Learning Highlights

The Lower School is filled with experiential, project and inquiry based learning opportunities. Each Stage engages in child driven interdisciplinary units that reflect their passions. Ideas are ever evolving and we happily embrace student innovation in bringing concepts such as kindness, archeology, engineering and social justice to the table. In support of their chosen areas of interest, we actively seek to include relevant, outside experts and past activities have included Skype sessions with NASA, paleontologists, students in France and residents of Cairo, Egypt as well as university professors, leaders from non-profits, and alumni who have visited to share their wealth of experience. Through these personal interfaces, students come to understand content more deeply, better retain what they learn, feel valued in their contributions, and confidently apply their knowledge and skill sets to different and real world situations

Calling all shining knights and brave princesses. Stage I students hosted a medieval feast as a culminating event to studying kings, queens, castles and all things medieval. The children dressed in character and played medieval style games to complete the feast.

Under the guidance of an expert safety engineer, Stage II students tested engineering principles used in the car safety field. They used a variety of paper cups and cones to design and build the energy absorbing crumple zone for the front of a test car.

From Ancient Rome to the Gold Rush to the Great Lakes, Stage III students research a social studies topic and present their experiential learning through skits and art projects at its annual Family Night.

Stage IV students pursue their passions, while developing research, writing, as well as presentation skills, in the much anticipated, student-led Ology Writing Project.

Sixth graders spend a week together team building and challenging themselves.

Seventh grade science students each designed a blueprint of a structure, given certain constraints, that could withstand different earthquake scenarios. They then built their structures and tested them under simulated earthquake conditions.

An intensive week-long study and visits to Detroit resulted in a group of 8th graders creating a mural of positive photographs of Detroit which is now on display at the Detroit School for Digital Technology and dedicated to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s mother, Joan Duggan, who was instrumental in developing the school.

The U.S. Government class conducted a mock campaign and election. The Freedom Party and the Future Party campaigned in the halls voicing their positions on key national issues and presented them to the student body who then voted.