Registration Now Open! Click Here
The Avery House Nature Center is pleased to announce that is expanding its program to include kindergarten for the 2015-2016 school year. The Avery House kindergarten curriculum will be designed to meet state level standards, as well as upholding national sustainability standards. The educational mission of kindergarten at Avery House will be a multifaceted approach that will integrate multiple child-based learning practices. Rather than implementing a single approach-learning model, we will be incorporating Place-Based Education where children will be immersed in their environment while exploring science, mathematics, language, arts, culture, and more.
Kindergarten / 1st Grade
Monday – Friday half day 9:30-1:30 cost $525 a month
Look below for more information about this great new program!
AM Tech Monday – Friday 8:30-9:30 cost $6 a day (flexible)
(Build, create, invent, Tues/Thur typing skills)
Explorer Afternoons Ages 5-8
Monday – Friday Options 1:30-3:30pm $240 a month or $15 a class
Fall Term 2015 (September 14th – December 18th )
Enrollment open to Nature School and Home School students
Monday: Spanish in Nature – Spanish trail hiking with art and culture
Tuesday: Harvesting Plant parts – Measure, weigh, cook, and eat fall harvest food fun
Wednesday: Explore wildlife adventures – Native survivor
Thursday: Native stories in Nature – Study Oregon Kalapuyan history with stories and poems
Friday: Making Music with Nature – Wood, drums, shakers and animal rhythm
Winter Term (January 4th – March 25th)
Spring Term (April 4th – June 10th)
2016 Classes will be announced in early fall but will continue to offer a weekly variety of foreign language, cooking, arts and more.
Program Information
Teaching all subjects with local place-based ecology
Example: Study of local wetlands – Learning about plankton
Science engineering to invent Phytoplankton – Test plankton and fix if needed. Plankton is found under the surface but in the upper zone where light penetrates. Science inquiry make predictions first, test, fix, and repeat. Math adding and subtracting numbers that floated, sank, or successfully balanced in middle. Reading words Phyto vs Zoo Plankton. Write and draw what happened with your phytoplankton. Then invent a zooplankton how does it move and eat? There are so many ways we can use nature to learn!
Making Phytoplankton with air or oil
wetland zooplankton discoveries
Invented Zooplankton
Nature School Curriculum Goals
Meet state level standards as well as Sustainability standards.
Make sure students meet grade level standards without going through grading process.
Testing will occur on a teacher level but to students test will be a positive fun experience.
No grade will be give to students focus on development and progress of individuals.
Place-based curriculum focuses learning of events occurring outside.
We believe in a positive learning environment that integrates a variety of teaching strategies.
8 Core Commitments
Nature Connection & Eco-Stewardship: a commitment to cultivate awareness, wonder and respect for the natural world with the intent to deepen understanding of cycles, eco-systems, environments and organisms, and to reinforce the interconnectedness that we have with them
Experiential & Hands-on Exploration: a commitment to investigate, explore, build, and play through an open-ended process of learning by doing that engages multiple senses, expands critical thinking and encourages reflection and meaning-making
Project-based & Narrative-based: a commitment to explore academic, social and economic themes and concepts through tangible projects with the intent to utilize story to deepen understanding and connection to complex ideas and situations
Child-informed & Inspired: a commitment to being attentive to individual and collective interests and passions with the intent to recognize the reciprocal and symbiotic relationship between teacher and learner and to assess emergent curriculum as appropriate
Inquiry & Dynamic Discovery: a commitment to encourage reliance on curiosity, creativity, intuition and imagination with the intent to trust the process of discovery as much as the achievement of desired outcomes and to bring awareness to differing perspectives and possibilities
Arts & Creativity: a commitment to ensure that opportunities for artistic and creative expression, exploration and experimentation are interwoven into the curriculum as an integral component of knowledge and innovation
Whole Child Identity: a commitment to foster multiple ways of knowing by recognizing the intellectual, imaginative, physical, sensory, and emotional capacities of each child with the intent to cultivate confidence and nurture well-being
Collaborative Community: a commitment to proactively promote and model integrity, empathy, compassion and mindfulness with the intent to foster trusting and collaborative relationships; a commitment to engage parents and members of the community to contribute their time, expertise and wisdom
More Information coming soon!