Middle School Program

Our Middle School provides a collaborative learning environment that encourages deep and critical thinking about subjects and the relationships between them. Our strong academic program ensures that students are fully prepared for high school.  Our classrooms foster passion and discovery, encouraging students to become curious, creative, and ethical global citizens.

Language Arts

The middle school language arts program includes core studies in writing, reading, listening, speaking and vocabulary development. We choose reading selections to coordinate with our social studies and history programs so that they are meaningful beyond the language arts classroom. The English program incorporates project based learning with individual reading and writing assignments.

The pedagogy employed in the middle school includes, but is not limited to, teacher and student-created lessons and assessments; individual, small and whole class cooperative learning groups; directed instruction, lecturing and open learning opportunities. Significantly, the English program draws upon key attributes of explaining, demonstrating and collaborating.

The writing program includes experiences in narrative, expository, persuasive and descriptive forms. There is also weekly instruction in writing mechanics.  Additionally, students learn and practice writing skills using an online program which provides immediate feedback on six dimensions of writing.  Students are then given practice opportunities and information for improvement before re-writing to increase their scores.  This program is used in the classroom and at home.

The middle school reading program includes experiences in novel studies, anthologies, poetry, read-alouds, classic and contemporary literature, magazines, newspapers and online literature.

Instruction in the middle school is a continuation of the philosophy in our elementary classrooms, where the identification of individual learning styles and experiences with the understanding that each child is unique is the cornerstone of a TCS education.

Math

The Country School has implemented the Holt Math program for the middle school. Our mathematics program for sixth grade, pre-algebra for seventh grade, and algebra 1 for eighth grade provide the instruction and resources students need to succeed.

Science

The middle school science curriculum goes beyond textbooks to explore LEGO robotic vehicles, the iPhone accelerometer, potato cannons, musical instruments such as the class theater organ and student-initiated explorations. These kinds of apparatus convey the excitement of science – and our program respects the natural desire of middle school students to explore, take things apart and “see what’s inside.”

We take excellent advantage of technology resources, including our SmartBoards, while at the same time, ten feet from the classroom door is a circulating brook and pond, with small wetlands creatures and the excitement of sometimes getting wet!

Humanities

Using the Glencoe California Series textbooks as organizing principles, the classes move chronologically through world history, from the earliest evidence of mankind to the current day.  With role-playing exercises, we emphasize historical empathy and give the students opportunities to imagine the world from numerous cultural perspectives. The program is built to develop an awareness of our culture in context and the understanding that every civilization is, at least in part, a product of its time and geographic perspective.

Spanish Program

The Country School’s Spanish language program is implemented in the middle school with two major objectives. The first is to teach comprehension of Spanish through practice in reading and translation. The second is to develop, through these readings and translations, students’ understanding of the social history and culture of the people of the Americas. By integrating culture with the grammatical development of a language, our program teaches not only the skills of reading, translating and comprehension, but also an understanding of our multicultural world.

Students’ studies of vocabulary, grammar, syntax and cultural context in Spanish are arranged in a systematic way to provide them with the skills needed to read and translate with comprehension and enjoyment.

Teachers use strategies of speaking, listening and writing. The first teaching strategy is to have the students speak the target language by reading aloud small passages.  Students then learn by listening to Spanish spoken aloud by the teacher and/or other students.  Finally, students write meaningful phrases and sentences in the acquired language, based on patterns they have seen in their textbooks.  This variety of teaching strategies actively engages our students and accommodates a variety of learning styles so that all students may succeed.

Students demonstrate their understanding of Latin-American culture and the effects it has in their own language and culture.  In addition, students research aspects of historical events and connections with their social studies teacher. Research projects integrate book learning with technology, in class and in the school’s library. In this way, students expand their knowledge of other disciplines including history, government, economics, geography, law, art and architecture.

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