The AIS/D Elementary School is a Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 5 Program. The overall goal of the Elementary Program is to support all students in becoming successful and independent learners. The Elementary Program aims to be student-centered by addressing young people’s real interests over unrelated or arbitrarily selected content. It is also experiential, providing concrete and active experiences so that students are engaged. We know that learning is socially constructed and our classrooms value the ongoing interactions that promote learning from one another. Students are also given opportunities to develop reflective skills, helping them to identify learning strengths and challenges and to set some of their own learning goals. Our classrooms aim to be democratic so that we model a real community, and students often have collaborative learning activities to help them understand the importance and power of sharing our knowledge and skills and learning from each other. As educators we know that children are continually constructing their knowledge and understanding and re-creating what they know in every cognitive system they encounter;students must constantly be given genuine challenges, choices and responsibility for their work.

Upper and lower elementary teachers often plan weekly activities for their students to participate in together. Younger and older students interact and work cooperatively in such activities as reading/language arts, arts and crafts and games. Often, elementary students will work on a project with middle school or high school students. These experiences give students opportunities to form positive relationships with each other. Small classes, averaging fifteen to eighteen students,supported by the Learning Center, ESL, the Literacy Support Teacher and the Counselor, enable teachers to provide individual attention to each student.