A joyful, rigorous foundation.
Lower School at Beacon (Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 5) is where children learn to love school. Small classes, specialist teachers, and a scope-and-sequence built around inquiry give students the confidence and skills to become lifelong learners.
Learning by doing, learning by loving.
Our Lower School is built on the belief that young children learn best when school feels purposeful and joyful. Classrooms are active, warm, and structured — with room for wonder and for challenge in equal measure.
Students move between homeroom teachers and specialists in art, music, Spanish, library, and physical education, encountering multiple caring adults each week. Advisories begin in kindergarten as a homeroom relationship and grow more explicit as students move up the grades.
By the end of Grade 5, our graduates read for pleasure, write with voice, reason mathematically, and know how to advocate for themselves in a community of peers.
A continuous PK–5 arc.
Pre-Kindergarten
Ages 3–4Play-based inquiry, oral language, early literacy and numeracy, and the beginnings of community life through morning meeting and choice time.
Kindergarten
Age 5A workshop-model classroom that introduces guided reading, invented spelling, number talks, and the first units of science and social studies.
Grade 1
Age 6Independent reading takes off, mathematical thinking is grounded in place value and story problems, and students begin weekly Spanish and studio art.
Grade 2
Age 7Longer writing projects, multi-digit addition and subtraction with strategies, and a rich unit on communities and civic life.
Grade 3
Age 8Chapter books, multiplication and division with meaning, cursive handwriting, and an introduction to research and non-fiction writing.
Grade 4
Age 9The transition to greater academic independence: multi-paragraph essays, fractions and decimals, historical inquiry, and student-led conferences.
Grade 5
Age 10Capstone year of the Lower School — a research project, elected roles on Student Council, band or strings, and preparation for the transition to Middle School.
Subjects & specialists.
Daily blocks of independent reading and process writing, with mini-lessons drawn from the Teachers College model.
A concept-first curriculum built around number talks, problem-based lessons, and daily fluency work.
Hands-on units — magnets, plants, weather, simple machines, ecosystems — culminating in the Grade 5 science fair.
Weekly immersion in Spanish beginning in Kindergarten, taught by specialists and grounded in songs, stories, and games.
A dedicated art room and a scope-and-sequence spanning drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and ceramics.
General music PK–3, then instrument choice in Grade 4 (strings or band) and choral singing in Grade 5.
A weekly library block that builds a love of reading and, in the upper grades, real research skills.
Movement, coordination, and cooperative games four days a week, plus a weekly recess-plus block.
What a day looks like.
- 8:15Arrival, morning meeting, calendar
- 9:00Reader's & Writer's Workshop
- 10:30Snack & recess
- 11:00Mathematics
- 12:15Lunch & recess
- 1:00Specials (art, music, Spanish, PE, library)
- 2:00Science or social studies
- 3:00Closing circle & dismissal