Lower School Experience
Learning Environment
Our kinesthetic classrooms promote individual and social development through multi-layered learning spaces designed to move, discover, collaborate and reflect.
Expeditionary Learning
Designed to support a variety of curriculum content our expeditionary learning provides students an opportunity to apply, extend, and enrich their learning within the world.
Financial Literacy
Learning about finances prepares each student to make informed and effective decisions in life through an extraordinary project-based curriculum that develops each student’s skills and knowledge in the areas of Economics, Entrepreneurship, and personal finance.
X-Factors
- Project Based Learning
- Technology Based Curriculum
- Cross discipline approach
- Debate skills
- Living Museum-cross discipline/multi grade project
- 21st century skills
- Integration with the Aspen Entrepreneurial Institute
SCHEDULE
Your best day starts here. High-fives and joyful smiles greet students each day by a trail of teachers, administrators and staff. We are a connected community and the lens with which we begin our day profoundly impacts the success of our students.
8:15 Arrival - Each student is greeted by a warm and friendly teacher as they check in and demonstrate the responsibility of classroom routines for success. As each young learner settles into morning activities they anticipate the arrival of friends. Community is further developed as children gather in a morning circle of sharing, learning and leaning on others as we develop understanding, compassion, and kindness together.
Leadership - Aspen Academy students begin each day with 30 minutes devoted to our nationally recognized character and leadership program. Each of the "Seven Habits for Successful People" is highlighted and integrated throughout the daily lives of Aspen students. Character and Leadership at Aspen Academy is not only learning the fundamentals of character and leadership, it is living and acting with intention, so that character and leadership becomes a natural expression of who we are as human beings.
Financial Literacy - Aspen Academy invests in our student’s futures. Through our Financial Literacy Program we prepare out students for the world in which they live and set their sights on the futures they want to have. Money Mondays and Finance Fridays are the hallmark of our Financial Literacy Program featuring weekly 30 minute Economics, Personal Finance, Organizational Leadership and Management, Entrepreneurial lessons. In addition to the development of these skills and the mentorship of teachers, students apply financial concepts in mini-classroom economies and create student-led business developments each year.
Language Arts - Language Arts instruction is a skill for life; not school. Our interdisciplinary approach charges all content areas to be teachers of literacy as it is necessary for the depth of student success in all aspects of learning. Our students see themselves as authors, orators, and captains of creative expression.
Social Studies - During the elementary years, children begin to understand the world in which they live and the various peoples who inhabit it. Throughout each year, cultural traditions, history, celebrations, and stories are integrated into the curriculum. As children develop respect for themselves and others, they acquire an understanding of and appreciation for cultural differences and are thereby able to live more productively in a multicultural society.
Lunch - Children head to the cafeteria to enjoy either a home-packed lunch or a hot lunch provided by our catering company Wholesome Tummies.
Recess provides an essential opportunity to play, practice social/emotional skills and demonstrate leadership on the playground.
Essentials - Lower School students move through a rotation of Fitness and Dance, Music, Theatre, Visual Art and World Language.
Science - Our Lower School teachers work with our students to explore and discover the world around them by creating hypotheses, testing them through experimentation and observation, and drawing conclusions through analysis.
Singapore Math - Concepts are taught using concrete materials alongside corresponding algorithms. Pictorial representations provide visual images for computation and the use of manipulative materials helps children to bridge the gap between the concrete and abstract. Singapore Mathematics is used as our foundational level curriculum. After being immersed and then graduating from this program, students are typically performing two to three grade levels ahead of the standard American student.
3:20 Dismissal