PAGE BEING UPDATED:
Our Grades 4-5 Intermediate Years Program is a vital part of your child’s education. In order to help your child blossom and grow, Pear Tree is an independent elementary school that balances teaching new skills with strengthening the foundations established in our Primary Years Program.
Your child will develop student and life skills, including organization, effort, determination and resilience. By improving upon these social and emotional skills, Pear Tree Elementary is able to transition your child from small projects to more sophisticated ones which require increased collaborative work and commitment.
Beside this, we introduce our Outdoor Education program in which your child will experience learning in a new environment for a prolonged period of time with their classmates. We also begin our French language program. The Grades 4-5 Intermediate Program will continue using traditional learning methods, but will also experience an increased use of technology, including iPads.
Through Pear Tree’s Primary Program, your child will become increasingly aware of who they are, of the world around them, and of the connection between the two. As a result, it is an exciting time for students, teachers and parents alike!
Primary goals are to develop:
Math is a skills-based subject (in contrast to science and social studies, which are more knowledge-based). Math skills are to be used, not simply memorized. As such, at Pear Tree Elementary, math skills embedded within themes; they are tied to social studies (quantities, statistics), science (weights, speeds, measurements), and business (financial literacy).
As such, students at Pear Tree learn math in context. Math at our school is connected to real life and is truly meaningful. At the same time, working with real-life numbers means that it is challenging!
Consequently, math at Pear Tree is more engaging and more challenging than traditional math classes.
Like math, language arts is a skills-based subject. Traditional approaches to reading and writing involve practicing such skills with no real purpose beyond mastering those skills. Reading and writing are skills to be applied, and that’s exactly what we do at Pear Tree Elementary!
At Pear Tree, reading and writing skills are interwoven into every part of our themes. We don’t use textbooks. Instead, students constantly read both fiction and non-fiction books related to the themes. Each term, students study a novel connected to one of the themes. This repeated practice throughout the year enables Pear Tree’s students to develop stronger analytical skills.
Pear Tree students quickly develop truly amazing reading and writing skills for their ages from becoming familiar with these words over a semester and having constant opportunities to practice!
Join us for an Open House or Book a Private Tour
