Middle School
dynamic and multifaceted middle school curriculum
Throughout middle school, students evolve and grow in many ways, strengthening academic skills, expanding their love of learning, and developing a sense of global citizenship, preparing them to enter the wider world with confidence and enthusiasm.
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The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility; these are the very nerve of education.
Rudolf Steiner
Overview
Subject and main lesson topics call upon the growing child to use their hands, heart, and head to deepen their studies of the natural world and the history of humanity. They are increasingly asked to use their developing observational and critical thinking skills to expand their knowledge and understanding of the world in which we live.
Grade 5 - The Golden Age: Balanced Between Earth and Heaven
Overview
In the fifth grade, we come to a beautiful balance point between early childhood and adulthood. The storms of the nine-year change have passed, and adolescence is still a little way off. The fifth grade child tends to be balanced emotionally and physically, competent and confident. The children are really ready to live on the Earth and to become active participants. This readiness is reflected in the new morning verse, where they have become doers instead of receivers, changing from “The sun with loving light/Makes bright for me each day…” to “I do behold the world, wherein there shines the sun….” The child is ready to explore and love the world.
Lesson Blocks
The children of the fifth grade are crossing the bridge from imaginative thinking to the beginning of historical or time consciousness. Social Studies blocks may include Ancient Mesopotamia, India, Persia, Egypt, China, and Greece. History is an education of the students’ feelings rather than of their memory for facts and figures, requiring inner mobility to enter sympathetically into these ancient states so different from their own.
In Botany, we study the plant families in a way similar to our approach for the animal kingdom in fourth grade, imaginatively comparing the plants to the stages of human development—this gives the children a picture of where they have been, where they are, and where they will be, with more capacities in the future, giving them confidence in their place in the world and their future.
In geometry, we study the geometric forms in relationship to one another, and come to understand the Pythagorean Theorem. In math, work with fractions continues and we begin to work with decimals.
Geography comes as an aspect of study for each of the ancient cultures and is also the focus of blocks on North America, which includes biographies of people such as Harriet Tubman, Sequoyah, and Sacajawea, and John Muir. Geography considers the Earth’s physical features, biomes, and human life in each region, including human uses of natural resources, industry, and produce. Westward expansion and its impact on indigenous people are explored.
Composition, literature, grammar and speech work are woven into the fabric of every block, and the themes of the blocks are reflected in music, painting and modeling.
Handwork, the Arts, Movement, and World Language
Form drawing transforms to freehand geometry. Students continue with their stringed instrument and begin to play the recorder, and singing in harmony in singing is explored. Students perform a class play. In handwork, students learn to knit in the round on four needles and create complex pieces such as a hat and slippers. Students continue their Spanish language development. They engage in movement through Games and continue train for the Greek Pentathlon, where grace, beauty, form, and sportsmanship are celebrated.
Grade 6 - Order, Beauty, and Justice
Overview
Sixth grade students are going through a period of dramatic change as they begin their transformational journey through adolescence. The changes that herald their new physicality are accompanied by new growth in objective reasoning and critical thinking, and they are often interested in creating order and lawful structure. To support this multiplicity of needs, the study of Rome with its dynamism, discipline and order provides a mirror for the child’s inner development. Similarly, the struggles humans have faced in creating increasingly complex social structures are explored through the study of European Middle Ages, South American Inca culture, and Chinese dynastic period. Studying the powerful geological processes of the Earth both sharpens their observations of the outer worlds and mirrors their own inner churning; this is balanced against the lawfulness and order of the heavens through study of astronomy. In Geometry, students create precise and beautiful geometric drawings, infusing the ordered forms with life and color. The phenomenological approach to Physics fosters critical thinking and reasoning as students utilize their own observations to draw conclusions, make judgements, and develop concepts as they explore acoustics, heat, static electricity and optics. The dynamics of light, dark, and color are further explored through painting and charcoal drawing. Language arts focuses on the rules and laws of grammar, while math focuses on business math and percentages.
Lesson Blocks
Lesson blocks for sixth grade include Rise and Fall of Rome, Ancient China, the Middle Ages and the Islamic Empire, South American Cultures and Geography, Business Math, Geometry, Geology, Astronomy, and Physics.
The Arts, Handwork, Movement, and World Language
Students engage artistically in painting and modeling, and charcoal drawing is introduced as part of the study of dark and light. Students continue their music study by playing a stringed instrument or taking a music exploration class and continue with recorder and choral singing. Every student participates in the class play. In handwork, students sew a complex sculptural piece requiring thoughtful design and planning. In woodworking, they create spoons, experiencing the challenge of creating a convex/concave surface. Students continue with Spanish. They engage in movement through Games and are invited to join the various sports teams offered throughout the year.
Special Events and Class Trips
Students engage in the Knighting Project throughout the year, exploring questions of right and wrong, identity, and purpose, and the year culminates in the Knighting Ceremony. The ceremony marks their transition from a squire-in-training to a modern-day knight who strives to act with purpose and compassion. Students also attend an interscholastic event, the Medieval Games.
Grade 7 - Explorations of Self and World
Overview
Seventh Grade marks the birth of the intellect with the need to experiment and explore the world. The blossoming student needs to question authority, pushing the boundaries of what is known or allowed. Their powers of reasoning are developing and they are forming judgments about the world. The capacity to stand back from their own feelings is developing and with this distance comes perspective and the beginnings of objectivity.
Simultaneously, students begin their own personal journey of exploration. They long to venture beyond their known world and discover their own truths. In doing so, they experience a personal renaissance, and the study of the Renaissance provides a backdrop for much of the seventh grade year, offering lessons in history, science, mathematics, geography, literature, and art. The Renaissance artist wished to be recognized for his own work, the scientist challenged old truths with newly developed tools for measuring the world, the religious rebel rejected the dictates of authority and wished to know God directly. Likewise, the adolescent is driven by the need for recognition, self-discovered truth, and independent exploration. Meeting the adolescent’s need for critical judgment, we are more exacting, focusing on precise measurement in math, science, and art. We are hands-on whenever possible, grounding concepts in the real world.
Lesson Blocks
Lesson blocks for seventh grade include Explorations from the age of the ancient Polynesians through the time of the Renaissance, the Renaissance itself, Perspective Drawing, South American or African Geography, Creative Writing, Algebra, Geometry, Physiology, Chemistry, and Physics.
The Arts, Handwork, Movement, and World Language
Students engage artistically in painting and modeling and perform a class play. Students continue their music study by playing a stringed instrument or taking a music exploration class and continue with recorder and choral singing. Handwork projects include making puppets to use in performance of a puppet show, and in woodworking, students make a useful object such as a tortilla press. Students engage in movement through Games and sports and continue Spanish.
Grade 8 - Revolution!
Overview
Eighth grade marks the final moments of childhood and the beginning of young adulthood as students prepare for high school. With their developing critical thinking skills and desire for to act independently in the world, they are ready to learn about historical and present-day injustices and take up the battle cry for truth and justice. They analyze the actions, struggles, and contradictions of U.S. History, viewing its complex story from multiple perspectives. This readiness to explore the whys of things extends to the study of organic chemistry and physics. By studying anatomy and three-dimensional geometry, students learn about the biological marvels of bone and muscle and the structures that support our physical world. As they complete their journey through middle school, they leave with a love for truth, beauty, and goodness and the tools to continue to strive to make these an increasing reality in the world.
Lesson Blocks
Lesson blocks for eighth grade include Revolutions, U.S. History, Economic Geography, Geometry: Platonic Solids, Meteorology, Anatomy, and Physics.
The Arts, Handwork, Movement, and World Language
Students engage artistically in painting and modeling and perform a class play. Students continue their music study by playing a stringed instrument or taking a music exploration class and continue with recorder and choral singing. In handwork, they learn to use sewing machines, while in woodworking, they create a piece of furniture, such as a 3-legged stool. Students engage in movement through Games and sports and continue Spanish.
Special Events and Class Trips
Eighth grade students engage in a self-selected, months-long research project in collaboration with a mentor that is presented to the school community and may choose to present a solo piece at the Spring Concert. The year culminates in the class trip, which serves as a rite of passage, provides an opportunity for service learning, and offers the students a deep experience in the development of trust, friendship, independence, gratitude, and reverence for the self, the other, and the Earth, providing them with a sense of closure for this part of their life and readying them to face the new challenges the future will bring.
Fine Arts
In middle school, the art curriculum spans many mediums and techniques, and the teacher balances lessons with freedom and form throughout the grades. Teachers choose the artistic curriculum carefully, and incorporate developmentally appropriate and meaningful activities for their specific group of students. Watercolor, colored pencil, ink, charcoal, and pastel are worked with regularly. As well, clay modeling, figure drawing, calligraphy, perspective drawing, portraiture, and color studies are explored, and teachers work to cultivate a sense of personal style and confidence within their students. Drama and music are continuously incorporated into the school year, and poetry, speech, and public speaking skills are developed through the middle school grades.