Once upon a time, elementary education was like being on a tour bus. You watched as subjects passed by and you tried to remember what you saw.
Times have changed, though—nowhere more than at SSSAS, where the Lower School experience is interactive, interdisciplinary, and invigorating. Children are agents of their own learning, making choices, asking questions, exploring deeply, and reflecting on their experiences.
A Dynamic Education
Curricula in each subject, like Singapore Math and Reading and Writing Workshop, are carefully chosen to engage students and maximize essential skill development. But learning, like life, doesn’t always fit neatly into boxes, so lessons routinely cross disciplinary boundaries to provide the real-world context that makes learning meaningful.
Faculty members differentiate instruction through a variety of materials and strategies. It’s all part of optimizing students’ intellectual, social, emotional, physical, artistic, and spiritual development.
"There are so many opportunities for kids to explore their interests, especially at this age and they do that through all of the Specials classes—music, art, PE, science, Spanish, and religion—where they have the opportunity to ask questions in a safe and caring environment."
Saints Parent '23, '26, '33
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Prepared to learn happily ever after
Lower schoolers take off-campus trips and work together, with projects ranging from an archaeological dig to the Rolling Rhombus. On the latter, a retrofitted bus that brings third–fifth graders to local preschools, students are not tourists but active participants, playing math games, practicing Spanish, and getting to know their community firsthand.
Each season brings a new crop of enrichment clubs to sign up for. Led by teachers, they run an hour a week for seven weeks. Kindergarteners can build their own rockets and invite their parents to the launch. Older students may learn about science or cooking (or about science by cooking).
Leadership options like safety patrol and the Student Lunch Committee (yes, we give students voice and choice by discussing their food preferences with us) add to the many ways lower schoolers are enriched at SSSAS.
The Arcade
After reading the book Crenshaw—about a family falling on hard times—fourth graders work with a local partner focused on food insecurity. They use design thinking and their knowledge of simple machines to create games for an arcade, which they open to the school community. Cans of food serve as entry tickets.
The whole experience is a lot of fun and a lot of learning—about literature, science, and civics. Like so much in Lower School, it’s an experience greater than the sum of its parts.
