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The academic program at the River School reflects the social, emotional, and cognitive needs of our students. We believe that each child possesses special talents. Therefore, we offer a wide variety of learning experiences to discover and develop these unique gifts.  Small class size enables teachers to focus on each child as a very special individual. We view the learning process as a cooperative endeavor involving faculty, students, and families in an enthusiastic pursuit of education.

                LANGUAGE ARTS

The primary goal of our language arts program is to instill a life-long love of reading and writing. To accomplish this, early literacy skills are introduced through a combination of explicit phonics instruction, activities to develop phonological awareness, creative writing, and exposure to rich, high quality children’s literature. Each day blocks of time are dedicated to writing, self-selected reading, guided reading, and letter/word work. Parents are a vital part of our literacy curriculum by reading daily to their children. Language Arts is integrated across the content areas, as each letter in our letter-of-the-week sequence has a “nature buddy.”

                SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES

Young children are intensely curious about the world around them. They ask endless questions. Through Hurt No Living Thing—our cross-curricular environmental program—we aim to raise the children’s awareness of self and the world around them.  Students enthusiastically practice observation, prediction, data collection, and experimentation with age-appropriate activities revolving around seasonal changes, traditions, culture, and local history. Field trips through out the year broaden and enrich Hurt No Living Thing units of study.

                MATHEMATICS

Math is life! The months, the days of the week, money, time, measurement are all part of the math experience. Like Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies, Math is integrated through out the subject areas. In individual, small group, and class-wide activities, the children are given the opportunity to bring math alive.  Once again Hurt No Living Thing—our environmental program—enables the children to put their math skills into practical use. We use take the snow’s temperature. We measure wiggly worms. We graph the growth of plants.

Directions

85 Marion Street,   Nyack, NY 10960   *   845-358-9209