Children move into the second phase of childhood at the age of six or seven. This change is marked by a new readiness for formal learning. New intellectual abilities are nurtured, continuing to empower the imagination and creativity in the early grades.
At this age every child is an artist. The teacher’s task is to inform intellectual knowledge through aesthetic experience. Mathematics, science and social studies, woodwork and knitting, and world languages (both German and Spanish) are taught integrating intellect, imagination, and art. The teachers address each child’s learning with pictures and stories, in color, rhythm, and music. What is learned becomes a living part of the child.
Grade 3 culminates with a weeklong trip to the Hawthorne Valley Farm in upstate New York.