Beyond the Core
Creekside has the opportunity to offer amazing programming beyond our core subjects (math, English language arts, science and social studies). Our pathways offer multi-year schemas to build upon existing knowledge and expand students' breadth of experience.
Place-Based Service Learning
Through the lens of our local community, students will have an opportunity to learn the systems of local government, non-profit structure, and the politics that shape local decision making in the Tahoe region. Students will transition this knowledge into service learning projects in the region.
Through knowledge and service, students will learn the foundational steps in creating positive change within the community they live in, thus giving them the skills to enact change on a local, national and global level as they transition to adulthood.
World Studies
Students will delve into multicultural learning through language (Spanish), song, literature, art, and cultural immersion activities. An emphasis will be placed on diversity, equity, and inclusion education.
Art
Art allows students to grow their right brains and push their creative boundaries. Our art teacher works collaboratively with our classroom and multicultural education teacher to use art to link art to core instruction.
Social Emotional Learning
We utilize Changemakers and Life Ingredients curriculum. Changemakers utilizes free-standing lessons and teaching practices to promote social emotional learning (SEL) in students.
Life Ingredients aims to create an emotionally stable population, one more aware of its thoughts and feelings and more capable of empathy and understanding than any generation in history.
Students in the older grades transition from Changemakers Social Emotional curriculum to Restorative Justice practice. Teachers work with students daily to work through self discovery, conflict, and team building.
Like the younger grades, teachers also utilize Life Ingredients to calm the mind.
Spanish
Our 5th-8th grade Spanish program is unique and goal-oriented. Our objective is to have 8th graders graduate with the skills ready to start high school in Spanish 2 or 3 (dependent on proficiency). Those who choose to start with Spanish 1 will have a much easier transition. We focus on a teaching method known as Comprehensible Input which emphasizes language acquisition through meaningful, authentic language using stories, art, film, and music in a comprehensible manner which increases over time. Grammar is embedded with mini lessons, but the majority of class time is spent reading, writing, and listening to Spanish. This year fifth and sixth graders use the Somos curriculum while seventh and eighth graders are using Voces, Nuestra Historia.