Lower School 8s-10s
In the 8s-10s classrooms, students build upon the strong foundation developed in the younger grades as they begin to consider more distant places and times, and more abstract concepts. While they are well-versed in the routines of being in school, ongoing community-building and social-emotional work expands older students’ skills with social relationships and conflict resolution, along with their shared sense of responsibility as members of a classroom and school community. 8s-10s Social Studies work brings students in contact with the diversity of human experience, gaining a wider perspective and contending with issues of social justice both historic and current. Curricular studies increase as students visit the Science Lab for twice-weekly sessions with a science teacher, and 9s and 10s participate in Health & Wellness class.
The use of computing technology becomes a part of students' academic studies as they are introduced to school laptops, keyboarding and document and digital presentation skills, and online literacy practices. True homework begins, with 2-3 assignments a week beginning in the 8s and increasing in frequency through the 10s. Students continued to have daily opportunities for self-initiated work during Open Work, sometimes in connection with shared curricular studies but also in pursuit of outside interests and skills.
8s - 10s Curriculum
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Daily opportunities for students to exercise choice, take ownership over their work, and develop skills in problem-solving and self-reflection that contribute to their work across the curriculum.
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Students broaden their understanding of their place geographically and historically, and further develop their ability to ask questions and make connections between their experiences and those of others now and throughout history.
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Students experience reading and writing across many contexts and genres, enjoying literature independently and socially, conducting research, reading and interpreting primary sources, writing and speaking persuasively, and analyzing texts in increasingly sophisticated ways.
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Math work provides opportunities for students to continue to solidify their mastery of facts and to utilize a range of strategies to solve more complex problems.
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Investigations are hands-on and exploratory, providing students with a solid foundation in content knowledge across the key fields of Earth, Life, and Physical Sciences.
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Spanish instruction in the Lower School is designed to be fun and to encourage risk-taking for those learning a new language.
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Health education focuses on providing students with accurate information and clear communication skills around issues of human development, friendships and relationships.
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Music, Drama, Visual Arts, and other co-curricular activities are woven through all modes of learning.
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Work in the 10s class supports growing independence, ownership over learning, and increased autonomy and critical thinking skills.
Open Work
AGES 8 - 10
While teachers still introduce new materials or ideas for students to work with and may also have a class-wide focus for Open Work, 8s-10s students are capable of and eager to set their own courses for projects and investigations that pique their interest. While some Open Work sessions are still spent “messing around” with materials and exploring possibilities, older students are encouraged to devote time to longer-term projects that give them the opportunity to plan and follow-through. 8s-10s love to work collaboratively as well as independently, sometimes trying out something they have never tried before. At other times, students are able to incorporate skills they have learned in new ways, for example, by applying research skills to their own areas of interest, teaching classmates a new craft, or creating books, performing plays, or designing scientific experiments based on work in other areas of the curriculum. As students get older, greater emphasis is placed on planning independent or group projects during Open Work, reflecting on work and process, and articulating the standards by which they believe projects ought to be evaluated.
Social Studies
AGES 8 - 10
In the 8s, 9s, and 10s classes, the main studies of the curriculum, referred to as Community Work in the 4s-7s, move into a Social Studies focus as we introduce more conceptual and historical topics to older students. The long ago and the far away are fascinating and motivating ideas for upper elementary students to investigate and explore, when they are introduced through the lens of our current context and their lived experiences. While each age group is guided by essential questions and concepts that are part of our school-wide trajectory and remain consistent from year to year, each group of students digs into Social Studies work in various ways, dependent both on current events and their individual and class interests and questions. Knowing that students learn best when they can form personal connections to their learning through prior knowledge and experience, Social Studies work in the 8s -10s begins with studying these concepts in our current context and time. Through their Social Studies investigations, Greene Hill 8s-10s broaden their understanding of their place geographically and historically, and further develop their ability to ask questions and make connections between their experiences and those of others now and throughout history. Our ongoing work around the six elements of Social Justice curriculum is woven throughout these studies, as students consider knowledge of themselves, respect for others, social movements & social change, awareness raising, and social action as they relate to the topics they study and their own lives.
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Students in the 8s year study the larger concept of Movement, including immigration and migration as well as social and activist movements, through the history of New York City and the lens of questions such as: What causes people to move from place to place? What happens when people move? and How do social movements impact people? 8s begin their study of immigration through researching their family history and creating personal timelines, and then interviewing family members or family friends who have immigration stories to share. This work helps them to begin to consider why people move from place to place, alongside studies of current and historical events related to immigration and migration, including topics connected to social justice, such as forced migration of groups of people.
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In the 9s year, Greene Hill students explore the structure and history of our government and the broader idea of Law through investigating questions such as: How do different groups of people govern themselves? Who has power? and What does it mean to have power? Before learning about colonial America and the beginnings of our country, the 9s learn about different types of government and study current events related to elections and policy-making. They create a class constitution, vote on a class mascot, and even go through a process of attempting to legislate their own proposed laws through role play. Social justice is explored through both historical and contemporary lenses through investigation of topics such as contact between Europeans and Indigenous Americans and how local and federal laws impact different groups of people.
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In the 10s year, our oldest Lower School students are tasked with considering the meaning of Culture through inquiry into questions including: How does the physical environment and natural resources shape a culture? What was daily life like for individuals living in ancient civilizations? How did the movement of ideas, goods, and people affect these cultures? How have the ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Greeks contributed to our lives in today’s society? Social justice is incorporated into the curriculum through both robust work around current events as well as analysis of the roles and rights of various groups of individuals in the civilizations studied. To provide a solid foundation from which to jump further back in time than they have previously, the 10s begin the year by sharing their own personal culture through family stories and artifacts. They study geography in order to understand why the earliest civilizations began where they did, and make connections throughout the year to how our lives today have been shaped by the contributions of ancient civilizations.
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Understand concepts of chronology and historical events.
Explore the ways that power and identity may influence people in all cultures.
Appreciate similarities and differences among cultures.
Raise questions and seek answers from historical stories, documents, and records from the past.
Understand the interdependency of living things and physical environments.
Learn about government structures and the need for rules for resolving conflicts and disagreements.
Read and interpret different types of maps.
Apply information from field trips to classroom work.
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What causes people to move from place to place?
What happens when people or things move?
How do social movements impact people?
How do different groups of people govern themselves?
Who has power?
What does it mean to have power?
How does the physical environment and natural resources shape a culture?
How did systems of religion and government impact individuals living in ancient civilizations?
How does the movement of ideas, goods, and people affect cultures?
What can artifacts and structures help us to understand about ancient cultures and their impact on our lives today?
Literacy
AGES 8 - 10
Greene Hill students experience reading and writing across many contexts and genres, enjoying literature independently and socially, conducting research, reading and interpreting primary sources, writing and speaking persuasively, and analyzing texts in increasingly sophisticated ways. Their teachers come to know them deeply as readers and writers, and assess their growth through a variety of measures, including frequent observation and conferring, periodic assessments with bench- mark books, and writing rubrics tailored to specific projects and genres. While instruction and practice in foundational skills in reading, writing, and word work continue in the 8s-10s classrooms, literacy work is increasingly integrated into Social Studies as students engage in more in-depth units of study. Genres and literary structures are introduced as models and mentor texts, and students develop the ability to read and write across subject areas and in varied forms. Research and analysis of documents is combined with experiential learning from field trips and hands-on explorations as 8s-10s express their ideas and new understandings in oral, written, and digital presentations.
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8s are becoming increasingly fluent and thoughtful readers and writers, and spend the year building stamina and critical thinking skills. 8s are highly social, and reading and writing as a community is important. Working in the contexts of whole-class book discussions, small, independently-run book groups and partnerships, 8s discuss what they read and reflect on various aspects of their books. Fluent, expressive reading is an important goal, which relies on automatic word recognition and extensive word knowledge. In addition, 8s will gain skills in note-taking and analysis of non-fiction texts as they examine books about history, as well as primary source documents connected to Social Studies.
Writing work in the 8s is often integrated with Social Studies and serves to deepen students’ understanding of the writing process, while building their skills and confidence as writers. 8s learn to follow the steps of the writing process more independently to develop their unique voice. Explicit instruction and work with words based on phonics and spelling patterns and rules continues, along with handwriting and keyboarding practice. Genres studied often include memoirs, interviews, letter writing, biographies, historical fiction and persuasive writing.
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Students in the 9s approach reading and writing in new ways by developing skills and applying them with greater independence and purpose. Much of the work they do is integrated with Social Studies, as students become more adept at analyzing and creating nonfiction texts. Research and note-taking skills are developed through a variety of structures that provide tools and strategies to support students in taking on this work more independently. 9s are also cultivating a deeper love of literature, and are able to sustain whole-group or small-group discussions around books with more sophistication and depth. 9s also continue regular work with a spelling program that emphasizes phonics and spelling patterns and rules, and experience writing a variety of genres, with an emphasis on narrative, persuasive, and informational writing. 9s students often utilize technology tools to support their production of longer pieces of writing, and continue to build their keyboarding and digital literacy skills through this work.
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The 10s continue to practice and improve foundational reading and writing skills learned in previous years. Reading and writing is often integrated into Social Studies lessons, and also receives dedicated instructional time as students refine their critical and analytical thinking, comprehension strategies, and foundational grammar, writing, and spelling skills. 10s read a variety of genres to strengthen comprehension strategies of complex narrative and informational texts, and write with an awareness of audience and purpose. In addition, 10s strengthen note-taking and researching techniques such as collecting and analyzing, prioritizing and organizing, as well as presenting information clearly. A variety of writing projects throughout the year include creative, research-based, and response to literature pieces of writing.
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Read and write with fluency and stamina across a variety of genres.
Make inferences.
Identify the author’s perspective.
Identify themes in literature and the different ways authors develop those themes.
Utilize mentor texts to examine the author's craft and style and how they shape a piece of writing.
Strengthen writing by planning, revising, editing, and publishing varied pieces of work.
Recognize and use a variety of text-based strategies to comprehend both narrative and informational texts.
Integrate reading and writing skills by conducting research, extracting pertinent information, and presenting findings.
Engage with peers in conversation to express one’s own ideas clearly and persuasively, and to actively respond to the ideas of others.
Generate and respond to meaningful questions about texts.
Demonstrate increasing mastery of the conventions of standard English grammar, usage, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.
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Story elements and arcs
Perspective and voice
Character development, traits, and motivation
Inferential and critical thinking
Questioning
Themes in literature
Writer’s voice
Genres and formats for writing
Math
AGES 8 - 10
As students move into the upper grades, Math work provides opportunities for them to continue to solidify their mastery of facts and to utilize a range of strategies to solve more complex problems. Work with data, measurement, and geometry continues, and the traditional algorithms for solving mathematical problems (for example, stacking numbers) are introduced once students have a solid conceptual understanding of the operations and the ability to check and explain their work. Flexibility in problem-solving and continuing to develop and express mathematical understandings are ongoing aspects of Math class, and games, hands-on projects, and collaborative and creative activities give students a range of opportunities to build these skills along with confidence that helps them see themselves as capable of working with math in school and in their daily lives. As in the lower grades, assessment for this age group happens through daily teacher observations, analysis of children’s work, and performance assessments built into the curriculum.
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A major emphasis for the 8s is on constructing a strong understanding of multiplication and division. 8s conceptualize multiplication as a way of representing “things that come in groups,” and work with arrays as a model. They understand division to be the inverse of multiplication; their initial strategies for solving division problems often involve using that relationship. They acquire fluency with multiplying numbers with a product up to 50, and also gain accuracy and efficiency in adding and subtracting numbers up to 1,000. Another key area for 8s is the study of fractions. They become more comfortable working with halves, fourths, eighths, thirds, and sixths, as well as simple decimal fractions like 0.50 and 0.25. Students learn to use graphs, and begin to develop a more refined vocabulary for describing and classifying geometric shapes. They learn to find area and perimeter and to determine the volume of rectangular prisms. All year 8s will work on clearly communicating their mathematical ideas orally and on paper, making sure they are convincing.
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One of the major goals for the 9s year is for students to develop greater computational fluency and solve multiplication and division problems in a variety of ways. Having already been introduced to the concept of multiplication, the 9s continue that work and work towards automaticity with their multiplication facts (“times tables”) through 12 by the end of the year. Students are introduced to arrays and various methods for breaking numbers apart in order to build their repertoire of strategies by learning and practicing efficient strategies for computing. They use their understanding of multiplication, and of factors and multiples, to tackle division problems with larger numbers as well. 9s become skillful in analyzing and interpreting data (sometimes gathered in support of Social Studies work), beginning to apply concepts of probability by determining the relative likelihood of different outcomes, and their work with fractions becomes more sophisticated. Geometry studies provide opportunities for hands-on exploration of real-world problems, and a way for students to incorporate their creativity into their math work. Throughout the year, students learn to articulate, present, and justify their solutions to problems through independent and group work. 9s math class routines, exercises, and games help to develop math skills and provide students with a real world context for their knowledge.
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Math in the 10s begins with a review of place value, rounding, estimation, and multi-digit addition and subtraction. Students explore number lines and a variety of number systems as they relate to the 10s’ study of the ancient world, review strategies for multiplication, and expand their knowledge of number properties, factors, and multiples. 10s create tables and graphs to represent the relationship between two variables in a variety of contexts, as well as develop understanding of data analysis by collecting, representing, describing, and interpreting numerical data. In their work with geometry and measurement, the 10s deepen their understanding of two-dimensional shapes, and determine the volume of three-dimensional shapes. The 10s have access to a variety of manipulatives and build strategies to support mathematical thinking and expression.
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Explore problems in depth.
Compute with whole numbers with efficiency, fluency, and flexibility.
Apply familiar mathematical principles to unfamiliar situations.
Identify multiple ways to solve problems, and choose among different strategies.
Communicate mathematical ideas clearly and concisely.
Represent mathematical thinking using models, diagrams, and graphs.
Make connections among mathematical ideas.
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Operational relations
Foundational fact mastery
Purposeful use of traditional algorithms
Checking and explaining mathematical thinking
Complex problem-solving
Flexible use of strategies
Representing quantities in between whole numbers
Equivalence
Real world number patterns
Science
AGES 8 - 10
Beginning in the 8s, students at Greene Hill participate in a lab-based Science class. Investigations are hands-on and exploratory, providing students with a solid foundation in content knowledge across the key fields of Earth, Life, and Physical Sciences. Students also acquire a strong facility with scientific process skills, learning how to conduct authentic research to make discoveries. An emphasis on stewardship and conservation is appropriate for this age group as children deepen their understanding of the interconnectedness of living things and the role of humankind. Science class work begins by getting students acquainted with scientific thinking and concepts, defining the major fields, and then identifying important skills scientists have. Students practice making observations by isolating three of their senses (sight, hearing, and touch). They learn about the work of research scientists and review current research. They collect and organize data, making choices about the most appropriate way to represent their findings and looking for apparent patterns or relationships in data. As they get older, students take more ownership over the scientific inquiry process, pursuing topics and questions and constructing experiments more independently. Units of study in Science differ from year to year as students connect to all-school themes and studies and current events, and have opportunities to investigate interesting phenomena that spurs them to ask questions and make connections, developing deeper understandings of the world around them.
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Science work may take students on an exploration of the oceans of the world, starting with a curious event in 1992 when thousands of toy ducks and other plastic toys were lost overboard from a cargo ship crossing the Atlantic. Students examine ocean currents and their importance in the ocean ecosystem, and then dive more deeply into examining the ocean by studying various ecosystems: coral reefs, open ocean, estuaries, and tidal zones. Students will study the interactions between the living and nonliving entities of their ecosystem and create a hands-on project from what they have learned.
Physics studies may focus on forces in action as students plan and investigate phenomena in which objects stop and go. Students may explore and map energy transfers in toys to determine patterns and use the evidence they gather to explain how these transfers occur. They may investigate matter, using a variety of tools to identify whether materials are solids, liquids, or gases. Students investigate to provide evidence that gases have weight and are made of particles too small to be seen. The spring semester offers an ideal time to study patterns in life cycles and structures in living things. Students will have the opportunity to make observations of the natural world and plan experiments that will help them gain understanding of what living things need to survive.
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Describe and compare physical properties.
Describe the basic life functions and life cycles of plants and animals.
Develop reasonable hypotheses, and evaluate those hypotheses in light of data collected.
Employ tools to gather, analyze, and interpret data.
Formulate and communicate explanations using evidence.
Identify dependent and independent variables.
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What causes objects to move?
What is energy and what can it do?
What are things made of and how do they change?
How are plants and animals in an ecosystem interconnected?
What are the processes that shape landforms and bodies of water on Earth?
How can we formulate questions of scientific inquiry and construct scientific investigations to explore those questions?
Spanish
AGES 8-10
Spanish instruction in the Lower School is designed to be fun and to encourage risk-taking for those learning a new language as well as knowledge of and respect for Spanish-speaking cultures and an awareness of the prevalence of the Spanish language in New York City. All Lower School classes have twice weekly Spanish lessons. Our youngest students learn basic vocabulary and expressions, focusing on greetings, colors, numbers, the alphabet, the calendar, animals, the body, and food, through art, games, songs, literature, puppetry, and other interactive activities. In the upper grades, students continue to increase their Spanish vocabulary and conversational skills, incorporating more sophisticated content such as prepositions, adjectives, common verbs, and some present tense verb conjugations. More and more, they learn to use Spanish across other areas of their curriculum: solving math problems in Spanish, telling time, learning vocabulary that relates to Community Work and Social Studies topics. As their conversational skills grow, they begin to practice their writing skills. Students also learn more about Spanish-speaking countries and cultures around the world.
Health and Wellness
AGES 9 - 10
Health education focuses on providing students with accurate information and clear communication skills around issues of human development, friendships and relationships, and other concerns. Greene Hill’s Health and Wellness class gives students an opportunity to explore topics related to social, emotional, and physical health through activities, discussions, and shared readings. Students first discuss issues of emotional wellness, relationships, and problem-solving connected to their growing independence and maturity in the society and world we are living in. In the latter part of the course, students study the physical changes that individuals experience as they move towards adolescence and are encouraged to suggest specific topics for discussion that feel most relevant and meaningful to them, often including food and healthy eating habits, understandings of individual identity, and communication in relationships.
Transition to Middle School
Throughout their time in the Lower School and particularly in the 10s, Greene Hill students and their families are offered opportunities to learn about the Greene Hill Middle School through visits and talks with middle school students, teachers, and administration. Work in the 10s class supports growing independence, ownership over learning, and increased autonomy and critical thinking skills that support students’ transition to the Greene Hill Middle School where there is a departmentalized sixth grade working with a larger range of teachers.