August 2024 | Lower School News

Welcome back to a new school year! The PYP welcomes all our new and returning preschool through 5th grade students and hopes this summer was memorable and fun! There are some new and exciting happenings for our PYP program as we get ready to kick start this new year. 

This year, we have adopted a new literacy curriculum. Two years ago, we set out a goal to make sure we were providing Daystar students with rigor and standards aligned mathematics. We met that goal by partnering with Great Minds, who are the authors of Eureka Squared. We are proud of the gains that our PYP students have made with development in both computation and math reasoning skills. As a result, we have chosen to partner up with Great Minds again for our 3rd through 5th grade students to adopt their literacy curriculum called Wit & Wisdom. Wit & Wisdom was developed by teachers for Great Minds and is based on academic research that aims to help students develop literacy skills, knowledge, and values like empathy and perseverance. Wit & Wisdom has also been recommended by the IB and works at fostering a transdisciplinary approach in conjunction with our Units of Inquiry, writing skills, and science and social studies concepts. 

For our Kindergarten through 2nd grade students, we are adopting another highly researched and recommended curriculum called Expeditionary Learning Education. EL Education for short, is based on ten design principles that connect to relationships with teaching, learning, and the culture of education. EL Education students are empowered to demonstrate proficiency and deeper understanding to apply their learning, think critically, and communicate clearly as they develop strong decoding and comprehension skills. EL Education integrates phonics development along with writing in a comprehensive literacy program that includes inquiry with science and social studies topics. 

We are confident that this shift will support our students in their growth and development into strong and confident readers. During our PYP Curriculum Night, you will get to hear more about the topics that will be studied throughout the year!