Beyond the Classroom

K-8 Learning That Extends Beyond The Classroom

From the first days of school, the Kindergarten experience extends from the classroom into the surrounding wooded playground. Through teacher supervision and support, young children explore their classroom’s natural surroundings. An important part of this exploration involves working and playing with others. Children learn ways to include others in their play as well as develop beginning strategies for conflict resolution. As children grow in their lower school experience, their explorations extend beyond the playground and into the local community. Frequent local school trips introduce, broaden or reinforce various areas of the curriculum.

Once children enter the middle school, the idea of stewardship toward the environment and each other becomes increasingly more important. On the playground, children are encouraged to be inclusive in their play and to talk through differences of opinions or game rules that may arise. Through working in and caring for class gardens to an overnight experience at the Pocono Environmental Education Center (PEEC), children continue to learn to appreciate the beauty of the natural world and the complex relationship that exists between people and nature.

Upper school children travel beyond their immediate environment for numerous day field trips, overnight camping and canoeing trips, and class trips to Washington D.C., Colonial Williamsburg, and the Marine Science Consortium in Wallops Island, Virginia. Additionally, upper school children have a deepened intellectual curiosity and ethical posture that readies them for a variety of international travel opportunities. Through the school’s Joint Environmental Mission (JEM) program, children have the opportunity to serve as hosts or ambassadors to partner schools in Russia, India, China, Ecuador, Hawaii, and Australia. Children also have opportunities to enrich their in-school foreign language acquisition through travel to France and Spain.