Curriculum
Early Childhood:
The Power of Play and Gift of Simplicity. Gathering Waters Chartered Public School creates a warm, safe and nurturing environment for our Kindergarten students to thrive. Through purposeful work, rich movement opportunities, storytelling and song, our program supports the development of creative thinking and the awareness of self and others. While our students explore the world around them in deep curiosity, they develop key motor and cognitive skills that will support their growth into elementary school and beyond.
Grade School:
In the elementary school years a student’s developmental needs are supported through structured, socially cooperative and active work. In the years between 7 and 14 a student's imagination and feeling life serve as the foundation for new intellectual capacity. The academic subjects, language arts, math, science, social studies, languages, music, games, arts, movement, practical arts, land stewardship, handwork and drama are presented with imagination and engage the whole human being. An interdisciplinary approach helps develop a love of learning and opportunity for each individual student to thrive.
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First Grade is a new beginning.
A Gathering Waters first grade child is learning how to learn. They learn cooperatively from each other, from the world around them, and from a teacher that bridges the early childhood experience to the elementary school.
The first grade curriculum carefully supports that transition as the child experiences content introduced from the whole to the parts. Abstract concepts come through stories and pictures as the children learn their letters, early literacy, numbers and mathematical operations.
The natural world is ever present through seasonal nature stories and daily explorations of Robin Hood Park.
The first grader meets their special subjects for the first time, including, handwork, Spanish, Eurythmy, beeswax modeling, painting and music.
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The Second Grade curriculum is a balance of two polarities.
The children remain deeply engaged in a rich world of imagination. At the same time, they are beginning to be more consciously aware of themselves and others.
At Gathering Waters, we meet that polarity with the duality of story content through fables and legends. Students strengthen their capacities in literacy and mathematics, their understanding of the natural world and the increasing importance of cooperation and collaboration.
At Gathering Waters, the looping of a Class Teacher begins in second grade. This multi-year relationship with a single Class Teacher helps to develop deep social and trusting relationships with the adults at school. The foundations of a social education are firmly planted.
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The third grade child begins to have a sense of the separation between themself and the world around them.
To support that growing sense of separation, we offer a program of practical skills such as gardening, house building, weaving, and cooking.
Mathematics continues with practical skills such as measurement, time and money. There is much “doing” in the third grade.
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The fourth grade student is eager to learn, more independent, and developing a strong sense of confidence. They have transitioned fully from “early childhood” and are ready to build on the skills learned in the first three years of their grades journey.
Students hear stories of mythologies that are reflective of their own energy and exuberance.
They study zoology in life sciences, local history and geography of New Hampshire, grammar and vocabulary in language arts, and fractions in mathematics.
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We often call fifth grade “The Golden Year”.
The students stand balanced between their younger early childhood years and the approaching adolescence.
They study the mythologies and histories of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt and Greece.
Science study continues with botany and geography continues with the United States.
Math study progresses to decimals and the students continue with more independent writing and reading in language arts.
The pinnacle of the fifth grade year and the Lower School journey is the Greek Pentathlon. Students study, experience, and compete in the five events of the ancient Greek Pentathlon.
Middle School:
Middle school students are ready to engage with the school experience in a new way. They will explore the world around them and begin to discover who they are as individuals. At Gathering Waters we believe that every student is a mathematician, an artist, a scientist and a poet. Our students are athletes, actors, and musicians, and thus, every student finds an opportunity to be successful. When students complete their elementary school journey they have completed a rigorous academic program, they have developed into critical thinkers, and they are ready for the challenges of high school and beyond.
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The sixth grade student transitions physically to our Upper School campus, joining our middle and high school.
Their own physical development of puberty and adolescence is now accompanied by the new capacities of thinking. Sixth grade students experience a curriculum that focuses on cause and effect.
In the sciences, the students dive deeply into geology, physics and astronomy. Geography continues with the study of cultures in South America, while history focuses on the rise and fall of ancient Rome.
In mathematics, students are introduced to percentages, and use that skill to explore business math.
This beginning of middle school is represented with connecting learning to a deepening consciousness.
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The seventh grade student is longing to reach out into the world with increasingly challenging and rigorous experiences. New physical, emotional and intellectual growth propels them towards these new experiences.
The history curriculum meets them with a study of the Age of Exploration, while in language arts they explore poetry as a creative writing experience of self-expression.
In mathematics, the students encounter abstract thinking with the study of Algebra (they are introduced to Al-Jabr: the Arabic roots of modern Algebra).
The Age of Exploration extends to the sky and stars with a study of Astronomy. Physiology, Physics and Chemistry complete the science curriculum.
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Eighth grade is a completion of the grades school journey and is a vibrant culmination of the childhood years.
The humanities curriculum is marked by Revolutions, perfectly meeting the inner experience of early adolescence. The American and Industrial Revolutions proceed to the study of the American Civil War and finally to the modern revolutions of our contemporary world.
Mathematics includes Platonic solids and Euclidean geometry, while the studies of Algebra continue.
In the sciences, students explore Physics, Human Anatomy and sexual health, Organic Chemistry and Meteorology.
Students also enjoy the experiences of high school teachers leading several morning lessons in their area of expertise.
High School:
A Gathering Waters High School education develops the capacities for academic excellence, social responsibility and student initiative purpose and direction. Four key questions guide our students’ educational explorations: What? How? Why? and Who? Our students are ready to meet abstract concepts through heightened intellectual capacities and curiosity. While reaching out into the world through service to the community and stewardship of the land, they develop a moral compass that will guide them to be impactful global citizens.
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The Leading Question is “What?”
The ninth grade year is guided by the interwoven polarities in the curriculum. Academic and artistic lessons lead with a gesture of the tensions between opposites.
In the humanities we begin the theme of polarities in Comedy & Tragedy, American History and History through Art.
Geometry and Algebra form the basis of mathematical exploration, while the sciences include Organic Plant Chemistry, Physics and Geology.
The ninth grade art curriculum focuses on polarities with the themes of black & white drawing, painting, spinning and weaving.
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The Leading Question is “How?”
The tenth grade student is seeking the experience of balance. While ninth grade is represented by the either/or of polarities, the sophomore explores the nuances of issues from multiple viewpoints.
How our languages are formed is explored in the History through Language block. The foundations of government are explored through Ancient History and Civics.
The foundations of mathematics are developed through the skill of graphing– which is the intersection of Algebra and Geometry.
Through careful observation the tenth grade student explores how the natural world is ordered in Biology, Anatomy, Inorganic Chemistry and Kinematics.
In the arts the expressions of balance are introduced with Goethean color study and sculpture.
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The Leading Question is “Why?”
The eleventh grade student begins to search their own individual and independent paths. It is a time of the existential question of “Why?”
In the humanities the archetype of the “Hero’s Quest” is strongly relevant. Shakespeare, the Age of Reason, and the Romantics, as well as History through Music, support the students to answer their own individual expectations of idealism.
In mathematics we explore the existential question of infinity through Projective Geometry and continue with Algebra II and Trigonometry.
In the sciences, the students again reach towards the infinite by studying astronomy and the chemistry of the elements. Embryology & Genetics, and Electricity & Magnetism require students to explore the imperceptible and they develop flexibility of imagination and thinking.
In the arts, the students work in oils—analyzing still life and landscapes. Book binding and woodworking call forth careful planning, precision and design skills.
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The Leading Question is “Who?”
The twelfth grade as a capstone year is guided by the theme of synthesis.
The journey through Gathering Waters culminates with a deeper understanding of the whole. Now the senior will contemplate the questions, “Who am I?” and “Who do I want to be?”
Comparative and analytical thinking support the students to find their place in the complex contemporary world.
In the humanities, students study Transcendentalism, World History, History through Architecture, and Economics.
In mathematics, students will study Calculus and Practical Finance & Math.
In the sciences, the students explore Zoology, Biochemistry and Modern Physics.
In the arts, the theme of “Who” is explored through portrait painting and the final senior play.
Time will be spent on college guidance counseling, SAT preparations, the Senior Capstone Project, and the Senior Service Trip.