Lower School Curriculum
The path to your child’s future starts at Montverde Academy’s Lower School. Starting in Pre-K3, students interact daily with their peers and with teachers who nurture their unique talents and strengths in a positive and supportive environment. With the objective of educating the whole child, our program incorporates computers, foreign language, drama, art, music, library, and physical education. Our teachers combine the science, the art, and the “heart” of teaching to create inspirational learning environments that successfully keep each child actively engaged in the learning process. Our goal is to create a lifelong love of learning in our children
Early Childhood
Montverde Academy’s early childhood program welcomes children to their first learning community and instills a love of learning which will serve them as lifelong learners. We ensure that students feel safe, nurtured, and supported during this transition by forming a strong relationship between school and home. We know that our students learn best through hands-on, play-based experiences that allow them to be actively involved in their own learning. Our teachers value each child as an individual and recognize that their social, emotional, physical, and academic skills develop at different rates. We focus on the whole child in order to support them in their development as both students and citizens. By doing so, we lay the foundation for our students to become knowledgeable leaders with strong character in our school community and beyond.
Elementary
Our English/Language Arts curriculum is created by the nonprofit research group the Center for the Collaborative Classroom. The curriculum combines the best practices of years of research and is combined into three parts, Being a Reader, Making Meaning, and Being a Writer. Kindergarten through grade two use all three pieces of the curriculum, and grades three, four, and five utilize the Making Meaning and Being a Writer.
Being a Reader
Being a Reader is the first piece of the curriculum that integrates reading instruction with the social learning needed to build a caring classroom community.
Making Meaning
Making Meaning is the second piece of the curriculum. In Making Meaning, children begin to understand reading as an interactive process that involves thinking, questioning, discussing, rereading, and responding to texts.
Being a Writer
The third piece to the curriculum is Being a Writer. Being a Writer teaches children to write with conviction and purpose, for multiple audiences and to demonstrate their understanding.
Math in Focus, the Singapore Method
Our math curriculum is Math in Focus, the Singapore Method. The Singapore method focuses on mastery of specific concepts at a very deep level.
Amplify Science
The science curriculum, Amplify Science, combines Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to challenge our students.
Weekly Studies
My World social studies by Pearson provide students in Kindergarten through fifth grade the opportunity to connect experiences and understanding.
Document Based Questions (DBQs)
DBQs by the DBQ Project – Document Based Questions are part of the curriculum for Grades two, three, four, and five. This curriculum supports the belief that all students can develop high-level critical thinking skills if they have consistent instruction and a chance to practice.
Other pieces of our curriculum include Thinking Maps, Write from the Beginning and Beyond, Handwriting without Tears, and OWL (Opening the World through Learning).