Experience a Day at Mountain Oak
Kindergarten | 1st grade | 2nd grade | 3rd grade | 4th grade | 5th and 6th grade | 7th grade | 8th grade
A Day in the Life of Kindergarten
Every day begins with a short brisk walk around the block. The children talk, laugh, sing and arrive back at the Kindergarten with red rosy cheeks. Once inside the classroom, we gather together for a brief greeting time and a few lively songs and finger-plays. It is then time for our planned activity of the day: Mondays we paint, Tuesdays we model with beeswax, Wednesdays we make bread and soup, Thursdays we draw with our beeswax crayons, and Fridays we clean and tidy our room.
When the children have finished their daily planned activity, they are then free to play. The room is equipped with many beautiful natural toys and objects that are used for all kinds of imaginative play. In one corner the children might set up a restaurant, in another area several children might construct an airplane from wooden planks. There is no limit to the children's imaginations.Through this play, the children act out the world around them.
After about 45 minutes of creative play-time, we all work together to make our room tidy again. We then wash our hands, sit down at the table, light a candle, say a verse and eat our snack. The children participate in preparing our snack and setting our table. After snack we gather together again for a circle time of seasonal songs, verses, and rhythmic movement. We sing good morning to the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees. The children form a relationship with the world of nature through this activity.
It is then time to go outside to play in the yard. The children dig in the sand, climb, swing, work in the garden, play games, and look for bugs. After about 45 minutes outside, we go inside again and gather together for story-time. A candle is lit and a song is sung that takes us to the land of the fairytale. Fairytales are chosen for the season and to meet the needs of the group of children. After the tale is told we sing goodbye to our friends, and the children join their parents for the journey home.
A Day in the Life of 1st Grade
A Day in the Life of 2nd Grade
Our day begins as the bell rings, and the children line up to enter the classroom. As they enter, I shake each student’s hand and make eye contact with a good morning greeting. After each student enters the room, they quietly go to their desk to find some "bell work," a short project to work on that is related to our topic of study. As the students work, I take care of matters such as roll, collect permission slips, help a child choose an evening reader, choose morning helpers and other morning activities.
With the sound of the harp, the students put their work away and stand behind their desks to begin our morning circle time. A "good morning" song is followed by the morning verse, recited around the world, followed by another song, which includes stretching and movement. A verse of galloping, hopping, skipping and tip-toeing leads us to the back of the room, where we form into a circle for approximately twenty minutes of verses combined with movement, mathematical rhythms, dancing and singing. The students then return to their desks while singing a seasonal song. A daily helper marks our calender and leads us in a daily counting exercise. Out from beneath the desks, with a jingle, emerge the students’ banks, which we add money to daily and count our savings. As the students put away their banks, I begin to count a pattern which the children must figure out, then they join in the counting. After all the students have joined us, we engage in a variety of mental math activities.
The main lesson begins with something new. At this time, we are working on telling time and receiving an introduction to borrowing. The new lesson is very short, from two to ten minutes so as not to fluster the children and allow them time to ponder on it throughout the day and the night. After the new lesson, we practice lessons learned from previous days. This practice is rich with hands-on activities and movement. After practicing for at least one day, and often more, the students enter this work into their Main Lesson Books. The students enter their work very carefully, and the finished books offer beautiful glimpses of all that we have been learning in our main lessons. Before or after this time, the students will retell a story from the day before. This story may be told by different students, acted out or artistically re-created. The entire lesson is concluded by retelling a story, adding onto a story or telling a new story. A new story often is concluded with the unveiling of a new picture on the chalkboard, which has been sheltered behind a cloth, to be reveled to the students at the very end of the lesson.
After we have washed our hands, we gather at the large table at the back of the room and eat snack as a family. Snack is followed by recess. Activities after snack recess follow a weekly pattern. They each last about forty-five minutes and throughout the week they include: academic skill development, flutes, reading groups, Spanish, sewing and painting. Lunch and lunch-recess are followed by a quiet time of drawing while I read to the class for about fifteen minutes. The afternoon classes, which also change throughout the week, include: form drawing, games, knitting, flutes, beeswax sculpturing, walks to the library and time for inside free play.
Throughout the year, we attend a variety of concerts and plays at the Yavapai College Performance Hall and the Prescott Fine Arts Association theater, both of which are within an enjoyable walk from our school. Our class also has adopted the local "Meals on Wheels" lunch program, and we present a program of music and poetry to its participants once or twice a year. After our performance, we all eat lunch together. At this time, there are twelve students in our class. We would love to expand our class size and make new friends!
A Day in the Life of 3rd Grade
A Day in the Life of 4th Grade
A Day in the Life of 5th and 6th Grade
The morning begins with a friendly handshake greeting at the door between myself and each student. Students often share news of an event or experience, or I will comment on a new hairstyle or outfit. Our main lesson begins with a morning verse, where students recite the importance and the love for life and learning. The main lesson time consists of physical movement, music or singing, and mental math practice. Physical movement activities may consist of jump-roping to the multiplication tables, a physical fitness exercise period or a short walk to the park and back. Once students have been ‘awakened’ with these physical activities, we then engage in singing or playing music on our diatonic flutes.
The latter portion of the main lesson time consists of reviewing the previous day’s lesson, presenting the new lesson, and working on independent or group activity. Students practice English and math skills daily after morning snack and recess, then they travel into a foreign land during Spanish class. We spend our afternoons focusing on developing our artistic and creative sides. On Mondays, students create water-color paintings. On Tuesdays, they work on making stuffed-felt animals. On Thursdays, students participate in a games class, where they strengthen their physical fitness levels and sportsmanship. On Fridays, students create drawings or projects associated with the current month’s block-theme. Thus, the day ends as it began, with a friendly handshake at the door between myself and each student.
A Day in the Life of 7th Grade
A Day in the Life of 8th Grade
124 N. Virginia Street | Prescott, AZ 86301 | 928-541-7700
Email us at info@mountainoakschool.org | webmaster email kubera@cableone.net
© 2008 Mountain Oak School
We are a publicly funded school that is non-sectarian and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin in the administration of its admissions or educational policies. Special education services available.