Convent kindergartners engage in imaginative play.
Lower Form: Grade K–2 Girls & Boys
In these foundational years, we tap into the innate capacity, curiosity and creativity of children as they engage with information through words, patterns, early literature and numeracy concepts. They learn in the laboratory of the world around them using real-life experiences to anchor meaning and understanding. Our belief is that the framework for understanding begins with language formation along with pattern seeking and reasoning.
Convent & Stuart Hall’s Research-Based Structured Literacy Program is a foundational throughline of these years along with the building of a strong base of mathematical skills and reasoning. Grade K–2 students engage in a full range of academic subjects, including mathematics, science, language (Mandarin, French and Spanish), religion, theology & spirituality, social studies, and performing and visual arts.
Through creating their own texts, Convent kindergartners take critical first steps toward learning to read and write.
Stuart Hall boys use manipulatives in support of developing their mathematical reasoning and sense-making.
Kindergarten boys have fun learning Spanish through interactive games, storytelling and songs.
Pictured on Shea Court, Convent students stretch their capacity both inside and outside the classroom.
Our tradition of teaching girls and boys in a single-sex environment invites girls and boys to develop and stretch their capacity and to be who they are in the full sense of their being. While we know that, in general, girls’ verbal skills develop rapidly and that expressive pedagogy may be an effective entry point to learning, we also know that boys may benefit from kinesthetic interaction as their entry point; however, these generalities do not limit our faculty’s approach to teaching. In fact, the breadth of Convent & Stuart Hall’s educational environment means that the array of entry points to learning are brought to bear in service of igniting the spark of learning in all students.
Stuart Hall students performing a “readers theater.”
Convent students develop a strong foundation for STEM learning by solving design challenges.
An annual second grade dance intensive offers boys and girls an introduction to the elements of dance while building toward a final performance.
Students turn scrap materials like wood and cardboard into feats of engineering.
Through forming questions, students learn how to interact with new texts.
Both in and outside of the classroom, the K–2 years are a rich environment for a child’s developing awareness of self and others. The language of the emotions — how one feels, how one expresses one’s feelings, and how we communicate in words and space — is a denominating factor in their learning. In these early years, faculty work to develop an emotional intelligence in students that equips them to recognize what they are feeling, to express their thoughts and feelings productively, and to understand what it means to be a member of a community.
