Curriculum
The following is an overview of some core curriculum components we will implement at Weilenmann School of Discovery. Other curriculum elements will be described in more detail over the next few months as grade level and specialist teams collaborate to further refine specific courses and curricular goals.
Lower School Language Arts
K-2 Reading
WSDʼs K-2 reading program is a balanced literacy program. This program is built around a structure of small and flexible grouping. All students will receive instruction in Wilson Fundations, a program that provides teachers with the skills and tools needed to present a structured, sequential, and cumulative phonics/spelling program using multi-sensory teaching techniques. Teachers will use literature materials that support the childʼs independent and instructional reading levels. This model is layered in the younger grades to build and strengthen skills while embracing the love and joy of learning to read. Children will find authentic and valuable purposes for reading. Center activities will also be embedded into the experience to guide students to embrace choice and independence in their learning. Among instructional routines you might expect to find are the following:
In the intermediate grades, the classroom setup will invite student independence in reading and promote inquiry. Instructional routines will parallel those in the primary grades, although the skills and strategies that provide focus for instruction will be more complex and sophisticated, and the texts that students read will be more challenging. Students will engage in a model that is built around the flexibility of choice to develop personal reading interests and, in whole-class instruction, to build skills using designated novels. These novels will incorporate content in history that will allow for cross-curricular connections.
Of course, the classroom library is a critical aspect of the physical environment in all grade levels. Developing a lifelong love and passion for reading is our ultimate goal.
Middle School English
The Middle School English curricula at WSD is designed to cultivate a love of reading, a broad exposure to multiple genres and media, and the active manipulation of words and sentence structure in writing and speech. A primary objective of the program is the fostering of personal, social, and civic literacy by exposing students to a variety of ways to communicate and by requiring students to communicate in a variety of ways including oral language, written language, and by means of media/technology.
The Middle School English curriculum includes the following specific objectives:
Middle School Literary Texts
Students will be assigned reading in such well-known classics as Call of the Wild, The Hobbit, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Shakespearean plays; but students will also read a wide variety of texts in many different media that are generally not assigned in school such as magazines, graphic novels, newspapers, songs, and online texts. While teachers will guide students’ reading, students will also have ample opportunities to read and explore literature of their own choosing, to participate in shared reading with their classmates both in class and digitally, and to publish their own writings in the Middle School web magazine as well as on other online publishing venues.
Lower School/Middle School Writing
Writing is a powerful tool for getting things done. Consider the following:
WSD’s writing program is constructed with the understanding of all the purposes writing can serve. To refine and master the skill of writing, students will be trained in the Six Traits Writing Model. This is a program that will be used by all teachers in Grades 1-8. It is a shared writers’ language that helps students write better drafts and revise with confidence. Students will have opportunities to write daily in a variety of forms, and with experiences that build not only the skill, but the enjoyment of writing as well.
Kindergarten students will begin to use their pre-emergent writing skills to develop an understanding of sentence structure by journaling daily, exploring writing at center time, and participating in other language-rich experiences.
Lower School Grammar
During the primary grades, teachers will build the skills necessary for understanding the principles of grammar and sentence structure. In the intermediate grades, a sentence-composing approach will be used. This approach provides understanding of the structure of good sentences, with activities to learn, practice, and use grammatical tools.
Lower School/Middle School Math
WSD will be using the McGraw-Hill Math Connects curriculum series. This is a vertically aligned curriculum series. It provides an articulated, coherent sequence of content throughout each year of study. It ensures that content standards are introduced, reinforced, and assessed and that instruction is targeted to student needs and national standards.
This curriculum offers a balanced approach of real-world applications, hands-on labs, direct instruction, writing exercises, higher-order thinking, and practice that enables students to develop both conceptual understanding and procedural knowledge. “Back-mapping” is used to work back from the goal of success in Algebra and beyond to the concepts and skills needed at each grade level to accomplish this goal.
In addition to this program, technology use will enhance scaffolding of curriculum, build algorithmic skills, and support individualized instruction. Additional resources will be used to support problem-solving strategies and application.
Lower School/Middle School Science
Science at The Weilenmann School of Discovery will utilize a multi-sensory approach to learning. In order to learn science, one must fully engage in the scientific process. Students will develop an understanding of the nature and methodology of science, understand scientific principle and receive guided instruction in important scientific concepts. Students will perform experiments, use technology and participate in field studies and individual projects.
In order to develop an understanding of the processes and nature of scientific inquiry, students will have the opportunity to...
Students will appreciate the power and limitations of science. They will gain the foundational knowledge of scientific concepts and develop an understanding of real issues in the community.
The Weilenmann School of Discovery will follow the Utah state core curriculum for science; exploring life, earth and physical sciences in each grade.
Lower School/Middle School Art
The overall philosophy behind the art program at WSD is that students will enjoy learning about and creating art if we provide a nurturing and stimulating environment. The main components of this learning involve a) learning to see, b) learning technique, c) learning context (art history) and, d) learning to express one’s self.
It is important to keep in mind that what helps students to best learn art does not always result in pretty things to hang on the wall. There is a lot of trial and error. There are thousands of bad works of art by even the greatest of artists and by doing those bad ones and learning from their mistakes and explorations they came up with masterpieces.
We are surrounded by visual information and it is important to learn to really see, and interpret, that information. The most commonly repeated word in almost any beginning drawing classroom is “look”. We think that we know what something looks like because we have seen it many times, but in order to be able to draw it we must look at it in a different way.
Like musical scales for a musician or running drills and exercises for an athlete, learning technique is necessary for an artist. Practice is usually not anyone’s favorite part, but is necessary when it comes to being able to perform. The best artists in any medium and style understand the basic principles of drawing and those of design and composition. Pioneers in abstract expressionism were excellent representational artists first. Once students have mastered basic techniques, experimentation and innovation are encouraged.
As knowledge of basic art history and contemporary art helps the students to understand the meaning and power of art and help them to see where their own learning and making of art fits in. It also helps students to see how artists have addressed different ideas or situations that they may be interested in themselves.
Students’ personal expression and understanding is the end goal of all of this - students will find and hone their own voice and vision. Students will be led through the creative process from coming up with ideas through creation of the final product.
Lower School/Middle School Music
The goal of the WSD “Music Adventure” is for children to achieve enough knowledge and beautiful tone on the instrument of their choice to foster life-long learning, balance in life, and a positive relationship with earth and all creatures.
In the K-3 grades, children on violins will learn to produce beautiful tone with their bodies and hands. The beauty of the string tone directly links to the beauty of their own voices and develops their connection to the vibrations of thoughts, sounds, light, color and touch. Private lessons may be an after school option.
In grades 4 and 5, music instruction will transition from strings to voice. Choir classes will begin in order to further vocal technique in unison and two-part singing, and in voice-to-voice instruction with accompaniment.
With a “Music Adventure” plan in place at the elementary levels, options for advancement in the Middle School include choral ensembles, a strings orchestra, and a woodwinds/brass band.
Middle School History
The Middle School history curricula at the Weilenmann School is designed to enable students to become historians by “doing history.” Students will explore wide varieties of historical data, evaluate primary and secondary sources, critically assess conflicting interpretations, describe complex societies and events in terms of historical categories, learn to draw and articulate historical conclusions, and make scholarly judgments about ideas and events both past and current. A primary objective of the program is the study of causes and effects: in the first place, that there are reasons that things occur; in the second, that while the reasons may be unknown, many can be discovered; and finally, that these discoveries are worth unveiling and recording.
6th Grade World History Course
In 6th grade student will study World History. This course emphasizes ancient history with a focus on Egypt, the classical period of Greece and Rome, and ancient China. The course will explore the idea of civilization as well as the changes brought about in the Western World during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the revolutions of the modern era. Throughout the course, students will explore current events and study both their connection to the past and their potential impact on the future.
7th Grade Civics and Utah History Course
In 7th grade students will pursue a two-part course that begins with a study of Civics. The first half of this course emphasizes the peoples of the United States, the nature of government, the meaning of citizenship, America’s political heritage, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, federal, state, and local governments, foundations of economics, the American legal system, and American foreign policy.
The second half of this course is an exploration of Utah history in which students will primarily explore the geography, inhabitants, land use, economy, peoples, and government of Utah. Throughout the year, students will explore current events and study both their connection to the past and their potential impact on the future.
8th Grade American History, Part I
In 8th grade students will study the history of the United States from its beginnings through the 19th century. This course emphasizes U.S. geography in conjunction with human geography, European exploration in the Americas, colonization, the American Revolution, the government of the United States, antebellum territorial growth, the Civil War, social rights, and the American West. Throughout this course, students will explore current events and study both their connection to the past and their potential impact on the future.
Technology Integration
The purpose of integrating technology into curriculum at WSD is to develop a model over time that motivates students to explore, experiment, discover, and discuss the concepts presented under each subject. Doing so will allow students to form deeper understandings of these concepts and how they can be extended and adapted to new situations.
Apple MacBooks and/or iPads will be available in a classroom so teachers can create instant workstations for small groups. They can also create remediation and enrichment stations for students.
Lower School Language Arts
K-2 Reading
WSDʼs K-2 reading program is a balanced literacy program. This program is built around a structure of small and flexible grouping. All students will receive instruction in Wilson Fundations, a program that provides teachers with the skills and tools needed to present a structured, sequential, and cumulative phonics/spelling program using multi-sensory teaching techniques. Teachers will use literature materials that support the childʼs independent and instructional reading levels. This model is layered in the younger grades to build and strengthen skills while embracing the love and joy of learning to read. Children will find authentic and valuable purposes for reading. Center activities will also be embedded into the experience to guide students to embrace choice and independence in their learning. Among instructional routines you might expect to find are the following:
- Teacher read-aloud
- Lots of time and encouragement for children to interact with books
- Focused efforts to develop fluency
- Whole-group and small-group skill work
- Instruction focused on developing decoding and comprehension skill strategies
- Instruction and activities to foster vocabulary development
- Content-area literacy (e.g. science, social studies) instruction
In the intermediate grades, the classroom setup will invite student independence in reading and promote inquiry. Instructional routines will parallel those in the primary grades, although the skills and strategies that provide focus for instruction will be more complex and sophisticated, and the texts that students read will be more challenging. Students will engage in a model that is built around the flexibility of choice to develop personal reading interests and, in whole-class instruction, to build skills using designated novels. These novels will incorporate content in history that will allow for cross-curricular connections.
Of course, the classroom library is a critical aspect of the physical environment in all grade levels. Developing a lifelong love and passion for reading is our ultimate goal.
Middle School English
The Middle School English curricula at WSD is designed to cultivate a love of reading, a broad exposure to multiple genres and media, and the active manipulation of words and sentence structure in writing and speech. A primary objective of the program is the fostering of personal, social, and civic literacy by exposing students to a variety of ways to communicate and by requiring students to communicate in a variety of ways including oral language, written language, and by means of media/technology.
The Middle School English curriculum includes the following specific objectives:
- Reading and exploration of literature that challenges students with new perceptions
- Fostering of connections between literature and students’ own lives and the world around them, between features of different pieces of literature, and between themes and ideas
- Study of at least one significant text from each of the major literary genres, including contemporary, technology-based forms
- Introduction to the components of books, plays, short stories, and poetry; an exploration of the relationship between meaning and form
- Familiarity with and use of reading strategies, annotation, journal, digital text, and other tools that enable students to approach and understand unfamiliar texts as they become fluent and critical readers of literature
- Participation in meaningful and significant conversations about the literary texts studied
- Study of vocabulary in order to facilitate students’ control of diction as well as the active incorporation of new words into students’ writing and speech
- Exploration and active use of the rules of grammar, usage, and mechanics in order to facilitate students’ clear and concise communication, their control of sentence formation, and their ability to order and subordinate ideas
- Introduction to literary terms and their use in evaluating, discussing and writing about literature
- Investigation of authors’ background, historical context, and literary context to enhance students’ understanding of the text and its cultural contribution
- Writing expressive, informative, argumentative, critical, and literary pieces that include the interpretation, proposition, and judgment inherent in such writing
Middle School Literary Texts
Students will be assigned reading in such well-known classics as Call of the Wild, The Hobbit, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Shakespearean plays; but students will also read a wide variety of texts in many different media that are generally not assigned in school such as magazines, graphic novels, newspapers, songs, and online texts. While teachers will guide students’ reading, students will also have ample opportunities to read and explore literature of their own choosing, to participate in shared reading with their classmates both in class and digitally, and to publish their own writings in the Middle School web magazine as well as on other online publishing venues.
Lower School/Middle School Writing
Writing is a powerful tool for getting things done. Consider the following:
- Writing lets us communicate with others, allowing us to maintain personal links with family and friends who are removed by both distance and time.
- Writingʼs power also resides in its ability to convey knowledge and ideas.
- Writing makes it possible to gather, preserve, and transmit information widely with great detail and accuracy.
- E.M. Foresterʼs question, “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?” reminds us that writing provides a useful tool for refining and extending our knowledge about a particular topic.
- Writing can also be used as a means for persuading others.
- Writing provides a means for self-expression.
WSD’s writing program is constructed with the understanding of all the purposes writing can serve. To refine and master the skill of writing, students will be trained in the Six Traits Writing Model. This is a program that will be used by all teachers in Grades 1-8. It is a shared writers’ language that helps students write better drafts and revise with confidence. Students will have opportunities to write daily in a variety of forms, and with experiences that build not only the skill, but the enjoyment of writing as well.
Kindergarten students will begin to use their pre-emergent writing skills to develop an understanding of sentence structure by journaling daily, exploring writing at center time, and participating in other language-rich experiences.
Lower School Grammar
During the primary grades, teachers will build the skills necessary for understanding the principles of grammar and sentence structure. In the intermediate grades, a sentence-composing approach will be used. This approach provides understanding of the structure of good sentences, with activities to learn, practice, and use grammatical tools.
Lower School/Middle School Math
WSD will be using the McGraw-Hill Math Connects curriculum series. This is a vertically aligned curriculum series. It provides an articulated, coherent sequence of content throughout each year of study. It ensures that content standards are introduced, reinforced, and assessed and that instruction is targeted to student needs and national standards.
This curriculum offers a balanced approach of real-world applications, hands-on labs, direct instruction, writing exercises, higher-order thinking, and practice that enables students to develop both conceptual understanding and procedural knowledge. “Back-mapping” is used to work back from the goal of success in Algebra and beyond to the concepts and skills needed at each grade level to accomplish this goal.
In addition to this program, technology use will enhance scaffolding of curriculum, build algorithmic skills, and support individualized instruction. Additional resources will be used to support problem-solving strategies and application.
Lower School/Middle School Science
Science at The Weilenmann School of Discovery will utilize a multi-sensory approach to learning. In order to learn science, one must fully engage in the scientific process. Students will develop an understanding of the nature and methodology of science, understand scientific principle and receive guided instruction in important scientific concepts. Students will perform experiments, use technology and participate in field studies and individual projects.
In order to develop an understanding of the processes and nature of scientific inquiry, students will have the opportunity to...
- ask questions
- plan investigations
- use appropriate tools and techniques to gather data
- analyze data and identify relationships
- communicate scientific principles
Students will appreciate the power and limitations of science. They will gain the foundational knowledge of scientific concepts and develop an understanding of real issues in the community.
The Weilenmann School of Discovery will follow the Utah state core curriculum for science; exploring life, earth and physical sciences in each grade.
Lower School/Middle School Art
The overall philosophy behind the art program at WSD is that students will enjoy learning about and creating art if we provide a nurturing and stimulating environment. The main components of this learning involve a) learning to see, b) learning technique, c) learning context (art history) and, d) learning to express one’s self.
It is important to keep in mind that what helps students to best learn art does not always result in pretty things to hang on the wall. There is a lot of trial and error. There are thousands of bad works of art by even the greatest of artists and by doing those bad ones and learning from their mistakes and explorations they came up with masterpieces.
We are surrounded by visual information and it is important to learn to really see, and interpret, that information. The most commonly repeated word in almost any beginning drawing classroom is “look”. We think that we know what something looks like because we have seen it many times, but in order to be able to draw it we must look at it in a different way.
Like musical scales for a musician or running drills and exercises for an athlete, learning technique is necessary for an artist. Practice is usually not anyone’s favorite part, but is necessary when it comes to being able to perform. The best artists in any medium and style understand the basic principles of drawing and those of design and composition. Pioneers in abstract expressionism were excellent representational artists first. Once students have mastered basic techniques, experimentation and innovation are encouraged.
As knowledge of basic art history and contemporary art helps the students to understand the meaning and power of art and help them to see where their own learning and making of art fits in. It also helps students to see how artists have addressed different ideas or situations that they may be interested in themselves.
Students’ personal expression and understanding is the end goal of all of this - students will find and hone their own voice and vision. Students will be led through the creative process from coming up with ideas through creation of the final product.
Lower School/Middle School Music
The goal of the WSD “Music Adventure” is for children to achieve enough knowledge and beautiful tone on the instrument of their choice to foster life-long learning, balance in life, and a positive relationship with earth and all creatures.
In the K-3 grades, children on violins will learn to produce beautiful tone with their bodies and hands. The beauty of the string tone directly links to the beauty of their own voices and develops their connection to the vibrations of thoughts, sounds, light, color and touch. Private lessons may be an after school option.
In grades 4 and 5, music instruction will transition from strings to voice. Choir classes will begin in order to further vocal technique in unison and two-part singing, and in voice-to-voice instruction with accompaniment.
With a “Music Adventure” plan in place at the elementary levels, options for advancement in the Middle School include choral ensembles, a strings orchestra, and a woodwinds/brass band.
Middle School History
The Middle School history curricula at the Weilenmann School is designed to enable students to become historians by “doing history.” Students will explore wide varieties of historical data, evaluate primary and secondary sources, critically assess conflicting interpretations, describe complex societies and events in terms of historical categories, learn to draw and articulate historical conclusions, and make scholarly judgments about ideas and events both past and current. A primary objective of the program is the study of causes and effects: in the first place, that there are reasons that things occur; in the second, that while the reasons may be unknown, many can be discovered; and finally, that these discoveries are worth unveiling and recording.
6th Grade World History Course
In 6th grade student will study World History. This course emphasizes ancient history with a focus on Egypt, the classical period of Greece and Rome, and ancient China. The course will explore the idea of civilization as well as the changes brought about in the Western World during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the revolutions of the modern era. Throughout the course, students will explore current events and study both their connection to the past and their potential impact on the future.
7th Grade Civics and Utah History Course
In 7th grade students will pursue a two-part course that begins with a study of Civics. The first half of this course emphasizes the peoples of the United States, the nature of government, the meaning of citizenship, America’s political heritage, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, federal, state, and local governments, foundations of economics, the American legal system, and American foreign policy.
The second half of this course is an exploration of Utah history in which students will primarily explore the geography, inhabitants, land use, economy, peoples, and government of Utah. Throughout the year, students will explore current events and study both their connection to the past and their potential impact on the future.
8th Grade American History, Part I
In 8th grade students will study the history of the United States from its beginnings through the 19th century. This course emphasizes U.S. geography in conjunction with human geography, European exploration in the Americas, colonization, the American Revolution, the government of the United States, antebellum territorial growth, the Civil War, social rights, and the American West. Throughout this course, students will explore current events and study both their connection to the past and their potential impact on the future.
Technology Integration
The purpose of integrating technology into curriculum at WSD is to develop a model over time that motivates students to explore, experiment, discover, and discuss the concepts presented under each subject. Doing so will allow students to form deeper understandings of these concepts and how they can be extended and adapted to new situations.
Apple MacBooks and/or iPads will be available in a classroom so teachers can create instant workstations for small groups. They can also create remediation and enrichment stations for students.
