K-5 Academics
Gateway’s elementary program is a nurturing and supportive environment in which children are encouraged to take risks, to ask questions, and to seek answers as they are cultivating intellectual curiosity.
Language Arts
The communication skills – reading, writing, speaking, and listening – are essential tools for further learning, and crucial life skills for children. Through Gateway’s literature-based reading program, the students discover a love for books and develop the ability to interpret literature and to appreciate language. Writing and thinking go hand in hand, and writing skills are taught across the curriculum, helping the students become stronger writers as well as stronger historians, scientists, and mathematicians. Oral language development is also integrated in all subjects from the earliest grades, with strong emphasis on collaborative learning and public speaking.
Mathematics
Mathematics is more meaningful when it draws on real life situations, giving children the opportunity to become actively involved in learning. Children are capable of learning a great deal more than previously accepted. The Everyday Mathematics curriculum includes the following strands: algebra and the use of variables, data and chance, geometry and spatial sense, measures and measurement, numeration and order, patterns and functions, operations and reference frames. The curriculum spirals through the year, providing multiple exposures to topics and frequent opportunities to review and practice skills.
Science
Gateway’s science program fosters children’s natural curiosity about the world around them, utilizing the rich natural environments surrounding the school – the ocean, the garden, and Lighthouse Field – as the laboratory to learn principles of earth, life, and physical sciences. The K-5 program weaves together the MARE (Marine Activities, Resources & Education) program with our award-winning Life Lab program. Through an integrated, inquiry-based approach, students learn to use scientific method, open inquiry, and analytical thinking skills as they become familiar with the language and philosophy of science.
Social Studies
Gateway encourages the study of cultures and influences that affect students’ lives. Students gain a sense of their place in the world by understanding that the nation is composed of people whose origins span the globe. The program encourages understanding and respect for different cultures and ways of life, empathy for one’s neighbors, and an understanding of one’s own relationship to the global community. Discussion, debate, dialogue, and self-discovery are cultivated, and combined with field trips and projects to enhance the classroom material.
Exit Goals
Click here to learn more about Gateway School's Exit Goals.
