Core Knowledge
Academic excellence, educational equity, and fairness demand a strong foundation of knowledge for all learners.
E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
What is Core Knowledge?
Core Knowledge is coherent. Explicit identification of what children should learn at each grade level ensures a coherent approach to building knowledge across all grade levels. Every child should learn the fundamentals of Science, basic principles of Government, important events in world history, essential elements of mathematics, widely acknowledged masterpieces of art and music from around the world, and stories and poems passed down from generation to generation.
Core Knowledge is cumulative. It provides a clear outline of content to be learned grade by grade so that knowledge, language, and skills build cumulatively from year to year. This sequential building of knowledge not only helps ensure that children enter each new grade ready to learn, but it also helps prevent the repetitions and gaps that so often characterize current education.
Core Knowledge is content-specific . The Core Knowledge Sequence is distinquished by its specificity. By clearly specifying important knoledge in language arts, history, goegraphy, math, science, and the fine arts, the Sequence presents a practical answer to the question, "What do our children need to know?" Teachers are free to devote their energies and efforts to creatively planning how to teach the content to the children in their classrooms.
Core Knowledge is a school reform movement . . . taking shape in hundreds of schools where educators have committed themselves to teaching important skills and the Core Knowledge content they share within grade levels, across districts, and with other Core Knowledge schools across the country.
www.coreknowledge.org
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Singapore Math
Singapore Math recognizes that what children learn in elementary school is the basis of all future math learning; thus, focuses on problem solving and the base-ten system. The curriculum is based on a progression from concrete experiences (using manipulatives) to a pictorial representations to abstract levels and algorithms. This sequence gives students a solid understanding of basic mathematical concepts and relationships before they start working at the abstract level. Singapore Math is highly conceptual and includes a strong emphasis on model drawing, a visual approach to solving word problems that helps students organize information and solve problems in a step-by-step manner.
At Candeo, math blocks are taught for 1 hour and 20 minutes, beginning in 1st grade (50 minutes in Kindergarten). Mental math strategies are taught daily to encourage understanding of mathematical properties and promote numerical fluency.
www.singaporemath.com.
Language Arts
At Candeo, our Language Arts curriculum is built upon the Core Knowledge Sequence and the Arizona State Common Core Language Arts Standards. Our classical model includes an indisepensible array of literary classics at each grade level. It is through the aforementioned resources that instruction is mindfully planned and delivered. We believe in a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction. This means that teachers assess learners and make purposeful, instructional decisions about how to help children become better readers and writers.
There are three principles that researchers have identified when looking at a comprehensive view of literacy. First, it is imperative that teachers teach skills that include knowledge of decoding, strategies for comprehension, and a LOVE for literature. Secondly, different instructional approaches to reading instruction may vary among and within classrooms based on student need; thus, we design instruction to be learner centered rather than program centered. Thirdly, children must read a variety of reading materials at school and at home daily.
Children at Candeo read various books for different reasons: books that allow children to work on decoding skills, books that aid in teaching comprehension strategies, books that teach children something new, and books that children want to read for pleasure.Finally, we know that teaching content is teaching reading. At Candeo, our students develop a rich reservoir of knowledge that provides the background necessary for comprehension.
Foreign Language
Our Foreign Language program includes French for grades Kindergarten through 3rd, followed by Latin in grades 4th and 5th. Our Language Specialist provides instruction in the classroom through immersion that infuses music, games, activities, and projects.
French is a Romance language that is considered perfect preparation for Latin insruction in the upper grades. |
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The Arts
"I submit to you that what we now call education in the arts is not an ornament, or decoration, or a beauty, or a nice thing to do with learning, but that it resides at the center of the process of learning. Biologically, genetically, at the basis of our capacity to learn is our instinct to make art...Art is deeply at the root of our intelligence and our capacity to learn." Robert Pinksy, American Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
We value the Arts as an integral part of our curriculum and essential to the knowledge children should learn in the early grades. Through the arts, our students learn about history, culture, patience, focus, creative thinking, and skills in problem solving.
At Candeo, students are provided many opportunities to sing, dance, listen to music, play act, read and write poetry, draw, paint, and make objects. Equally important, they are exposed to fine paintings, great music, and other inspiring examples of art. As children progress in their knowledge and competencies, they can begin to learn more about the methods and terminology of the different arts and become familiar with an ever-wide range of great artists and acknowledged master works.
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. Plato
Physical Education and Wellness
To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.
Buddha
Candeo's well-developed Physical Education and Wellness program is deeply embedded in our philosophy of educating the whole child. Students at Candeo are provided ample opportunities to move, play, and breathe both in and out of the classroom. We are recess friendly, ensuring our students have fresh air and sunshine daily. They engage socially, strengthen their bodies, and are taught the essentials of health and physical fitness through solid instruction.
We believe our teachers and staff have a marked influence on the children we see every day; thus, we model what we teach in encouraging healthful practices. We are a junk food free campus where families commit to providing a morning snack and lunch that align with our guidelines for health and wellness.
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