blend the natural curiosity of children with the power of collaboration to activate learning. At this stage of development, we believe the focus should be on joyful exploration, kindness, treating others with respect, and learning responsibility. Children at this age learn best with movement and play, with intermittent times of quiet focus, so our daily rhythm and routines respects these needs. Each day after lunch, rain or shine we go to the park for an hour of recess to re-energize our bodies and brains! It is important that we acknowledge whole-child development, so good friendships and emotional intelligence are nurtured. We also incorporate art and technology into all that we do in our classes in order to engage all of the child’s senses.
Language Arts: We learn about language mostly through stories. At this stage, the teacher reads out loud, exposing children to quality language through classic stories, folktales from around the world and the rhythm of language through poetry and rhymes. Students then retell the stories through drawings, puppet shows and discussion, develop their own stories through games, and also gently approach writing through word games, tactile discovery of the letters and journal writing.
Math: Playing with numbers and recognizing patterns are used to promote mathematical reasoning. Exposure to logic problems, hands on math games that use counting and strategic reasoning, and math art projects show the way we use math in our everyday thinking.
Science: Exploring the world around them comes naturally to children! We practice a See, Think, Wonder routine as children learn to observe, reflect, and ask questions about what they see. Magnifying glasses, getting hands in the earth, and messy and fun experiments spark children’s natural curiosity.
Social Studies: Following our geography theme for each quarter, we immerse the kids in the culture and history of each country we study. In a fun approach, we use stories, crafts, recipes, art study, music, and videos to explore the people, geography, history, food, holidays and celebrations of each region.
Love of Learning (ages 9 – 12)
Students in this phase learn best when their curiosity compels them to find out more about the world around them. Understanding how to use good communication between students collaborating is key. We focus on how to share ideas and how to listen and respond to others, even when we disagree. We know the social and emotional intelligence our students are learning are just as important as our academic learning.
Art: Art is integrated into our other studies and is a part of our approach to math, history, science and language arts. Students learn on a deeper level when they learn to see the design in things they interact with everyday and begin to design their own solutions to problems.
Language Arts: We explore language as we read great literature and poetry from around the world; as we learn about characters who overcame challenges and learn from them. Students will enjoy doing projects together like reader’s theater, writing and performing skits, and doing creative writing projects like writing and illustrating their own books and writing and producing the school newspaper.
Math: We will explore mathematical reasoning and patterns through games, science observations, art projects and STEM projects, including building and engineering. Math will be integrated into a context of what we are observing, building, or playing with. We’ll also learn about mathematicians throughout history and how mathematics evolved.
Science: The natural curiosity at this stage of learning is a great driver to explore biology, zoology, chemistry and technology. Student projects will reflect their learning as they make observations, experiment, and reflect about the world around them. Student will be busy designing experiments to answer their questions, building inventions, and getting messy but having fun.
Social Studies: Following our geography theme for each quarter, we immerse the kids in the culture and history of each country we study. In a fun approach, we use stories, crafts, recipes, art study, music, and videos to explore the people, geography, history, food, holidays and celebrations of each region.
Technology/Entrepreneurship: This year our students will have the opportunity to be involved in deepening their projects through technology. This will include, but is not limited to videography and film-making, crowd-sourcing, website building, blogs and vlogs, 3-D printing and scanning, image editing, robotics, illustration, coding and building with power tools.
Scholar (ages 13 – 18)
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Students at this stage of learning can seek out their own learning by choosing autonomous projects to discover and dive deeply into their passions. Students at this stage of development will naturally want to engage with their community, doing work studies and pairing up with community members to deepen their understanding of their passions.They focus on learning what it means to be a leader and take turns guiding discussions.
Art: Our art studies focus on the context of our regional studies and is integrated into our other studies and is a part of our approach to math, history, science and language arts.
Language Arts: Students are able to write extensive papers into understanding subjects relating to their interests. Additionally, students choose to read deeply from literature that supports their interests and broadens their understanding. While reading mostly classic literature, students will sometimes prefer to read a study or a historical document to help them to dig deeply into these subjects.
Math: Math classes at Knox are targeted at subject matter in the ACT, but are filtered through mini projects. While most of the students’ chosen subjects will inherently include the most important math for them, Knox supplements the scholar class math by using projects like rocket building, and astronomy to understand core math principles, like geometry, algebra, trigonometry and calculus.
Social Studies: Each quarter’s theme allows for the study of different areas of the world and in any time period. We believe that focusing on the people of a region and their particular regiohistorical personality helps to understand the region, with all of its diversity, as well as its history and how it fits into the broader world. Our studies of the world will continue in 2017 by reaching out to Africa, Latin America, and Greece.
Science: Because of our focus on regions, we also like to take the study of science as it relates to a particular region. In 2017 we will study the science of each of the above mentioned regions and examine it in context. For example, much of what we know about current world disease is coming out of the African rainforests. We will study how they came about and how to eradicate them.
Technology/Entrepreneurship: This year our students will have the opportunity to be involved in deepening their projects through technology. This will include, but is not limited to videography and film-making, crowd-sourcing, website building, blogs and vlogs, 3-D printing and scanning, image editing, robotics, illustration, coding and building with power tools.