Curriculum
Reading and Writing
Reading and writing are the twin towers for learning in GHA's programs. Our students learn to read and write for self-fulfillment, to better understand complex concepts and to make broader connections with the larger world.
Beginning in Preschool, we instill an appreciation for high literacy, and this appreciation remains vibrant through the fifth grade. Along with numerous other resources, rich age-appropriate literature is used for developing essential reading and writing skills that stretch children’s knowledge at all grades, including those skills specific to reading and writing in the content areas of science and social studies.
Writing is an integral component of every subject area, beginning with journal writing as early as pre-school and continuing through fifth grade. Children are taught that they are authors and, as such, learn the traits and attributes that successful authors use in capturing and keeping their readers’ interest.
Math
Children are taught that math is a problem solving language that requires a tool box of skills and abilities. Skills are taught as essential components to being a good mathematician. How students use those tools is the result of their understanding of the processes and applications of mathematics to “accomplish” something—to solve a problem. To those ends, manipulatives, textbooks, meaningful projects and child-centered activities form to foundation of our math program. At the early childhood grades, math is integrated into almost every discipline. At the upper grades, math becomes more of a discrete area of study. Additionally, fourth and fifth graders compete in the Washington State Math Olympiad program, challenging themselves to apply complex and creative math skills and processes.
Science
Students are taught to see themselves as scientists who use tools, innate curiosity and scientific processes to investigate the world within which they live. Using the nationally recognized FOSS (Full Option Science System) science curriculum, students develop the necessary skills to apply the scientific process: observe, ask questions, generate a theory (hypothesizing), experiment and evaluate.
The school wetlands are utilized as a living laboratory for observation of science in action. Additionally, the wetlands serve to make concrete concepts that can be very abstract, bringing high level knowledge and understanding to children at ages earlier than might be anticipated.
Social Studies
Education is a social process. Students learn that the purpose for knowledge is to apply it to living systems which means social needs: belonging, respect, independence and challenge. At the earliest of stages, GHA students learn that humans organize their relationships around core needs. They learn that about the healthy beliefs and values that shape how those relationships serve one another. Finally, they learn that good citizenship requires each of us to take responsibility in maintaining a healthy social fabric.