Ms. Jeana Davis
Director of Instruction
We have started with small but excellent beginnings, growing our elementary grade students from 1st to 5th grade! We plan to have a full K-5 elementary school by the 2025-2026 school year in a new, beautiful building located by the Esperanza campus. This expansion will provide Esperanza students with a cohesive K-12 learning experience.
We love the family feel of our grades. We know each student personally, and each staff member plays a key role in their learning experience, pushing them to be the best that they can be. We believe the elementary grades are a time for exploration, cultivating curiosity, and creating foundational learning that will carry them to succeed far into the future. We place an emphasis on reading, math skills, and social-emotional development. Students are encouraged to take responsibility for their achievement, to set goals and celebrate even the smallest amount of success!
The teachers in the elementary grades return each year, as they are dedicated to see the students and families who believe in the Esperanza opportunity and have partnered with us to make this vision a reality.
Links
Academic Programming
Our elementary students are fully engaged in a rigorous academic program that focuses on building independence, fostering responsibility and supporting healthy social-emotional development at all grade levels. The curricular programs have been carefully selected to meet the needs of all students with specific attention focused on the growth and achievement of our English Language Learners.
Elementary students engage in the following courses daily: English/Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies and Social-Emotional Learning. They engage in the following courses weekly: PE, Health, Spanish, Music and Art. All courses of study are directly aligned to PA Core Standards.
Courses
ELA is jam-packed with reading, writing and project-based learning opportunities for students! The American Reading Company curriculum engages students in a learning process that requires extensive reading, multiple extended writing projects and daily practice discussion ideas and texts with their peers.
Students dive into three units of instruction throughout the year:
- Literacy Lab: Focuses on building each child’s love of reading while equipping students with the tools and resources they need to fully engage in a year of reading for research.
- Informational Research Lab: Students read and write, becoming experts about the topic of their choice leading up to a culminating project.
- Genre Study: Teachers use a novel or set of short stories in a chosen genre to teach children how to read and analyze literature.
The ARC curriculum is aligned to Common Core Standards. The program provides an extensive library of leveled books so that all students can read about chosen topics at their independent level. You can find more information about the ARC curriculum here.
Students continue to build a deep elementary math foundation to support them throughout their math careers. Dimensions Math allows students to collaborate with their peers as they move from a concrete understanding of concepts, to a pictorial representation of skills, and then a full, abstract understanding of content. Students are introduced to real-life math problems to work through as they apply skills in various contexts.
Our math curriculum provides parent videos so you can support your children at home! You can find those videos and more information about Dimensions Math here.
Students become active investigators through the use of FOSS Science Systems. Students read, write and participate in multi-sensory activities as they learn about Physical, Earth and Life Science.
Through the FOSS program students will gather data and learn how to draw conclusions as they gain an increased awareness of the natural world.
You can learn more about the FOSS program here.
History is brought to life with TCI! Our social studies curriculum was created by teachers, for teachers to support students of all learning styles. Interactive learning experiences shape this program as students work to understand how the country and the world was shaped over centuries at a time.
You can learn more about the elementary social studies program here.
The elementary years are filled with challenges and opportunities! To better prepare our students for how to navigate these exciting years we use Second Step to teach them skills to become confident and capable problem-solvers. Classroom teachers and the school counselor use Second Step resources daily to help children build the social-emotional skills of empathy, emotion management, and conversation skills among many others. The goal is that if children are able to manage their own emotions, they will be more able to learn.
A complete list of elementary SEL topics can be found here.
Quick Links
- AAA Math: Offers a variety of concepts by grade level and includes a list of additional web-based resources. Click here to go to AAA Math!
- Arcademic Skill Builders: Offers a variety of games by grade level and concepts. Click here to go to Arcademic Skill Builders!
- Cool Math 4 Kids: Offers an amusement park of math and more — especially designed for kids and FUN, FUN, FUN! Click here to go to Cool Math 4 Kids!
- Fun Brain: Offers numbers games for grades K-8 that let your brain explore, collect and compete in a variety of math games! Click here to go to Fun Brain!
- Illuminations: Offers a library of 104 online math activities that help to make math come alive in the classroom or at home for grades K-12. Click here to go to Illuminations!
- IXL: Offers a variety of extra practice by grade level and concept. Click here to go to IXL!
Click on the name of each literary resource to access the website for that resource.
- Internet4Classrooms: Provides standards-based links and our grade level “Skillbuilders” to help students practice, either at home or in the classroom, what they have been taught.
- Jeopardy Prefixes: Features a “Jeopardy”-style game that helps children understand prefixes.
- Scholastic Learn At Home: Day-by-day projects to keep kids reading, thinking, and growing.
- Spelling City: Makes practicing for spelling tests fun.
Some of the strategies that the students use in school might not look familiar to you. Khan Academy will help you see how math is being taught to your child this year. If you continue to have questions, please contact your child’s teacher.
- Khan Academy: Offers instructional videos, practice exercises and a personalized learning dashboard. This site is a great tool to help children with what they’re learning in school or to learn something completely new. https://www.khanacademy.org/math/k-8-grades