Curriculum

Creating a challenging curriculum is no easy task.  Providing a program that allows every student the opportunity to achieve and grow, as an individual is a work of art.  We are proud to state that this is what we have accomplished at Brighton Schools in our elementary education program.   If a curriculum is challenging in a way that it only affords success to a few students, then the curriculum is not meeting the needs of the students as individuals.  That is our difference.  We challenge each individual so that every student is learning and growing at a rigorous pace, while maintaining their self esteem.  We have a strong, academic core curriculum, a dynamic physical education program and an extensive art and music curriculum.  We not only meet, but also exceed the California State Standards for Education at every grade level.  We believe in our curriculum and know that we are giving your child the very best start in their educational career.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Reading and writing are the most fundamental academic skills students will experience in school. We are proud to offer a multi dimensional approach to teaching language arts. We employ the Houghton-Mifflin Reading California program, The McGraw-Hill Wright Group program, The Story Box Little Readers, monthly songs and poems, spelling lists, individualized phonics activities and shared, guided and independent reading and writing practices.  Our language arts curriculum focuses on a balanced literacy approach.  Listening, speaking, reading and writing activities are integrated throughout all areas of our curriculum.   We also realize that not all English words can be deciphered phonetically.  Coupled with higher California State Standards, our students will learn sight words and high frequency words. These are words which appear most frequently in grade level books.  We believe that using a multi faceted approach to language arts encourages each individual student to discover and apply the curriculum method that affords them the greatest success.

MATHEMATICS

We utilize two diverse programs to help our students learn mathematical skills; the Houghton-Mifflin Mathematics program and AIMS (Activities Integrating Math and Science).  These programs give our students a wide variety of mathematical skills through fun, meaningful, hands on learning experiments and experiences.  We are able to continually challenge the students while they work on experiencing, learning and mastering a range of mathematical skills.  As in all areas of the curriculum, we take advantage of any daily experiences that lend themselves to learning.

SCIENCE

We know that children learn best through meaningful, hands on experiences.  That is why we have chosen the Houghton-Mifflin and AIMS programs for our science curriculum.  These programs provide challenging and fun experiments that allow the students to hypothesize, experiment and make conclusions based on prior knowledge and the results of experiments.  The AIMS program promotes cooperative learning and allows the students to use higher level reasoning skills.  We also incorporate science into the curriculum through daily experiences and our numerous field trips.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We have developed a comprehensive social studies curriculum using the California State Standards, the Houghton-Mifflin program and the MegaSkills Character Building Program.  Health, safety, citizenship, character, self-esteem and multi cultural awareness are a few of the topics we will be covering over the course of the school year.  We integrate social studies into our curriculum through literature, holidays, music, poetry, art, field trips and guest speakers.

COMPUTERS AND TECHNOLOGY

Computer skills have become vital to a student’s success in school and in life. State of the art Dell computers are hosted in each Private Elementary classroom.  We are proud to offer Earobics Software produced by Cognitive Concepts. It was developed hand in hand with Houghton–Mifflin California Reading Program.  This software provides vital support and practice of language art skills. We also have a variety of educational software on our computers that will not only assist the students in developing computer skills, but will also enhance all areas of our curriculum.

FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Young children can become multi lingual in a way that older children and adults rarely can.  If you or a family member speaks another language, give your child a gift and speak to them in that language.  You’ll never believe how quickly they’ll pick it up!

AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE

American Sign Language is presented to the students as a tool to help them understand their own alphabet better as well as receiving the benefit of another language.  American Sign Language is a wonderful way to assist the students in learning their alphabet and spelling words.  It gives the students a visual and kinesthetic cue to help learn this new information.  The teachers also use American Sign Language in their classroom management techniques.

SPANISH

Spanish is a part of everyday living in California.  Students are enriched by exposure and mastery of a second language.  Brighton Schools is proud to partner with Sombrero Time to provide our students with a high quality, Spanish Immersion Program.  Four days a week, 30 minutes a day, Brighton Schools students will be engaged in the Spanish language 100%.  Sombrero Time’s trained, native speaking teachers deliver a conversation based Spanish curriculum which builds in skills and strategies year over year.

HANDWRITING

Our students will be exposed to many different types of print in our classroom.  The print we teach is D’Nealian.  This style of print has become popular because it is believed to ease the transition to cursive writing.

ART

Our art curriculum will allow our students to experience and create art from the works of Michelangelo to Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock to Vincent Van Gogh.  We are proud to offer an art program that will cover different types of painting, drawing, technique, sculpture, cultural art, photography and print making.  We will have our own art gallery and events where our masterpieces will be on display.

MUSIC/ PERFORMING ARTS

We are excited to offer an inclusive music curriculum from the Silver-Burdett program.  Students will experience, and learn to differentiate between a wide variety of music genres and artists from classical to contemporary.  We will learn music terminology, different instruments in an orchestra and learn to differentiate between these instruments.  Students will begin learning how to read sheet music and draw musical notes.  Students will apply these skills to many various performances slated throughout the year.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Movement and exercise are very important to daily life and many children do not get enough of it.  Physical education is an integral part of our curriculum.  P.E. aids in the development of gross and fine motor skills, encourages teamwork and active participation. It gives students higher comfort levels in group activities and builds self-esteem.  We abide by the California State Standards for physical education and aim to exceed them.  Kindergarteners will participate in My Gym weekly while students in theother primary grades will have a P.E. program that implements relays, group games, jumping rope, dance, sports, running, calisthenics and other physical activities.