The goals of the Lower School are to nurture each child's strengths and sense of competence, to help develop a sensitivity to others, and to encourage each child to take pleasure in being a member of the community. The curriculum fosters self-reliance and self-esteem; stimulates curiosity, creativity, and a love for learning; and builds enthusiasm for excellence and achievement. Academic areas emphasized in the Lower School include reading, writing, math, and social studies, complemented by instruction in science, engineering, Spanish, art, drama, music, computer and library skills, and physical education. By integrating related activities in various fields of study, students begin to make and appreciate valuable cross-disciplinary connections while broadening their knowledge and experience of the world. The objective is to create responsible, independent students who work well together and are excited about learning.
The Singapore math curriculum aligns with our philosophy of experiential learning in that students jump into new math concepts both inside and outside. During our geometry and measurement units, you might find kindergarteners searching for shapes in an outdoor scavenger hunt or using links to measure objects around the school.
Find Joy in the Pursuit
A highlight of kindergarten is Choice Time! Students are able to choose from stations and activities such as building, dress-up, and art. Using the power of play, students grow in their ability to share, compromise, and connect with one another.
Value Your Voice
A long-standing Crane tradition is the poetry recitation at kindergarten graduation. Each student selects and recites a poem that is meaningful to them. To prepare, students learn poems in English and Spanish during our thematic studies throughout the year. They might perform these poems for peers, families, or the Crane community during Assembly.
Cultivate Kindness
Throughout the year, kindergarteners are given multiple opportunities to express kindness and highlight the beauty in others. During writing class, students are given the option of sharing their own writing pieces. Their classmates give compliments to appreciate their work.
Put We Before Me
Following the group plan and being a cooperative team member is a big part of kindergarten! During our daily Morning Meetings students learn that when they work together their poems and songs sound stronger and games are more fun.
Childhood is full of wonders! In kindergarten, we explore a variety of themed units that address each student’s innate curiosity, while developing foundational skills in reading, writing, and math. By allowing kindergartners to discover the wonders around them through hands-on activities, we help foster a lifelong desire to learn.
Kindergarten is one class comprised of 15 – 20 students. The classroom utilizes a team-teaching approach, with two full-time teachers in the classroom. The teachers forge a cohesive group of students through specific programming throughout the year. The kindergarten classroom is a student’s first home at Crane and therefore was thoughtfully designed to be house-like—it includes a front yard, porch swing, and a playground, in addition to separate instruction areas.
To begin our rainforest unit, students discover that all living things depend on one another. We explore the idea of interdependence by creating a rainforest food web. Using plant and animal cards, we tell a story of how each organism depends on another for survival as students toss a ball of yarn to represent the connection and create a visual web.
Find Joy in the Pursuit
The magic, joy, and power of reading is unveiled in the first grade year at Crane. While the reading journey is different and unique for each child, the excitement is high for all when students surprise themselves by reading a word, a sentence, or a book independently for the first time!
Value Your Voice
At the end of each unit, students take the stage to recite a class poem, perform a group song, and individually share their writing. Walking into the spotlight takes courage, and first graders enjoy the thrill of presenting their information and sharing their voice with an audience.
Cultivate Kindness
In the fall as we establish our classroom community, first graders study fables with important messages about friendship, kindness, grit, and confidence. The fables unit ends with students reflecting on their own actions and life experiences with friendship, as they write moral stories of their own!
Put We Before Me
Each day starts with building our classroom community through a morning meeting, which includes a greeting, share, group activity, and daily message. It is a microcosm of the way we want our classroom and school to be—a community full of learning, safety and respect, and inclusion for all.
F
irst graders take pride in accomplishing tasks with growing independence. They greatly expand their reading and writing vocabulary in first grade. They become adept at recognizing number relationships and patterns, and they apply what they know to problem solving. The first grade classroom, like the kindergarten classroom, continues to utilize a co-teaching approach, with two full-time teachers. Experiential themes in first grade often explore nature which builds an excitement of learning. These units are woven throughout the curriculum listed below.
Second grade is a journey! During the inventions unit, second graders take a journey from idea to innovation, deepening their understanding of what drives innovation by investigating possible solutions to everyday problems. They spend time tinkering with a variety of materials and test their ideas through trial and error in the inventions lab.
Find Joy in the Pursuit
Students take a journey through their community starting with their class and school community and then moving outward to the broader community. Field trips in the Santa Barbara community inspire our second graders to create their own businesses. They write business plans, present their businesses to be approved and ultimately conduct a grand opening of their own stores, where families, teachers and other students shop, inquire, and buy goods and services on business day.
Value Your Voice
The writing program takes students through a journey of discovering their own voices through the written word. Students write ads for their business during their business unit, they collaborate with their colleagues in writing Halloween stories, they write their own narrative stories inspired by an author study, and finally students find their voices in reflecting on nature, writing descriptive poems after musing upon their encounters with mother earth.
Cultivate Kindness
The journey through the community culminates with a study of historical peacemakers. Second graders learn about people like Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama, Jane Goodall, and Greta Thunberg and learn the value of small acts of kindness, inclusion, acceptance, justice, and friendship.
Put We Before Me
The conclusion to the second grade business unit focuses on the responsibility we have as contributing members of our local community. Students brainstorm ways to use the profits from their business to give back to the community. Students chose to collect healthy snacks and toiletries to assemble homeless care packages for those in need in Santa Barbara.
S
econd grade is an exciting year of growth for students as they expand their knowledge base, develop their reading, writing, and math skills and, most importantly, become independent learners. Themes often explored in second grade include units on celebrating community and friendship, leadership and businesses, people and places in our country, biographies, and inventions. These units are woven throughout the curriculum listed below and are also incorporated in the annual second grade musical.
To kick off the mystery unit, students investigate and solve their own classroom mystery. They put on their detective hats and learn mystery specific vocabulary as they interview suspects, identify motives, and figure out the culprit.
Find Joy in the Pursuit
Third grade is all about finding joy in reading! Students start the year off engaging in a shared class read aloud. They move into small book clubs where they cultivate a culture of exploratory reading. Students take pride in the topics they read about and enjoy sharing with their peers. They pursue thrills across many genres and voices.
Value Your Voice
Third graders pick topics they’re already experts in to write informational books. They learn to organize their thoughts into cohesive chapters and then share their knowledge with their peers. Everyone enjoys learning from each other!
Cultivate Kindness
At the beginning of the year, students engage in a whole group conversation about the classroom values. Students determine how they will treat each other, their teachers, the community and themselves. This is where social and emotional norms are established and referenced daily.
Put We Before Me
The class writes persuasive speeches concerning environmental causes they feel passionately about. Students advocate for change they want to see right here in Santa Barbara. They share ways they can all make small sacrifices for the sake of clean beaches, reducing waste, and saving biomass from extinction
T
hird grade is a year of enthusiastic learning. Students are characteristically ready to take risks and eager to learn. Students have mastered the fundamentals of reading and are now ready to build fluency and comprehension. Learners will expand their vocabularies as they explore fiction and non-fiction texts, using reference tools to clarify the meaning of newly discovered words. They will also delve into the nuances of figurative language in prose and poetry. They will conduct independent research to learn about topics in our social studies curriculum as well as the subjects that interest them. They will become an integral part of a learning community as they refine the art of asking good questions in order to generate rich discussions with peers and teachers. Throughout the curriculum students will demonstrate their thinking, supporting their ideas with text evidence and opinions.
During the Gold Rush simulation, students regularly don their flannel and denim as they work as a team to solve camp problems, earn gold nuggets for hard work, and seek out enrichment opportunities. They get their feet wet, metaphorically and literally, throughout the unit. The unit ends with an exciting afternoon knee deep in a creek panning for gold and shouting “Eureka!”
Find Joy in the Pursuit
Taking the study of figurative and descriptive language to the next level, students dive into a substantial poetry and songwriting unit. They study the lyrics of popular songs, have jam sessions in class with their teachers, read poetry books, and practice their stage presence. The unit culminates with students performing their poems and songs for a captive audience of family and friends.
Value Your Voice.
Over the course of the Tiny House Unit, students build a blueprint for a tiny house based on the needs of their clients. After multiple design iterations, students write an opinion piece, providing evidence as to why their blueprint should be considered by their clients. They are encouraged to think deeply about their designs and articulate why their ideas should be considered.
Cultivate Kindness
Students build an attitude of gratitude by highlighting each other in morning meetings, writing thank you notes to guest speakers and people on campus we appreciate, and learning how to give constructive feedback that is both helpful and supportive.
Put We Before Me
In social studies, students frequently examine critical junctures in California history with the intention of identifying why decisions were made and how they could have been made in a more equitable manner. Students use historical evidence to substantiate their reasoning behind how and why decisions, such as how to split up land, could have been made to more fairly treat all of those involved.
F
ourth grade is a year where students gain independence and become self-reliant learners as they pair the tools acquired during the primary grades with skills needed to successfully complete the upper grades. Students learn to question, research, and solve problems both as individuals and members of a cooperative group. The focus is on the class as a community of learners where each individual achievement contributes to the class as a whole. A primary objective is to develop a commitment to producing high quality work—careful, thoughtful, and complete.
In social studies, students work in a team of four to examine evidence about the Lost Colony of Roanoke, an unsolved historical mystery. Students must investigate the established theories of the colonists’ disappearance by examining maps, diary entries, a medical autopsy report, a tree ring analysis, artifacts, primary sources, and detailed summaries of physical evidence left behind to determine which one they believe is most plausible. The unit culminates in students writing an opinion essay about which historical theory they believe to be true by using three pieces of evidence to support their perspective.
Find Joy in the Pursuit
To better understand the American Revolution and what British actions angered the colonists in the 1700s, students participate in a lively history simulation in which they adopt a colonial identity to become a loyalist, neutralist, or patriot. Taking on this new identity, which includes an occupation with a salary, each colonist experiences the repercussions of the Stamp Act, Tea Act, Boston Tea Party, and the Intolerable Acts. Students feel the struggle of “taxation without representation” while participating in two Continental Congresses. Students create and perform lively debates from a loyalist, patriot, or neutralist perspective to decide how to respond to the taxes. The unit culminates with students reading and analyzing the Declaration of Independence document and then participating in an escape room, where they work in teams to solve seven puzzles, crack codes, and try to escape King George’s tyranny.
Value Your Voice
Over the course of the second semester, fifth graders are introduced to a variety of poetry by famous authors. In reading the novel, Love that Dog, in which the main character, Jack, discovers his unique voice and becomes a poet himself, students follow Jack’s journey and write their own poems inspired by famous poets. Students share these poems weekly with classmates to showcase their inventive uses of the poetic devices such as rhyme, rhythm, repetition, imagery, and onomatopoeia. Through narrative, concrete, and free verse poems, they establish their own voice along the way. As the year comes to a close, fifth graders recite a favorite poem to the entire school as an end of year culmination and rite of passage as they matriculate to Upper School.
Cultivate Kindness
In the novel Seedfolks, students learn that if they work together, and also respect and appreciate each other’s differences, rich relationships can grow. This novel is a perfect jumping off point to practice how fifth graders can be a positive part of the Crane community. In morning meetings, students determine what steps they can take to make the classroom a better place. They practice active listening, positive sharing, and constructive feedback. They take turns tending our class garden and find opportunities to help out around campus or in the larger Santa Barbara community. Upon completing the novel, students take a field trip to the Carpinteria Community Gardens. Our Crane garden coordinator speaks to students about the garden and the community of people with plots. Students explore the gardens, sketch their favorite plots, and write letters of appreciation to the plot owners.
Put We Before Me
Fifth grade has the unique opportunity to participate in coed team sports. Students of all ability levels come together on the field to play soccer, basketball, volleyball, and flag football. These teams allow classmates to connect outside the academic classroom. Students encourage one another to do their best, teach each other new skills, and allow those who have never played sports a safe space to try something new. Teamwork is a vital life skill and students learn to work together to discover what good sportsmanship looks like. These teams often boost class morale and provide a positive shared experience that includes updates in morning meetings and weekly announcements in Assembly.
F
ifth grade is a year of transition as students gain the skills and habits necessary to be successful as they matriculate from the Lower School into the Upper School for their middle school years. During the fifth-grade year, in addition to learning the content of the year’s instruction, students make great strides in managing their homework assignments, managing their time on multi-day and multi-week projects, and on becoming independent learners and problem solvers. In short, students learn to play a bigger role in being in charge of their own learning.
Lower School Program
The Lower School curriculum includes the following subjects and is thoughtfully adapted at each grade level to build upon the prior year's learning for optimal growth and continuity.
Crane’s language arts curriculum is designed to foster a love for reading, writing, and effective communication in our young students. Through a comprehensive approach, we aim to develop foundational skills in literacy while nurturing each child’s creativity and critical thinking abilities. Our curriculum encompasses various components such as phonics, vocabulary building, grammar, and comprehension, which are taught through engaging activities, interactive discussions, and hands-on projects. We emphasize the importance of reading, both independently and collaboratively, and provide a rich selection of age-appropriate literature to inspire and expand their imaginations. Our writing instruction focuses on developing students' ability to express their thoughts coherently and effectively, encouraging them to explore different genres and refine their writing skills. By fostering a strong language arts foundation, we aim to empower our Lower School students to become confident, expressive communicators and lifelong learners.
The social studies in Lower School is designed to introduce young learners to fundamental concepts and themes in history, geography, civics, and culture. It aims to foster a sense of curiosity and understanding about the world around them, encouraging students to explore different cultures, societies, and historical events. Students actively engage in hands-on, experiential learning experiences and projects that promote critical thinking skills. Concepts often address real life issues in which students develop a broader perspective and gain an appreciation for diversity and global interconnectedness.
The mathematics curriculum is carefully designed to meet the developmental needs of students at each grade level, considering cognitive abilities and learning styles. The curriculum includes a variety of instructional strategies and resources to cater to diverse learning needs and aims to instill a deep understanding of mathematical concepts and skills while fostering a joy in learning mathematics. Content is relevant and progresses in a logical and sequential manner, gradually introducing new topics and building upon prior knowledge. Our goal is to nurture our students to be confident and successful mathematicians who love mathematical thinking and problem solving.
Lower school students use science to comprehend the natural world through observation and investigation across the physical, earth, and life sciences. The curriculum is thoughtfully designed to align with their developmental stages and innate curiosity. It emphasizes both science skills and fundamental concepts, progressively building upon knowledge from kindergarten through fifth grade to establish a strong foundation for future exploration. Similar to the design & engineering curriculum, the science curriculum uses the engineering design process to creatively solve real-world problems.
With an unwavering dedication to experiential learning, Crane ensures that every student in the Lower School has the opportunity to engage with the Design & Engineering Center. Design & Engineering is more than just building and making in the Lower School. Students learn about problem-solving, the benefits of iteration, collaboration, and resilience, through an emphasis on the engineering design process. Our state-of-the-art maker space seamlessly blends the use of traditional, low-fi tools with cutting-edge, high-tech machinery of the 21st Century. As a result, the learning experiences within our maker space, not only amplify, but also enrich and enhance the educational journey encountered in the homeroom classroom and other academic disciplines.
Crane students not only engage, but truly thrive in the performing arts, including singing, acting, and dancing. They participate in a wide range of activities, from physical and vocal techniques to refining dramatic and comic timing through monologues and small group scripts, as well as improvisational exercises that enhance intuition and mental acuity. Along the way, they gain valuable insights and skills in directing and set/costume design, developing a holistic understanding of theatrical production. In the realm of music, students focus on pattern recognition, pitch matching, and nurturing healthy singing voices. They also explore percussion and choreography techniques, expanding their musical repertoire. Crane offers a plethora of opportunities for students to showcase their talents, such as the Lower School Winter Sing, Friday Assembly Spotlights, and grade-level plays and recitations. These events not only allow students to demonstrate their abilities, but also help them strengthen their public speaking skills, fostering a confident and expressive learning environment.
The goal of the Lower School studio art program is to give young artists the skills and tools they need to develop and express their great ideas with confidence. Creative challenges are designed to build and strengthen fine motor skills, keen observation skills, critical thinking skills, and problem solving skills. Artists work in a variety of media including watercolor, acrylic paint, clay, paper mache, pastel, collage, recycled material and more! Throughout the year, interdisciplinary projects will also be included to help students build bridges between subjects and to express their learning in experiential ways.
Spanish lessons incorporate the five C’s—communication, cultures, connections, comparison, and communities of the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL). The curriculum is activity/project-based, depending on the grade, and includes technology, music, dancing, singing, and games. The curriculum is differentiated, challenging, and when possible, authentically connected to other academic areas to achieve a deeper understanding. The content is designed to allow students to practice oral, listening, reading, and writing skills, as well as to develop an appreciation and understanding of Spanish-speaking cultures and their people.
Physical education in Lower School is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of developmental and fundamental movement skills that align with their age group. The curriculum fosters a positive and encouraging environment where active participation and a willingness to embrace new challenges are strongly encouraged. Alongside skill development, the program emphasizes the importance of cultivating healthy lifestyles and nurturing good sportsmanship among students. In fifth grade, students are provided an exciting opportunity to participate in a co-ed school sports program, featuring a variety of team sports such as soccer, basketball, volleyball, and flag football. This program not only promotes physical fitness but also cultivates teamwork, cooperation, and a sense of camaraderie among the students.
The library curriculum fosters and promotes a lifelong love of reading. In the earlier years, students are introduced to the library and learn to be responsible for the care and return of books. As students become more independent, they practice the skills of researching and reporting using both digital and print materials and also engage in digital citizenship lessons.
In keeping with Crane’s values - Cultivate Kindness and Value Your Voice - social-emotional learning (SEL) is integrated throughout all aspects of students’ Lower School experience. Each day begins with Morning Meeting to build a strong sense of classroom community. Informed by the CASEL framework, students engage in exploration of self-awareness, self- management, responsible decision making, relationship skills and social awareness of others and their uniqueness. Whether within a classroom lesson or teacher-student relationship, SEL is an essential component for building the foundational skills that catalyze students’ academic and social growth. As students become more skilled, they learn to advocate for themselves and others while examining social dynamics through role playing, problem solving, and discussion.
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![Student wearing a hat and sunglasses holding an instrument]([{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_1/v1687524238/craneschoolorg/bezs2zusgjcptrpfisk7/4thGradeCurriculum1.png","width":256},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_2/v1687524238/craneschoolorg/bezs2zusgjcptrpfisk7/4thGradeCurriculum1.png","width":512},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_3/v1687524238/craneschoolorg/bezs2zusgjcptrpfisk7/4thGradeCurriculum1.png","width":800},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto/v1687524238/craneschoolorg/bezs2zusgjcptrpfisk7/4thGradeCurriculum1.png","width":1080}])
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