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Academics
Lower School | K-Gr.5
Kindergarten through Grade 5
Academics
Kindergarteners to fifth graders at Severn are creative, confident, and engaged young learners who are encouraged to explore purposeful play, healthy risks, and active learning.
Academics
Our goal, in every classroom and subject area, is to make learning relevant to student’s lives. Sometimes that means using technology to dig deeper into a research project, other times it calls for hands-on experimentation. Whatever the means, we want our students to connect meaningfully with the world around them, and never pass up an opportunity to learn.
Stop by our Chesapeake Campus, and you'll find kindergarteners learning arithmetic by physically acting out fact families, second graders learning about entrepreneurship by raising the capital to start a business, and fifth graders putting their engineering skills into practice as they learn about various types of bridges, build their own models and present the various support systems needed.
Our Lower School fosters a child-centered learning environment that promotes academic and social achievements for students as individuals and as cooperative members of a group. We believe that young learners have various learning styles, strengths, and areas of growth, and our instructional strategies, activities, and assignments are differentiated to include multi-sensory approaches, materials, and content. Our cross-curricular connections enable students to see how learning is connected across subject areas. Students are engaged in the processes of learning through exploration, discovery, direct instruction, guided practice, individual practice, reflection, and revision.
Stop by our Chesapeake Campus, and you'll find kindergarteners learning arithmetic by physically acting out fact families, second graders learning about entrepreneurship by raising the capital to start a business, and fifth graders putting their engineering skills into practice as they learn about various types of bridges, build their own models and present the various support systems needed.
Our Lower School fosters a child-centered learning environment that promotes academic and social achievements for students as individuals and as cooperative members of a group. We believe that young learners have various learning styles, strengths, and areas of growth, and our instructional strategies, activities, and assignments are differentiated to include multi-sensory approaches, materials, and content. Our cross-curricular connections enable students to see how learning is connected across subject areas. Students are engaged in the processes of learning through exploration, discovery, direct instruction, guided practice, individual practice, reflection, and revision.
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Language Arts
Severn’s comprehensive, integrative Language Arts curriculum prepares students to be life-long readers, writers and thinkers. We focus on a variety of genres from literature and nonfiction to poems and plays. Our curriculum connects subject areas from math to language arts to social studies to science.Read More -
Math
Read MoreAt Severn, the goal of our Lower School math program is to develop creative, flexible and strategic thinkers and communicators who can apply skills to solve a variety of mathematical problems. Through investigations and hands-on experiences, students will be able to make connections between what they are learning and the world around them. -
Science
Become a scientist, inventor, and engineer at the Lower School! We believe in providing experiences that ignites curiosity and encourages exploration that lead students to amazing moments of discovery and learning. Science is a process that engages students to explore, hypothesize, design, test, modify, reflect, iterate, and draw conclusions. Students become confident in taking risks through trial and error and communicating their findings as part of the learning process.Read More -
Social & Global Studies
Our global program includes five learning domains:Read More- geography
- history
- economics
- civics
- global connections
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Renaissance Program
Our Renaissance program is offered to fourth and fifth grade students as an extension of the Arts and Science programs, with selection based on student choice.
Science programming includes the full STEM offerings including:- Robotics
- Rockets
- Bridges
- Renewable Energy
- KNex Building
- Design Squad engineering challenges
- Advanced Art
- Photography & Yearbook
- Drama
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Special Subjects
Special Subject classes at Severn Lower School expand imagination, intellect, character, and creativity and are key to the academic success of our students. We have specially designated spaces to enhance your child's learning experience in art, music, performing arts, Spanish, technology, library, and physical education.Read More
Featured Programs
Programs
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Maker Movement
Children have always reveled in tinkering … taking things apart, putting things together, and exploring small and large toys, objects, and earth’s surroundings. This combination of play, joy, and discovery cultivates imagination and creativity. Tinkering is a big part of our Maker Mindset at the Lower school.
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BASC (Before and After School Care)
The school day doesn't end when classes are over. For Lower School students that need supervision before or after school, our BASC program provides a safe, supervised space to do homework, read, participate in clubs and socialize with friends.
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Character Education
Children have an innate foundation of basic goodness. We support and build upon that foundation with direct instruction to help students develop important social and emotional skills for the benefit of themselves, their peers, and the communities of which they are a part. A well-rounded student should not only be academically successful but also possess a strong, principled character. We believe that good character can be taught, and we teach it here.
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Lower School Learning Specialists
We are committed to meeting the individual needs of a diverse group of learners at Severn School. Children do best when they have a committed team of adults supporting them. Our Learning Specialists collaborate with the classroom teachers to differentiate instruction and support students within the classroom and in small group settings.
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Learning in the Digital World
Technology
We believe that technology should be used to enhance student learning, improve communication, and efficiently manage information. Teaching with technology not only prepares students with increasingly necessary life skills but also broadens and deepens student learning.
We use technology to enhance our curriculum, when and where appropriate. Our responsibility is to teach our students how to evaluate technology for its usefulness, to choose the right tool for the right job and to use technology to communicate their ideas effectively. We believe in using tech with purpose.
We use digital tech to promote collaborative learning and design thinking, to improve research skills and information literacy, to develop critical thinking skills, to encourage creativity and to individualize learning across the curriculum. Our students use different tech in different classes, learning how to be flexible and adaptable. They learn that tech for tech’s sake has little value, but as a tool to enhance their learning and ability to connect with others, technology plays a vital role in preparing for the future.
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Lower School Technology Program Overview
Our primary goal is to engage students. We are very mindful of the growing amount of technology that children have access to and the need to balance screen-based learning time with a variety of other engaging learning activities. Our Lower School teachers carefully integrate technology into classroom lessons when it aids in providing greater meaning for our students. Purposeful technology is only one of many tools in their classroom toolkits.
Our technology curriculum includes both device-specific and device-agnostic activities so our students learn how to use a variety of types of technology for a variety of purposes. Our goal is to teach the mindset needed to learn with technology rather than simply how to operate a specific program or device. Students in grades K-5 use iPads, desktop and laptop computers, and Chromebooks for direct technology instruction and to enhance learning across disciplines.
