Core Academics

Meeting time builds and strengthens the classroom community by making connections between students and teachers through greetings, cheers, and positive messages. Community Meeting allows students to feel a sense of belonging and to let them know school is fun! Move This World is a social and emotional learning program that teaches our self-regulation skills and language to appropriately express feelings and ideas.

Understanding the world around us can be hard work! In kindergarten through second grade, calendar math helps students learn about the ways we organize time, temperature, and the weather and to recognize patterns and review important mathematical understandings.

Reader’s Workshop allows teachers to craft lessons that model key literacy and discussion skills using authentic, meaningful texts. Students have the opportunity to practice modeled skills in guided reading groups, independently with self-selected books, and in choice literacy centers. In Word Work students benefit from exploration and explicit instruction in developmental spelling as they discover how to make words and the ways they work. We focus on teaching spelling rules instead of word lists.

Guided Reading is a time where students are taught on their instructional reading level. Students work with teachers in small groups to get the support, instruction, and extension they require to continue to learn and grow. During this time, all students receive targeted instruction from their teachers on the specific skills they need to practice and master. These groups are informed by our F&P testing and other academic data we collect in order to best meet the needs of all of our Explorers.

Explicit math instruction is designed to support and extend the thinking developed by mathematicians during the balanced math instruction. Mathematicians are given direct instruction and have opportunities to practice math concepts multiple times to help ensure retention and deep understanding. 

At Explore we believe every child deserves the opportunity to discover and exercise their passions and that the arts are as important as our traditional curriculum. Kindergarten through second grade Explorers will participate in music, garden, and art once a week. Third through fifth grade Explorers will participate in Spanish, music, and art once a week. All Explorers K-5 will participate in Fitness and Adventure twice a week to promote healthy lifestyles and physical fitness.

Students will engage in purposeful project-based learning, taking the knowledge they gain during the rest of the day and applying it in authentic, hands-on activities. Students will create works of beauty and worth that they can present and be proud of.

This is a time to celebrate the ways that we have demonstrated learning and our core values throughout the day. Students are able to share compliments, point out something they learned, or share something they are looking forward to.