​The Elementary program at Stanbridge is comprised of kindergarten through sixth grade, subdivided into three separate grade divisions: Lower El (K–1), Middle El (2–3), and Upper El (4–5). This unique configuration allows teachers to offer academic instruction to match each learner’s ability level, as well as providing the necessary repetition of learned concepts. The emphasis on executive functioning teaches students the necessary skills to focus, plan, and organize. The Social Learning curriculum promotes the development of critical thinking and proficiency with social communication. Our Elementary staff is dedicated to making school a positive, joyful place of learning for young students. 
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Scroll down for more information on each Elementary division 

Lower Elementary (K–1)

​Lower Elementary students learn to be a member of a classroom community and learn to view school as a joyful place. In addition to early academics, emphasis is placed on pre-academic skills such as sharing, turn-taking, cooperation, and meaningful participation in classroom activities. Students are guided to notice, and then regulate, their emotional state through the use of strategies that engage their sensory systems and encourage focus.

Students develop executive functioning skills as they learn to persist through challenging tasks, keep track of their materials, and understand their daily and weekly schedules. Activities throughout the day are rich with language and designed to build the communicative competence of each student. Experiential day trips reinforce concepts from the classroom curriculum while also building each student’s self-confidence, promoting exploration, and expanding imagination. 

​We maintain an especially small class size in Lower Elementary in order to address academic instruction in a way that matches each learner’s level of skill development. Lower Elementary students learn to:
  • Comprehend written text through systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, and vocabulary;
  • Communicate in writing through handwriting practice, dictation, and direct writing instruction;
  • Solve math problems involving patterns, counting, comparisons, number recognition, spatial ordering, addition and subtraction, time, and money;
  • Understand the world through projects in science and social studies; 
  • Maintain physical fitness, participate in competitive games, develop gross motor skills, and play sports during daily physical education.
Lower Elementary students also participate in weekly visual arts, music, social learning, and digital citizenship classes.

Middle Elementary (2–3)

In Middle Elementary students learn to be critical thinkers, effective communicators, and responsible citizens. Students are guided to develop their capacity for self-regulation as they come to recognize their own emotional states and learn strategies to stay in the optimal state for learning. Executive functioning skills are developed through long-term projects,  field trips, and activities designed to help students keep track of time and manage their materials. Social learning is embedded throughout the curriculum and addressed directly in weekly sessions. Students learn what it takes to be a good friend, understand another person’s perspective, and how to be an engaged member of a group.

Standards-based academic instruction forms the core of the daily schedule and is differentiated according to the needs of the individuals in the group. Middle Elementary students learn to:
  • Decode and spell age appropriate words;
  • Read and understand a variety of fiction and nonfiction text formats;
  • Write narrative stories and expository essays;
  • Solve math problems involving the four operations, quantitative reasoning, spatial ordering and geometry, fractions, and algebraic thinking;
  • Understand the history and geography of California;
  • Understand the impact humans have on the Earth, the structure of living organisms, the principles underlying the Earth’s geography, and test theories and hypotheses through the scientific method; 
  • Maintain physical fitness, participate in competitive games, develop gross motor skills, and play sports during daily physical education.
Middle Elementary students also participate in weekly visual arts, music, social learning, and digital citizenship classes.

Upper Elementary (4–5)

Upper Elementary at Stanbridge consists of fourth and fifth grades. A self-contained classroom setting has proven to be the most fitting environment for this particular maturity level, both emotionally and physically. Students are expected to be able to regulate their physical and emotional reactions to challenges and triumphs. They learn appropriate and expected social behaviors and consequently are able to enjoy successful peer relationships and recover quickly from setbacks. Upper Elementary students also develop executive functioning skills in order to prioritize the habits and patterns that lead to an orderly environment and an effective, restful state of mind. These skills range from keeping an orderly homework folder to prioritizing items on a weekly to-do list.  Access to our renovated Elementary & Middle School science lab and campus garden classroom allows for hands-on, interactive lessons, while long-term class projects and overnight experiential trips help connect curriculum, build social skills, and develop executive functions.

Standards-based academic instruction forms the core of the Upper Elementary schedule and is differentiated according to the needs of the group. Upper Elementary students learn to:
  • Read critically in order to ascertain the main idea of a fiction text and the purpose of a nonfiction text;
  • Write coherent essays that establish a main idea and supporting details;
  • Interpret and solve numerical expressions using four mathematical operations, understand and compute with fractions and decimals, graph points on a coordinate plane to solve real-world mathematical problems, and use algebraic reasoning to solve problems;
  • Understand the history and geography of the United States of America;
  • Understand the biology of living organisms and use the scientific method to test theories and hypotheses; 
  • Maintain physical fitness, participate in competitive games, develop gross motor skills, and play sports during daily physical education.
Upper Elementary students also participate in weekly visual arts, music, social learning, and digital citizenship classes.