Upper School | Specials
		The Lower School The first years in school are important for establishing independent work habits and for developing social skills. The Lower School at City & Country provides a firm grounding in the skills needed for life-long learning and participation in a larger community. Even the youngest children have jobs within the groupñfrom pouring one's own juice to eventually being responsible for filling out and mailing the attendance card for the entire group. As young children receive support and encouragement from new adults, their active participation and work with carefully chosen materials such as blocks, paint, clay, wood and water encourage children to ask questions and find answers about their world, each other and themselves. As a result, children find satisfaction and excitement in learning and all that it has to offer. Children are read to daily beginning in the IIs. Both factual and fictional material are available for individual research and reading. Long before children are able to decode the complex symbols that make up words, they develop an appreciation for books and an enjoyment of literature. As children learn to express themselves, they desire to go beyond the spoken word. This often begins with giving simple dictations which leads to independent writing. Children's writing supports and encourages their independent reading and provides the basis for instruction in specific skills. Our approach is eclectic and individualized—some children benefit from Whole Language instruction, while others, systematic phonetic or decoding instruction. City & Country teachers provide each child with the appropriate challenges to nurture confident and competent readers. The School's goal is for all children to become independent readers who read for pleasure. By the VIIs, each child spends one-half hour each day in the library. The core of the math program is the belief that real experiences lead to solid mathematical understanding. IIs begin while pouring at the water table and while exploring the relationships among the blocks with which they are building. These early inquiries continue as children are encouraged to question the mathematical world through the use of age-appropriate activities and materials. Practical application of mathematical concepts is necessary to move from concrete experiences to abstract understanding of mathematics. Although children learn specific algorithms beginning in the VIs, knowing how to find an answer continues to remain the focus of the mathematical program in the Lower School. Blocks are integral to the Lower School curriculum. Block building goes beyond developing mathematical, spatial and aesthetic capacities; it frames the context for our social studies program. Block building reflects and supports children's growing understanding of the world in which they live and provides them with a concrete manner in which to expressthis understanding. As children begin to work collaboratively to design block buildings, they learn to articulate and solve problems, negotiate and cooperate. Social studies in the context of block work occurs on two levels: learning about and making sense of one's world and providing a context for social experiences with peers. Class trips are an essential component of the block program. They provide firsthand research experiences for group discussion. The youngest children visit sites within the School. By the IVs, groups travel out into the neighborhood, and by the VIIs, they travel throughout the city. Paint, clay and woodworking (IIs—VIIs) are widely available and the children are encouraged to experiment and create with these materials. Although the children are not directed to make specific products, skills increase dramatically as the children become older. By the VIs, the children have integrated many of their woodworking skills with their work in blocks, and their painting includes group murals, often inspired by a group trip. VIs and VIIs work in the shop with a specialist in addition to woodworking in their rooms. In the VIIs, children also work with a specialist in the art room and fire and glaze their clay work in the kiln.
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