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First, Second and Third Grade:
Our Primary Program

Tall Cedars Academy believes in making your child's first experiences in school positive, exciting, and rewarding. Curriculum for this age group includes a strong focus on developing their self-esteem and is tailored to accommodate each individual child. Children experience success and a positive feeling about themselves as learners while the teacher discovers, with you and your child's help, how your child learns. Our curriculum encourages respect not only for oneself but also for classmates and adults while helping students learn the importance of responsibility, cooperation, self-discipline, and the intrinsic rewards of working at one's personal best.

Students are exposed to reading and writing from the beginning, in a relaxed and enjoyable environment. Because most young children are highly tactile and kinesthetic, basic skills are introduced through hands-on activities, reading readiness games, and with the use of a variety of manipulative and visual aids. Children work both together and independently on many activities that promote basic letter recognition, letter sounds, beginning writing skills, and sentence structure. They enjoy listening to and reading a wide range of books and participate in group storytelling, while also writing and illustrating their own books during Writer’s Workshop. Each student is evaluated for their unique reading style so that instruction can be tailored to the individual child.

Math is introduced through hands-on explorations using curriculum by math educators, Kathy Richardson and Marilyn Burns. This program balances the basics of fact memorization and computation with the development of conceptual understanding emphasizing problem solving and critical thinking. Primary students study patterns, addition and subtraction strategies, number relations, logical thinking, measurement, geometry, probability and statistics.

Science and Social Studies are taught through a monthly or yearly theme. These themes rotate every third year in the primary grades. Themes may include map skills, multicultural education, the human body, nutrition, plants, weather, insects, dinosaurs, and animal habitats in the regions of the world. The students are encouraged to experience these topics through music, drama, creative writing, art, drawing, reading, experimenting, independent and group projects, and fieldtrips.