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Asynchronous Learning Day [Teacher Work Day]
January 3, 2023
Teacher Work Day – Kindezi Schools
Teacher Work Day – Kindezi Schools
The Spanish course at Kindezi is designed to expose geniuses to conversational Spanish, fundamental grammar rules, and language structure. Geniuses will be exposed to cultural elements of Spanish speaking countries and draw connections to these communities. Reading passages, writing activities, and projects will allow geniuses to increase their knowledge of the Spanish language, cultures, and diverse history.
The Kindezi High School Transition Program prepares our middle school geniuses and their families for life after Kindezi. The programming includes structured advisory, field experiences, and genius and family high school transition support. Through genius awakening experiences, the Graduate Profile Aims come alive to cultivate academic and social skills that bridge the learning in the classroom to the real world. These experiences include interest-based career exploration excursions, service learning opportunities for the entire family, and high school tours. Kindezi geniuses are holistically prepared to meet the opportunities and the challenges of high school-knowing who they are, how they can contribute to their community, and with the necessary skills to thrive at their high school of choice.
As part of our holistic education, middle school geniuses engage in explicit social-emotional learning experiences twice per week. Social-emotional learning is the practice of using specific skills, habits and mindsets needed to foster healthy personal and interpersonal connections.
The curriculum encourages and challenges geniuses to think, express themselves and seek opportunities to thrive, not just survive. Social-emotional skills are an essential part of learning about oneself, maintaining holistic wellbeing and achieving the Kindezi Graduate Profile Aims that will support our geniuses in meeting the opportunities and challenges of high school, college, and the world.
During facilitated learning experiences, geniuses have the opportunity to engage in an Opening Ritual (Cypher & Hook), Presentation/Discussion, a Reflective Practice/Activity.
The WIN ( “Whatever I Need”) block is a 45 minute intervention block that occurs Monday-Thursday for all geniuses. The purpose of the intervention block is to address specific gaps in literacy and mathematics skills, and to encourage exploration through genius hour activities.
In grades 6 - 8 geniuses engage with interdisciplinary units and novels that integrate social studies content and build real world connections. Geniuses engage with texts written by authors from various regions around the world . Geniuses also engage in field lessons and participate in dialogue and debates rooted in texts from a variety of perspectives.
Our Humanities/Social Studies Curriculum is designed to engage students in a multi-sensory learning experience. Middle School geniuses engage with the content through:
Middle School Science at Kindezi provides a real-world genius awakening that connects standards, fundamental principles and topics that serve as prerequisite foundations for physics and chemistry. The curriculum focuses on the inquiry process and includes hands-on experiences to support geniuses in making real world connections with learning .
Teachers engage geniuses daily in active engagement through collaboration, higher order thinking questions and discussions that build critical thinking, make connections across disciplines, and develop problem solving skills.
In our 6-8 math classrooms we believe in a hands-on approach to develop conceptual understanding and promote critical thinking in order to develop mathematicians who take ownership of their learning and persist and persevere through rigorous math tasks.
Each day our math instruction begins with a fluency strategy to urge flexible thinking or a review problem focused on enhancing procedural fluency and attention to precision.
Throughout each lesson geniuses also engage in a variety of instructional settings including:
The Kindezi enrichment program provides geniuses an opportunity for self-discovery and self-development. Middle school geniuses explore Physical Education and Health, Leadership, Performing Arts, Music and Visual Arts to develop a unique view of the world, increase mastery of content and draw connections to traditional subjects through an artistic and distinctive lens. Our daily instruction includes hands-on, genius-led activities that allow leadership, excellence and wholeness to develop.
Additionally, all geniuses have the opportunity to engage in after-school programming that deepens their ability to embrace the diversity around them with curiosity and empathy. Geniuses are exposed to self-selected classes that enhance their whole-child experience.
As part of our holistic education, geniuses engage in explicit social-emotional learning experiences twice per week. Social-emotional learning is the practice of using specific skills, habits and mindsets needed to foster healthy personal and interpersonal connections. These social-emotional skills are an essential part of learning about oneself, maintaining holistic wellbeing and achieving the Kindezi Graduate Profile Aims that will support our geniuses in meeting the opportunities and challenges of high school, college, and the world.
K-2: During teacher facilitated experiences, geniuses connect with the content, each other and their teachers as they build new social-emotional skills. Geniuses engage with a variety of media, activities and interactive components.The SEL curriculum focuses on growth mindset & goal-setting, emotion management, empathy and kindness and problem solving.
3-5: During facilitated learning experiences, geniuses have the opportunity to engage in the Presentation/Discussion, an Insight Activity, and Reflective Practice. This model assists our geniuses in moving from received knowledge to embodied understanding.
The SEL curriculum builds upon previously acquired skills and supports the development of emotional, social, and ethical intelligence for geniuses and teachers alike. The curriculum enhances social emotional programming with the key additional components of compassion and ethical discernment, attention training and systems thinking.
The WIN ( “Whatever I Need”) block is a 45 minute intervention block that occurs Monday-Thursday for all geniuses. The purpose of the intervention block is to address specific gaps in literacy and mathematics skills, and to encourage exploration through genius hour activities.
Our Humanities/Social Studies program is based on the inquiry model of teaching that includes the following steps: An Inquiry Question that sparks student curiosity, a sustained investigation of content from different sources and perspectives to build knowledge, and utilizing that knowledge to take informed action that impacts the world.
Our geniuses have time to grow and ask questions about the world around them, and teachers maximize genius-awakening experiences and field experiences to support their geniuses’ in problem solving and making an impact on their community and the world around them.
At Kindezi, we believe that reading is the pathway to knowledge, long-term success and, choice-filled lives for our geniuses. Therefore, we engage our geniuses daily in complex, culturally relevant text that builds their background and vocabulary while developing skills for creative and purposeful expression. All geniuses are also encouraged to read independently and to engage with the text in meaningful ways through collaboration, discussion, and genius awakening experiences.
Kindezi utilizes a writing curriculum that provides Georgia Performance Standards and Georgia Milestones-aligned content at all grade levels. The curriculum includes explicit instruction, modeling, and independent practice with feedback. Geniuses learn to write for a variety of real-world purposes: express and reflect; inform and explain; evaluate and judge; inquire and explore; analyze and interpret; argue and solve.
At the Kindezi Schools, we believe in the importance of building strong reading foundations. We believe that all geniuses deserve access to “The Code” of reading and therefore we have a 30-40 minute block of time where geniuses complete work rooted in phonics, phonological awareness, and vocabulary.
This helps to ensure that all geniuses have a firm reading foundation on which to build strong morphology and etymology skills. Therefore, we maximize the use of instructional supports such as multisensory, structured language strategies, and morphology study. Our geniuses use this time to strengthen their reading foundational skills, grow their vocabulary, and interact with words and sounds in new ways.
In our elementary science classrooms, we believe that all students are capable and have a unique genius within. Therefore, we strive to build writers, readers, and communicators who demonstrate a love of science and critically make sense of scientific phenomena and occurrences in the world around them. Geniuses learn how to conduct experiments and collect evidence from the data, and reflect on their findings.
In grades K-5, geniuses begin to make personal connections to the standards they are learning, expanding their thinking and maximizing their personal growth by developing their interests and curiosities. As geniuses matriculate through higher grades, their curiosity and understanding will grow through hands-on experiments, field experiences and investigations.
The Kindezi enrichment program provides geniuses with an opportunity for self-discovery and self-development. Elementary geniuses explore Physical Education, Art, Entrepreneurship, Writing and STEAM to develop a unique view of the world, increase mastery of content and draw connections to traditional subjects through an artistic and distinctive lens. Our daily instruction includes hands-on, genius-led activities that allow leadership, excellence and wholeness to develop.
Additionally, all geniuses have the opportunity to engage in after-school programming that deepens their ability to embrace the diversity around them with curiosity and empathy. Geniuses are exposed to self-selected classes that enhance their whole-child experience.
In our K-5 math classrooms we believe in a hands-on approach to develop conceptual understanding and promote critical thinking in order to develop mathematicians who take ownership of their learning and persist and persevere through rigorous math tasks.
Daily math instruction includes:
This is followed by a short introduction to new content where teachers model new concepts and skills, utilizing the concrete, pictorial, abstract instructional method. After a brief introduction to new content students will move into math workstations where they will work independently or with partners on skills and concepts in the form of games, interactive online tutorials, or other activities that are geared towards their specific needs. While students are engaged in independent work stations, teachers will pull small groups of students to continue instruction based on each groups’ specific needs. Teachers finish the math instructional block with a problem solving protocol during which students will work to solve a variety of problems throughout the week, including numberless problems, multi-solution problems, and self-created problems.