The core of the middle school day revolves around four core curricular areas: math, science, humanities, and Spanish. Learning in these classes is typically project-based, hands-on, student-centered, and intellectually challenging. In practice, what this has looked like in recent years includes:
- Sixth grade humanities students used GarageBand loops to mix and perform original rap lyrics exploring the controversial presidency of Andrew Jackson from different viewpoints.
- Seventh graders studied migration and immigration in their humanities classes, visited an exhibit on refugee camps by Doctors without Borders, and then created their own museum about the refugee experience.
- Sixth graders worked together in their science classes to build a Rube Goldberg machine in the middle school's rooftop garden.
- Fifth grade Spanish students read stories and novels in Spanish and then composed their own stories, skits, and comic strips using vocabulary they had learned from these texts.
- Eighth grade math students worked in pairs to create maps of the solar system, drawing upon their study of scale, density, volume, and radius to develop their maps.
In addition to the core curriculum, middle school students also study art, drama, and music throughout the school year. The art program exposes students to drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, and fabric arts. Grounded in the principles of Orff Schulwerk, our middle school music program offers students the opportunity to engage with music through improvisation, composition, and performance on a variety of instruments. Drama students move through a social justice and performance-based curriculum. They explore topics such as acting, playwriting, scenic and costume design, dramaturgy, and direction.
A weekly "Navigating" class period dedicated to study skills, social-emotional development, and media literacy supplements the advisory program. In 8th grade, students also use "Navigating MS" class time to prepare their high school applications.