Grades (1-6)

The elementary school curriculum nurtures the child’s intellectual growth by utilizing imagination to promote a comprehensive understanding of the material.

Grades Program

All subjects are introduced creatively through stories, poetry, and movement, promoting a sense of beauty and feeling towards the subjects. The curriculum also focuses on hands-on learning and encourages students to actively participate and understand the material deeply, preserving a sense of wonder and promoting ownership and responsibility in the learning process.

Each school day begins with a two-hour Main Lesson, which focuses on one academic subject for a block of three to four weeks. The immersion approach allows for integration of cultural, artistic, and practical activities, enabling students to experience and understand the material deeply. Through creating their own record of the main lesson in a Main Lesson book, students develop a sense of accomplishment, solidifying the knowledge and fostering confidence in their thinking and imagination.

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Grade 1
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
Grade 5
Grade 6

GRADE 1

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Academic work is introduced to the first grade child through movement, stories, and the arts. Teachers cultivate a spirit of reverence and joy in learning that children will carry through the grade school years and beyond. Stories, poetry, and songs bring language lessons to life.

Children create their first writing and arithmetic books. Mental math practice begins in first grade and continues through the grades. The rhythm of the day includes plenty of outdoor time and opportunities for artistic expression.

Language Arts (Hindi and English)

  • Pictorial introduction of the alphabet
  • Handwriting (upper and lower case letters for English)
  • Oral storytelling
  • Group recitation of poetry and verse
  • Class play (group voice)

Form Drawing

  • Straight and curved lines, spirals
  • Standing forms
  • Running forms

Handwork

  • Craft knitting needles
  • Knitting (cast-on, knit, count rows, change colors, cast-off, and sew pieces)

Mathematics

  • Quality of numbers (1 to 12)
  • Numerals from 1 to 100 (counting forwards and backwards, writing)
  • Multiplication tables: 2, 3, 5, 10
  • Odd and even numbers
  • Four mathematical processes: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division
  • Beginning mental math

Games

  • Social and cooperative games based upon nature stories (no child gets excluded)
  • Tagging (with multiple taggers), circle, movement, string, and clapping games
  • Jumping rope, balancing, and rhythm exercises

Science

  • Seasonal and nature stories
  • Exploration of nature
  • Gardening: tending a plot, growth cycles of plants, and harvest seasons
  • Weekly visits to an animal farm

Fine Arts: Wet-on-wet Watercolour Painting

  • Painting with primary colours to explore the quality of each colour

Music

  • Simple songs related to the main lesson block, nature songs; group singing
  • Introduction to the pentatonic flute (good habits for rendering music, listening skills, playing a simple melody)

GRADE 2

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Grade 2 focuses on developing students’ language and communication skills through storytelling, poetry, and creative writing. Students will also learn basic mathematics, nature study and handwork skills.

The curriculum also includes form drawing, foreign language, games and sports to encourage a holistic development of the child. The teaching approach is designed to be both challenging and age-appropriate, using storytelling and creative methods to teach the subjects.

Language Arts (Hindi and English)

  • Form and beauty in handwriting (introduce English cursive writing)

  • Stories, poetry, verses and tongue twisters

  • Beginning composition

  • Spelling, punctuation, capitalization (English)

  • Phonetic work with Hindi vowels (sandhi and sanyuktakshar)

  • Introduction to the parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

  • Group reading

  • Class play (group voice)

Form Drawing

  • Symmetrical forms (vertical and horizontal)
  • Inward and outward spirals
  • Form transformations

Mathematics

  • Practice the four operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division
  • Place value
  • Multiplication tables
  • Carrying and borrowing
  • Mental math

Games

  • Cooperative games based on a story; transformational (no child gets excluded)
  • Beginning ball games
  • Jump ropes, balancing and rhythm activities

Handwork

  • Craft knitting needles
  • Knitting (cast-on, knit, count rows, change colors, cast-off, and sew pieces)

Science

  • Seasonal and nature stories
  • Exploration of nature
  • Gardening: tending a plot, growth cycles of plants, and harvest seasons
  • Weekly visits to an animal farm

Fine Arts: Wet-on-wet Watercolour Painting

  • Creating secondary colours
  • Balancing colours
  • Complementary colours
  • Close colours (blue-violet, red-orange)

Music

  • Songs related to the main lesson block (example, bhajan for story of Kabir); group singing
  • Songs on the pentatonic flute

GRADE 3

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Grade 3 focuses on developing students’ language and communication skills, as well as their understanding of mathematics, nature and science.

The curriculum also includes form drawing, foreign language, handwork, games and sports to encourage a holistic development of the child. The teaching approach is designed to be both challenging and age-appropriate, using storytelling and creative methods to teach the subjects.

Language Arts (Hindi and English)

  • Reading and writing practice
  • Parts of speech
  • Spelling and punctuation
  • Speech and recitation of poetry
  • Stories of ancient and indigenous people
  • Class play (group and individual voices)

Form Drawing

  • Working with free forms – discovering a corresponding shape to a given form
  • Exercises that lead to imaginative work with spaces within or outside a given form
  • Complicated symmetry work involving the horizontal diagonal axes

Handwork

  • Crochet in organic yet mathematical sequencing patterns: chain stitch, single and double stiches, and crochet in the round
  • Continued practice hand sewing; making the first piece of garment or market bag

Mathematics

  • Introduction of long division and multiplication
  • Practice with addition and subtraction and expanded use of place value
  • Reading clock time
  • Measurements
  • Monetary calculations

Social Studies

  • Stories of creation from ancient cultures around the world
  • Geography introduced with question of how human beings learn to life on the earth. Study of shelters through time and around the world with attention to indigenous people and to the natural resources of the immediate environment
  • Study of farming and agriculture
  • Systems of money and time explored

Games

  • Historical games from around the world; tagging games; relay races; handball games; free and imitation movement activities

Science

  • Study of farming, agriculture, including cultivation of grain, cycles of composting, crop rotation, and animal husbandry
  • Study of local natural resources

Fine Arts: Wet-on-wet Watercolour Painting

  • Exploring the polarity of light and darkness
  • Introduction to shading
  • Colour wheel

Music

  • Musical notation introduced for recorder playing
  • Singing in parts
  • Songs related to the main lesson block

GRADE 4

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Grade 4 focuses on developing students’ language and communication skills, as well as their understanding of mathematics, science, history, and geography. Students will also be introduced to music, such as singing and playing recorder.

The curriculum also includes form drawing, foreign language, handwork, games and sports to encourage a holistic development of the child. The teaching approach is designed to be both challenging and age-appropriate, using storytelling and creative methods to teach the subjects.

Language Arts (Hindi and English)

  • Spelling, writing composition, and cursive writing (English)
  • Grammar: all parts of speech, punctuation
  • Daily speech, dramatic, or poetic recitations (alliterative poetry) support literacy, language development, and reading comprehension
  • Class readers and summer reading build reading comprehension and complement the curriculum
  • Class play (individual voices)

Form Drawing

  • Mastery of braided and knotted forms

Handwork

  • Embroidery is introduced in handwork (north Indian styles)
  • Continued lessons in sewing, including cross-stitch; practice in design symmetry
  • Deepening practice with sculpture
  • Exploration of local crafts

Mathematics

  • Fractions: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; reduce and expand; improper fractions to mixed number fractions. Emphasis on creating parts from a whole with experiential lessons.
  • Prime numbers and square number; exploration of factoring patterns.
  • Long multiplication and long division
  • Times tables table practice, in and out of sequences.
  • Word or situation problem followed by practice problems

Social Studies

  • Local geography: mapping of the classroom, school, neighborhood, home, city, and state
  • Local history: the legendary capital Indraprastha, early Hindu rulers, Central Asian invasions, British period
  • Geography and sciences are linked in the study of animals, plants, and minerals.

Science

  • Comparative zoology: exploration of physical forms of humans and the animal kingdom.
  • Observation of characteristics, writing, and artistic rendering of animals. Archetypal animals explored: keen-eyed eagle, fiery lion, and powerful bull.

Fine Arts: Wet-on-wet Watercolour Painting

  • Painting and drawing compositional work expands and reflects the curriculum

Music

  • Singing in two-part rounds
  • Recorder practice in parts

Games

  • Games with traditional and ancient North Indian origins
  • Social and cooperative games; tagging games; relay races; ball games; throwing skills
  • Basic rock and rope-climbing skills
  • Circus art such as jumping, juggling, and balancing activities

GRADE 5

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Grade 5 focuses on developing students’ language and communication skills, as well as their understanding of mathematics, science, history, and geography. Students will learn about ancient civilizations and scientific concepts like force, motion and gravity.

The curriculum also includes form drawing, foreign language, handwork, music, games and sports to encourage a holistic development of the child. The teaching approach is designed to be both challenging and age-appropriate, using storytelling and creative methods to teach the subjects.

Language Arts (Hindi and English)

  • Spelling, writing composition
  • Grammar: direct and indirect speech, active and passive verbs, prepositional phrases, paragraph structure
  • Daily speech, dramatic, or poetic recitations (Greek hexameter)
  • Class readers and book reports
  • Research, writing, and oral presentations
  • Class play

Handwork

  • Knitting in the round using four double-pointed needs to make socks and hats.
  • Concentration and mathematical skills deepened
  • Combinations of purls, knits, slips, and other stitches to control shape and design.

Mathematics

  • Review four basic mathematical with at least two-digit numbers
  • Mastering of fractions and introduction to decimals, and relationships between the two
  • Mental math practice
  • Number patterns such as Sieve of Eratosthenes for finding primes
  • Free-hand geometry
  • Area and perimeter

Social Studies

  • Geography of India
  • Ancient civilizations of India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Eygpt, and Greece.

Games

  • Themed games based on Ancient Greece, India, and other cultures
  • Pentathlon event training: javelin, discus, wrestling, running

Science

  • Plants observed over time and in relation to their natural environment
  • Exploration of formative forces of the plant world: expanding in the flowers; contracting in the root; balancing between intake of water and nutrient in the leaves and the elimination of gases.
  • Monocotyledon and dicotyledon plants, fungi, algae, and mosses, and investigate how climate and geography affect plant growth.

Fine Arts

  • Painting and drawing compositional work expands and reflects the curriculum

Music

  • Singing in rounds and multiple voices
  • Recorder practice in parts

GRADE 6

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Grade 6 focuses on developing students’ language and communication skills, as well as their understanding of mathematics, science, history, and geography. They will learn more complex concepts such as algebra and scientific phenomena, as well as civic education.

The curriculum also includes form drawing, foreign language, handwork, music, games and sports to encourage a holistic development of the child. The teaching approach is designed to be both challenging and age-appropriate, using storytelling and creative methods to teach the subjects.

Language Arts (Hindi and English)

  • Grammar review, conditional sentences
  • Daily speech, including prose recitations
  • Independent readers, including historical fiction and biographies
  • Class play
  • Curriculum projects: research, report, artistic project, and presentation skills

Handwork

  • Creation of sewn stuffed animal: bear, big cat, or elephant.

Woodwork

  • Practice with tools: saws, rasps, gouge and mallet, spoke shave, draw knife, drills, and carving knife; finishing techniques
  • Creation of spoons, bowls, and small boxes

Mathematics

  • Abstract formulas introduced
  • Business math: banking and investment, taxes, commissions
  • Geometry: geometric drawings (compass and straight edge introduced), terminology, relationship of circles, triangles, and polygons
  • Pythagorean Theorem and applications

Social Studies

  • Geography: Physical geography of the world
  • History: Ancient Rome, Middle Ages in Europe and India

Games

  • Fitness training, track meet training
  • Warm up exercises, skill development activities, and stretching

Science

  • Physics: acoustics, optics, thermodynamics, magnetism, and static electricity
  • Astronomy: observation from a geocentric point of view, stars and constellations, sun, and moon
  • Geology: physical structure of the earth, India’s geologic diversity; types of rock formations and the rock cycle; common minerals and crystalline structures; water cycles and erosion

Fine Arts

  • Introduction of charcoal and chalk pastels
  • Introduction of calligraphy – brush and pen
  • Wet-on-wet painting techniques expanded

Music

  • Singing in rounds and multiple voices
  • Recorder practice in parts
  • Unmetered music of Gregorian chants