Hours: 8:15am - 3:15pm

2008-2009 Annual Tuition: $14,965

The fifth grade children have enhanced their recent gains in consciousness, and grown more accustomed to being isolated individuals, seeing the world in a new perspective. Yet, like the third graders, they are about to leave another phase of childhood behind them, and cross a new threshold of experience. The curriculum must, therefore, not only continue to build on already established foundations, but introduce certain new elements to prepare them for the next step forward.

History has had until now only a pictorial and personal nature, and no attempt has been made to introduce exact temporal concepts or to proceed in strict sequences. Now, however, history becomes a special main lesson subject, as does geography. History, telling of humanity's deeds and strivings, stirs the child to a more intense experience of their own humanness. Geography does exactly the opposite; it leads them away from themselves, out into ever-wider spaces from the familiar to the unfamiliar. History brings the children to themselves; geography brings the children into the world.

Ancient history in the fifth grade starts with the childhood of civilized humanity in ancient India, where people were dreamers. The ancient Persian culture, which followed the Indian, felt the impulse to transform the earth, till the soil, and domesticate animals while helping the sun god conquer the spirits of darkness.

The great cultures of Mesopotamia, (the Chaldeans, the Hebrews, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians), reveal the origins of written language on clay tablets. The Egyptian civilizations of pyramids and pharaohs precede the civilization of the Greeks with whom ancient history ends.

Every means is used to give the children a vivid impression of these five ancient cultures. They read translations of poetry, study hieroglyphic symbols of the Egyptians, sample arts and crafts of the various ancient peoples, trying their hands at similar creations. History is here an education of the children's feelings rather than of their memory for facts and figures, for it requires inner mobility to enter sympathetically into these ancient states of being so different from our own.

A study of American geography emphasizes contrast. Every consideration of the earth's physical features is linked with a study of the way human life has been lived in the region: the human uses made of natural resources, industry and produce. As a continuation of their study of the living earth, the fifth graders begin a study of botany, the plant world. After discovering some of the secrets of the plant life found in their own environment, the children's attention is drawn to vegetation in other parts of the world.

Fractions and decimals continue to be the chief concern of arithmetic study in the fifth grade. Regular choral singing is practiced in the fourth and fifth grades with the C-recorder flute used in relation to the main lesson. Children continue studying stringed instruments in the fifth grade.

Woodworking begins and Handwork returns in this grade. The children begin with carving a mallet to be used for subsequent projects. Knitting involves using four needles as the students create socks or mittens.

Eurythmy, Spanish, German, painting, and physical education also continue.

Curriculum: Greek myths, ancient civilizations through Greek times; American geography related to vegetation, agriculture and economics; composition, grammar, spelling, reading; arithmetic, decimals, ratio and proportion; botany.