Age 3-5
Primary 1
Age 5-7 Primary 2
Age 6-8
Age 5-7 Primary 2
Age 6-8
Elementary 1
Age 8-10
Age 8-10
Elementary 2
Age 10-12
Age 10-12
If no one reads your story, is it a story?
The classroom is unusually quiet. Every head is bent, every pencil poised, every face aglow with pride and concentration. How thrilling it is to learn to write! Primary children learn to express their ideas on paper, first with “invented” spelling that matches the sounds they hear, and later with more conventional spelling. Before long, the once-still room is buzzing.
Who can resist sharing a good story—especially when you wrote it yourself?
Primary years curriculum
Students per class: 18-22Teachers per class: 2
These are exciting years. Primary students become readers and writers, explore math, music and science, and gain confidence in their new abilities. Whether chronicling a family outing in their journals, dying wool with plants they have grown and harvested, or deciding whether a number is odd or even, Primary children delight in “doing.” In-depth studies engage children’s imaginations and curiosity about the past, as well as about the world around them.
Primary in-depth studies in science might include the Five Senses; Night; the Ocean; Earth, Fire, Air, Water; Ecology; Shapes and Structures; or Mysteries. In-depth social studies might include Our Community; Mexico; Japan; Ancient Egypt; the African countries of Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa; or Native Americans of the Northeast and Colonial times.
“When the children make something, it’s a costume for their enactment of Ellis Island, an accurate model of a covered wagon, a stone that will be used in the garden, an authentic recipe from the time they are studying. Other schools have children make collages with magazine pictures, and other things that are only indirectly connected...”
- Peggy Speas
alumni parent
“I’m able to think
broadly, conceptually,
and quickly, and I make
mental leaps in
sometimes quirky ways.
I believe the Common
School fostered this—
it’s one of my most
valuable skills.”
- Lizzy Longsworth
alumna 1975
alumna 1975
