Core Curriculum

The Tilden curriculum is designed to present each student with stimulating academic challenges that are supported with active and engaging teaching and coaching. While our values describe who we are, and our distinctions emphasize what sets us apart, our curriculum is how we bring education to life each day. We hold passionately to our ability as an independent school to adapt content based on student interest, while maintaining high academic standards to meet grade-level learning objectives and skills development.

Each teacher employs a variety of strategies to foster learning including:

Whole-group, small-group, and individualized instruction
Project and inquiry-based learning
Multi-modal instruction to address a variety of different learners, including visual, audible, and tactile strategies
Active and participatory discussion
Experimentation, observation, prediction, and interpretation

We take advantage of the many valuable resources beyond our walls to enhance student experience, such as visiting museum exhibits, attending local events, inviting in or going to guest speakers, and special performances.

Kindergarten

Daily programming in kindergarten is focused on the parallel goals of introducing academic content and structure, and developing the social and emotional skills each student needs to manage learning, listening and working in a cooperative group. Students are introduced to the fundamentals of reading, writing, and math through active instruction, participation and application. Students learn to identify letters and sounds, sight words, basic story elements and vocabulary, including frequently occurring nouns and verbs. They learn the soft skills of school, including handwriting, procedures, conflict management, and how to be a student. By January, kindergarten students join the Thursday Story Writing program.

All kindergarten students receive instruction in the following subject areas:

Reading
Language Arts
Writing
Handwriting
Social Emotional Learning

Math
Science
Art
Vocal Music

Instrumental Music
Physical Education
Spanish
Fifth-Grade Buddies

First Grade

Curricular programming in first grade takes the spark, energy and emerging confidence from kindergarten, and channels it into building new skills and taking on new challenges. Navigating relationships and building community through continued emphasis on social and emotional instruction and support continues in first grade. Students continue on a trajectory to hone skills in reading comprehension and vocabulary building, handwriting, written composition, number sense, addition, subtraction, measurement, graphing, problem solving and geometry. We practice whole-body learning and present new materials and concepts with multiple sensory modalities to reinforce learning.

All first-grade students receive instruction in the following subject areas:

Reading
Language Arts
Writing
Handwriting

Social Emotional Learning
Math
Science
Art

Vocal Music
Instrumental Music
Physical Education
Spanish

Second Grade

Second-grade students continue to develop independence in their work - learning to read and follow directions on their own, taking pride in pushing into what they don't yet know, and taking responsibility for high quality classwork. The growing diligence and persistence of these students, and their mastery in core comprehension and critical thinking skills allow the class to explore new subjects and projects that are layered with steadily increasing depth and challenge. Second grade is often the year of the reading "click," when all the elements of reading fluency coalesce. From that point on, the academic horizon is limitless!

All second-grade students receive instruction in the following subject areas:

Reading
Writing
Cursive Handwriting
Indigenous and Seattle History

Math
Science
Art
Vocal Music

Instrumental Music
Physical Education
Spanish

Third Grade

When third-grade students arrive on campus each September, we see the "big kid" emerging from the "little kid." Students have more confidence and eagerness to take on meatier academic material. We harness the energy of that transition and present content that is accessible but challenging, coaching students and providing support so they can find success. As adept readers, students critically analyze text, formulate well-crafted sentences, build paragraphs and begin essay composition. Math concepts progress to higher order multiplication and division, geometry, fractions and more complex problem-solving. Third grade is also the year in which student access to technology is introduced in the classroom. This begins with touch-typing, where the first few months of the school year are spent mastering keyboarding skills. Understanding computer functions, software programs and usage for preparing essays, presentations and projects are introduced and practiced over the course of the year.

All third-grade students receive instruction in the following subject areas:

Reading
Writing
Cursive Handwriting
Washington History
Study Skills
Social Emotional Learning

Math
Science
Art
Art History
Vocal Music

Instrumental Music
Physical Education
Spanish
Computer Skills
Computer Science

Fourth Grade

By fourth grade, Tilden students possess a suite of essential skills that enable them to take on tasks with greater depth and complexity. The use of technology in the classroom, access to information, and the use of software programs and tools are enhanced as they build on these skills. With middle school on the horizon, we aim to prepare our students to be confident learners who take accountability for the preparation and quality of their work. Students are introduced to multiple literary genres and forms of poetry over the year, and create original compositions including multi-paragraph essays and original poetry compositions. Students are challenged with vocabulary selection, sentence structure, research and source evaluation, and presentation skills. Students progress in math to higher-order problem solving with multiplication, division, fractions and decimals, and progress in the study of units of measurement and geometry. As part of our science curriculum, our fourth-grade students participate in health programming in late spring.

All fourth-grade students receive instruction in the following subject areas:

Reading
Writing
Cursive Handwriting
North American and United States History
Study Skills
Greek and Latin Roots

Social Emotional Learning
Math
Science
Art
Art History
Vocal Music

Instrumental Music
Physical Education
Spanish
Computer Skills
Computer Science
Health

Fifth Grade

In fifth grade, Tilden students enter a preparatory year for middle school. As emerging scholars, our goal is to instill our graduates with confidence by providing a culminating educational year that solidifies both a wide range and meaningful depth of skills. Students are presented engaging curricular materials from which they produce creative, iterative, high-quality work in multiple forms and formats, including extended and multi-part essays, research projects, original artwork and digitally-created projects. In math, progression focuses on data interpretation and graphical concepts, the use of models and strategies to multiply and divide fractions and decimals, measurement conversations, volumetric concepts and introduction to algebraic concepts. As part of our science curriculum, our fifth-grade students participate in health programming in late spring. Students end the year celebrating their successes, not only as fifth-graders, but as graduates of Tilden School!

All fifth grade-students receive instruction in the following subject areas:

Reading
Writing
Cursive Handwriting
United States History (Revolutionary War - present)
Study Skills
Greek and Latin Roots

Social Emotional Learning
Math
Science
Art
Art History
Vocal Music
Instrumental Music

Physical Education
Spanish
Computer Skills
Computer Science
Health
Kindergarten Buddies