Primavera School

Primavera School was established in the belief that the greatest gift we can give our children is a lifetime love of learning, an appreciation that all people are different and no people are better, and a responsible concern for others and the environment. Our whole approach to early childhood education and the basis of our curriculum are structured around a positive educational experience for each individual child. The staff at Primavera care about each child and provide a peaceful, safe, and loving environment in which children are encouraged to explore, interact, experiment, create, and realize their potential.
Curriculum is everything a child experiences while at school. It may be prescribed, emergent, or accidental and unidentified; yet appropriate curriculum is always developmentally compatible with children's natural modes of learning. The basis for our curriculum model, then, is one where
(1) children are actively involved in their learning through play and exploration of materials and ideas at their own rate,
(2) all materials are appropriate to the developmental level of the child,
(3) children on a daily basis are encouraged to make choices and pursue individual interests, and
(4) teachers act as resources and extend and validate children's choices and discoveries. In this model, curriculum involves continuous observation of individual children, planning for learning, and establishing a group climate and setting to facilitate it. Our consistent goal at Primavera then, is to promote self-directed learning. To reach that goal we utilize current knowledge of what children need and how they learn best.

Good decisions about curriculum and assessment of young children are fundamentally based on an understanding of children's needs. First of all, basic physiological needs of children must be met. A child-sized, flexible environment is
accessible to children at all times. Appropriate curriculum respects the fact that children can't sit still for long periods of time, and thus it provides for active physical play and periods of more restful, quiet activity since this pattern is compatible with children's physical needs. Second, children's psychological needs must be met. We do this by providing a responsive, relaxed, and comfortable environment where children feel safe and know that their teachers are there to protect and support them. Third, children need to feel a sense of belonging. Our curriculum allows for individual variation and flexibility and provides ample opportunities for social interaction among children. The result is that children feel secure and very much a part of their class and their school. At last, children need to feel good ~ about themselves and others. Our staff does this by acknowledging and recognizing the value of children's choices and encourages individuals to reach their potential. Relationships within the Primavera community are highly valued.
Children whose biological needs are met, who feel psychologically safe, who feel a sense of belonging, and who are positively valued are able to learn and function autonomously in a group environment.

Appropriate curriculum is compatible with children's natural modes of learning. The following are several ways children acquire knowledge, skills, dispositions, and feelings about objects, events, other people, and themselves.

1. Children construct knowledge.
Children construct their own knowledge through repeated experiences involving interaction with people and materials. Our curriculum is child-centered, and we expose children to high-interest areas, always giving consideration to the cognitive stages of development that all children predictably pass through. Children's thinking and reasoning develop in an invariant predictable sequence; although some children progress from one stage to the next sooner or later than others depending on maturation, experience, and social interaction. Our curriculum is flexible and allows for individual time-tables.

2. Children learn through experimentation and manipulation.
Active manipulation of the environment is essential for children to construct knowledge whether it is by doing, touching, experimenting, choosing, talking, or negotiating. At Primavera our curriculum invites active participation in all learning settings, provides lots of opportunity for child-choice, and places a priority on social and negotiating-type skills.

3. Children learn, through constructive error.
Children need to form their own hypotheses and keep trying them out through mental actions and physical manipulations--observing what happens, comparing their findings, asking questions, and discovering answers. When errors are made, the child is forced to adjust his previous thinking to account for the new information. Our staff, at all times, encourages self-directed learning in all children by validating and extending their discoveries.

4. Children learn through play.
During early childhood, children's play in a variety of forms is the most effective vehicle for promoting learning. Children's play provides opportunities for experimentation and manipulation that are essential for construction of knowledge. Play is a child?s work and enables him to practice newly acquired skills. Spontaneous play in preschool and group games with rules in our primary grades teach children cooperation, which contributes to social, emotional, and intellectual development and self-esteem.

5. Children learn through social interaction.
Social interaction and language development receive great emphasis at Primavera where mutual respect, cooperation, sharing, and self-esteem are encouraged and modeled on a daily basis. Children learn responsibility by experiencing the natural consequences of their actions.

6. Children's interests and their "need to know" motivate all learning .
At Primavera our curriculum is based on children's interests and builds upon their natural curiosity. This naturally results in sustained attention, self-direction, and competence.
Because we know what children need and how they learn best, our curriculum model at Primavera School enables us to provide an environment that promotes pro-social behavior and self-directed learning in the children we teach.

Maintain a desirable level of health and fitness.
Develop appropriate safety awareness.
Involve the senses in active learning.
Develop body awareness and self-help skills.
Acquire basic gross and fine motor skills.

Gain self-control and the ability to verbally express feelings constructively.
Feel psychologically safe in the school environment.
Develop a sense of belonging.
Develop a positive self-concept.
Understand and respect physical, social, and cultural diversity.
Engage in sustained and mutually satisfying relationships with others.
Be independent, self-directed thinkers.
Be creative and imaginative.

Respond to and value literature in a variety of ways.
Use language to express needs and give meaning to experience.
Emphasize child?s own language as a vehicle for learning.
Perceive themselves as listeners, speakers, readers, and writers.

Possess ability to think divergently and creatively.
Represent ideas and feelings through pretend play, dance, music, movement, art, and constructions.
Observe and understand cause and effect relationships.
Acquire information about self and the community.
Acquire an understanding of classification, ordering, sorting, seriation, and spatial relationships.
Perceive self as a problem-solver.

With these program goals in mind for children in preschool through 5th grade, decisions about specific curriculum content and learning experiences can be made. When selecting content, our staff members use their knowledge and understanding of children's needs and how children learn best. Additionally, they are keenly aware that the curriculum must allow children to work at different levels on different activities and does not require all the children to do the same thing at the same time. Our curriculum builds on children's prior learning and previous knowledge and provides for children's direct sensory experience before moving to more complex levels of understanding. At Primavera our curriculum develops skills and knowledge in a meaningful context, not in isolation. Conceptual organizers such as themes, units, and class projects give our children something meaningful and substantial to engage their minds. Language, reading, writing, math, science, social studies, and physical education are all integrated throughout the curriculum. The following is a list of concepts and specific content for each of our program goals grouped according to grade level.

CURRICULUM OVERVIEW