Hours: 8:15am - 3:15pm

2008-2009 Annual Tuition: $14,965

To understand the fourth grade curriculum and why it is so suited to the nine and ten year old, one must first look back to the preceding years of schooling, especially the curriculum of the third grade. There, the children who until now have lived in a certain harmonious relationship to the world, were cast out of Paradise. They were no longer allowed to dwell in the fairytale realm of the first grade or even to fluctuate back and forth between heaven and earth as in second grade when the stories of saints and fables were told to accompany this duality. They have arrived! Now, how are they going to survive?

Just as the people of the Old Testament challenged and were challenged by their Father God as they learned to survive, make shelters, and work the land, so did the third graders challenge their authority as they took up the studies of farming, housing, measurement, and a deepening of those survival skills, along with reading, writing and arithmetic. All along, stories of the great men and women of the Hebrew nation were told. There was a feeling of ultimate wisdom and justice; a blanket of trust still could be wrapped around the third grader; there was a reason to all the madness.

Now, in the fourth grade, that blanket has been tossed aside, and the child feels very separate from any of the security and comforts that previously were supportive. This is a time to look around and see how one stands in relationship to that which is near, and to find security and uprightness through that relationship. The number four is a sign of stability, strength and balance: the four winds, the four seasons, the four elements. Therein lies a sense of steadiness and completion. It is this sense of four in the midst of separateness and defiance that is at the very heart of the fourth grade curriculum.

The fourth grader is at odds with the world. Questions take on a personal twist: "How do you know?" There is an earnestness stemming from a new awareness of just what they are up against in the world. Therefore, every possible opportunity is given to meet these oppositions in quite unexpected ways, ways in which the child can have the experience of crossing, and at the same time be led towards, a wholesome resolution. In handwork, original designs are made that produce a colorful design executed in tiny cross-stitches. The result is a beautiful wholeness from many little crossings.

The fourth grader is given a stringed instrument, something delicate and yet powerful that will not answer endless questions nor oblige shortcuts to success. A new instrument, as separate as anything could be! The music is the bridge, and this is a combined effort. Celtic knots in form drawings are challenging tangles of skill and beauty. The feeling of separateness comes in handy here, otherwise one might get lost in the maze.

The theme of separateness is further reflected in the curriculum with the study of fractions. They are introduced with concrete objects to demonstrate truths before forming mental concepts.

Geography, local history, Norse mythology, grammar, composition writing, and a comparative study of the human being and animals are also introduced. In composition, simple narration of the child's own real experience begins, and work in grammar continues.

Throughout the year we hear and read stories of heroes. The hero emerges as someone to look up to, emulate, laugh at, respect. There may still be the miraculous feats, and yet the human qualities, the emotions, the struggles, and the confrontations are emphasized; the children understand more than anyone else their plight to slay the dragon, to woo the maiden, to succeed in the three tasks.

In the stories of the Kalevala, an epic myth of Finland, there is yet another kind of hero. It is the song. The world was sung into being by the mastersinger, Vainamoinen: if there is any change to be made, any duel to be fought, task to be done, there is singing. For example:

Vainamoinen began his task. It was work he loved, and he sang as he sawed and planed and hammered, songs of strength and swiftness. The boat grew as a song grows; each part of it was a word or phrase, each in a place. As an unlucky or misplaced word spoils a song, in the same way the boat would be marred.

It is written in the Talmud: "Let the lesson you study be like a song." And so we begin and end each day. In addition to our unison singing and rounds from previous years, we now add two-part songs. Now it is no longer a matter of singing the same tune at different times. The children sing the same words at the same time, yet each group of singers must hold their own part and not be swayed by the other group if the song is to work. The children's newly strengthened individuality now gives them the ability to hold their own in this part-singing as they could not have done successfully before; canons and rounds form a natural bridge to this exciting new skill. They show their first real delight in harmony, and the minor key answers a deep-felt need leading inward in self-discovery. Now, standing as individuals we try to work harmoniously together.

Curriculum: Norse mythology and sagas; composition, reading, letter writing, grammar; form drawing; local geography and map making; California history; study of the animal kingdom; fractions and decimals.