WCS Program Overview
The following is a grade-by-grade overview of the amazing WCS program that will be starting this fall:
Kindergarten
Welcome to our kindergarten community! We are very excited about embarking on our first year of WCS with you and your family. We would like to share a few highlights from our kindergarten curriculum with you.
Kindergarten at WCS will be a unique experience for your child because it will be mainly situated in the outdoor classroom. We are in the process of developing and establishing an outdoor learning space in the Roden playground. We will spend three days a week in the playground, and some of this time will be spent inside listening to stories, participating in circle times, languages and math activities, music and gym.
In our outdoor classroom, we will set up centres where the children can learn, discover, explore, and engage in imaginative play. Two days a week, we will take the kindergarten children off site, to local natural, environments. We will need parent volunteers for these days.
The offsite kindergarten days will be filled with exploration of nature, guided nature hikes, and age appropriate environmental project learning about their natural world. These experiences will deepen their understanding and connection to the outdoor world.
Sandee and I are very excited about developing and implementing this new innovative concept of an outdoor kindergarten in Ontario. We are aware that this framework will present challenges and we will need to be flexible as it is an emerging concept. We look forward to your positive participation as we build this new program.
Other aspects of the program are crafts, cooking, music circles and oral story telling about the natural world around them and folk and fairy tales. Sandee will be leading the children in yoga exploration using the imagination and stories to learn about yoga postures, meditation and breathing. Not only will the children learn that yoga connects mind and body, but that it is a connection between themselves and their environment and the principles of interdependence will become apparent.
Deborah will be teaching the children French through drama, songs, movement and poetry.
Math concepts will be embedded in activities that include natural materials and manipulatives that teachers and students will choose to interact with. Through exploration, play, problem solving, and literature children will learn to sort, count, pattern, measure, compare, predict and communicate their knowledge and understanding of mathematical concepts. Children will have many opportunities to develop and solidify their learning through the repetition of play-based activities.
Grade One
Welcome to our grade one community! We are very excited about embarking on our first year of WCS with you and your family. We would like to share a few highlights from our grade one curriculum with you.
Grade one at WCS is filled with stories and imaginative characters. Folk and fairy tales from around the world engage the students in learning imagining, and discovering their world. Through these stories, our children learn to read, write, sing, draw and play. In grade one, we honour and nurture the magic and wonder of early childhood,
Through storytelling, the children will learn about Perry Plus, who loves to gather more and more things, Matthew Minus who always looses everything, Max Multiplier who skips and counts to get places quickly, and Dominique Divide who likes to lead as well as share his earthly goods. The children will become closely connected to these characters as they learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide.
In language arts, it is the characters from folk and fairy tales that animate and bring to life the consonants, consonant blends, and word families for the children. The Golden Goose for example, becomes the letter ‘g’, as they playfully re-enact and retell the story. The children will learn their basic reading and writing skills, as we will follow the Ontario Curriculum guidelines.
It is in the outdoor classroom imaginative stories about nature help connect the children to the natural world around them. The science strands for grade one are the following: the needs and characteristics of living things; daily and seasonal changes; energy in our lives. These science strands will be taught in the outdoor classroom.
Some elements of math will also be explored in the outdoor classroom, such as data management and probability. For example, the children will be given opportunities to count and document different species of butterflies or trees. Patterning and algebra will also be taught outside by looking at patterns of animals and trees, and in the urban environment.
Grade one is a special time for building community and the grade one children will find themselves as part of a larger school-wide community as the older children mentor and guide them in their social relationships. In our classroom the children will explore and discover how to build a harmonious classroom community with their teacher and peers.
In the spring term, the class will prepare and perform a play based on a fairy tale called “The Magic Horse.”
Grade Two
Welcome to our grade two community! We are very excited about embarking on our first year of WCS with you and your family. We would like to share a few highlights from our grade two curriculum with you.
Much of our curriculum follows a transdisciplinary approach. Broad themes integrate subjects and provide a framework for learning, exploration, inquiry and discovery. Some of the themes for grade two are the following: Studies of different communities around the world through integrative units which will immerse us in a particular culture for a time, a review and ongoing development of language and math skills through imaginative stories and play, the study of air and water and their properties through experiential learning, art and outdoor experimentation, and the study of animals and their habitats through nature walks and field trips.
In the First Term, we will ground ourselves by exploring our local urban community. We will be going on many community walks to understand better where we live, and the diverse cultures around us. We will start with exploring our own backgrounds and ancestry (through collecting stories from the elders in our lives), after which we will begin to understand more about the First Peoples of this land, and from there, the many other peoples that came to this country. Each Language Arts unit will have a central cultural theme through which we may immerse ourselves, through storytelling—the telling of a biography of a sage from that culture, (for example, Mirabai, a 16th century East Indian poet), and also through the music, art, and trickster tales from that culture (in this case, tales of Krishna).
Our Math work will also tie into our cultural themes, such as patterning and geometry through the fabrics we find or make, or measurement through the cooking and baking we will do. During the first term, with the changing of the seasons, and the migration of some birds and animals, we will begin our exploration of the Life Sciences and through our studies, foster a respect and appreciation for the world of the animals.
In the winter term, we will be spending time outside exploring the nature of water in all its forms, through play, experimentation and structure-building using snow and ice. We will also have a chance to buddy up with the grade 4s to work on building some simple machines.
In the spring term, our focus shifts to working on our year-end play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare. We will explore the rich language of Shakespeare, and in turn be inspired to play with words, write letters, and create our own poetry. We will immerse ourselves in the world of the fairies, and we will plant a butterfly garden to see what magic will come our way! Grade 2 is a magical time, so what better way to finish our year than through wonder and enchantment!
Grade Three
Welcome to our grade three community! We are very excited about embarking on our first year of WCS with you and your family. We would like to share a few highlights from our grade three curriculum with you.
Much of our curriculum follows a transdisciplinary approach. Broad themes integrate subjects and provide a framework for learning, exploration, inquiry and discovery. Some of the themes for grade three are the following: plants and soils; creation stories from around the world; Aboriginal stories and belief systems; early settlers in Ontario; urban and rural communities.
In the First Term, we will ground ourselves by exploring our local urban community. We will be going on many community walks to gather information to create a personal map of our community and a gain a deeper understanding of the structure of an urban community. Also we begin to learn about the values and insights of the First Nations groups of Ontario, the Anishanabe and Wendat. Through storytelling we well begin to understand about their connections with the Earth.
Through the study of plants and soils the grade three students will explore composting and vermiculture as well as planting and growing plants. Our major project for our first term will be researching greenhouses with the classroom goal to propose and build a greenhouse. We will research possible stable structures and write a proposal for funding to build it. Our field trips related to this theme include are Allen Gardens and the Toronto Botanical Gardens. At the end of the year the students will open a garden market and sell the plants that they have grown.
In the winter term, we will study when the pioneers came to Canada, and their interactions with the Aboriginal communities. We will be spending a lot of time outside, imagining what is was like for the early settlers and engaging in hands-on activities like spinning wool, knitting a hat, making paper, making candles. We will also be visiting the Pickering Pioneer Museum, and participating in a Pow Wow at the Skydome.
In the spring term, our focus shifts to learning about rural environments in Ontario, and farming techniques. We will move into our greenhouse to grow plants, that will eventually be planted in our school community garden in late May. We will learn from farming and gardening practices of aboriginal communities and early settlers, as well as local organic farmers and farms in the community. This term will hopefully end with a three-day overnight trip to the Wye Marsh (an environmental educational centre), and visits to an organic farm near Midland. We will also visit some historical sights near Midland.
In the spring term, the class will prepare and perform a play from based on an Ojibwa story.
Grades Four and Five
Welcome to our grade four/five class! We are very excited about embarking on our first year of WCS with you and your family. We would like to share a few highlights from our curriculum with you.
Much of our program follows a transdisciplinary approach. Broad themes integrate subjects and provide a framework for learning, exploration, inquiry and discovery. The following are theme units which will integrate language, math, the arts and media, with science and environmental studies, and social studies. Connected as well are the various subject strands from grades four and five.
Foundations & Journeys
In the first few weeks of school the class will spend time learning and sharing their life and learning experiences. Questions such as who are we, where are we, and how did we get here will be explored. Foundations in math will be strengthened as well, involving the exploration of numbers and a review of the four processes. Community building is a focus, as well as an investigation of the aspects of citizenship. Leadership development will follow throughout the year, as students become peer leaders within our school community and beyond as environmental stewards.
Habitats, Communities and the Ground we walk on
We will walk and explore the local area, gathering information about our habitat and community. As well, the children will explore the rocks and minerals in the area. Students will engage in rock, plant and animal audits to gain insight and understanding of other species we live with, as well as human impact on the area. Within this focus, grade 5 students will study the government structures which serve to protect these habitats and communities, and consider the related rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizens. Students may pursue research where they become curious and concerned, while data management, artwork and writing will support and deepen these learning experiences. A comparative journey through of the habitats across Canada will happen through story telling, including the classic “Paddle to the Sea”, as well as Canadian artwork, culture and resource projects and mapping. The grade five students will create an immigration biography project, documenting an immigrant’s journey to Canada.
We will journey as a class to various habitats, such as the Rouge Watershed, planting trees and wildflowers, and studying salmon migration. Our class will be partnering with the grade 2 class, planting a butterfly garden, focusing on the plight of the honeybee. In the spring, students will study frequency and probability in these natural environments.
Early & Medieval Culture and Science
Students will embark on a cross-cultural investigation of various early and Medieval cultures and history through myths and legends, with a focus on social justice in these times. Woven throughout will be studies of structures, as well as geometry and fractions. Medieval math and science will be explored through Fibonnaci’s Sacred Geometry and Leonardo da Vinci’s innovations, including pullies and gears. We will bring the class to life as a Medieval marketplace, and work with student designed money, culminating with a feast. We will focus also on East Indian cultures, making connections with the resources in the local area of Little India. Our group will study the celebration of Divali.
The remainder of the term will include hands-on investigations of fractions and decimals. Also, we will immerse ourselves in Norse mythology and writing our own legends. The science of light and sound will be studied with Scientists in the School and hands-on experiments and an Eco School project raising awareness of the use of natural and artificial light in the school. Students will compliment their sound studies with musical anthropology and building fractional instruments. The culminating project for the term will focus on Winter Solstice, including making rose windows, and lantern making in preparation for the Festival of Lights.
Human Organ Systems
In term two, students will study the human organ systems, healthy living and measurement. Projects will include 3D modeling, measuring the body and organs, dynamic cooking, and procedural writing, with a focus on grammar and the parts of speech. We will have a visit from the Canadian Peregrine Association and investigate the human impact on the falcon’s reproduction, and the rehabilitation efforts within habitats in downtown Toronto.
Early Mediterranean Cultures
We will dedicate a unit to the ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian cultures. Students will explore these times and places through short plays, mythology and storytelling, and projects on the various aspects of culture, including structures. Students will explore 3D geometry and angles in their building and planning, as well as time measurement. To balance this, we will spend time outside with snow and ice, measuring capacity, area and perimeter, learning about changes in matter, Canadian structures designed for our climate and natural phenomena, and making eco-art.
Conservation of Energy
This is amazing unit of study, as the possibilities are endless. We will look for opportunities to explore various renewable resources, including visiting sustainable homes that put power back into the grid, learning the ins and outs of solar energy collection, and how to make an impact in our own community. We will compliment this with an investigation into the Ancient Incan and Mayan cultures, and their technologies and artwork.
Novels & Plays
Students will have opportunities to deepen their experience of reading novels throughout the year with independent novel study projects. We will read several novels together in class as well, researching social and historical contexts, and exploring characters and themes through the arts. Our final focus for the year will be African myths, culminating in the play “Sundiata”, an African play adapted for children.
