Hillbrook Lower School 

Hillbrook's Lower School program provides a rich and rigorous experience for students in academics and personal development.  Lower School learning is an adventure every day - joyful, active, collaborative, and driven by student questions and curiosity along with research and best practices in the field of education. 

Hillbrook's best-in-class educators are dedicated to developing each child’s highest individual potential with a whole-child approach - an intentional practice of academics alongside a skills-based approach to community and self. Our teachers and specialists strive to truly know each child as a learner, community member, and individual, in order to provide right-fit challenges and meet each child where they are - that we might help them discover the best version of themselves.
 

At Hillbrook, students and faculty are a team, working together to co-create an educational experience that encourages our entire community to be the best that they can be. Academic rigor extends beyond the classroom - the challenges of social impact play a key role in students' intellectual and emotional development.

Across our Lower School, the SEL Competencies we teach remain the same, though their complexity and nuance progress with children’s age and stage. The Hillbrook Social-Emotional Core Competencies are:

• Perspective-Taking
• Self-Awareness
• Self-Regulation
• Social Awareness
• Conflict Management
• Effective Communication with peers and adults
• Stress Management
• Responsible Decision-Making
• Relationship Building
• Respect for Self & Others

If you can dream it, you can make it in the Hub! The Hub is where engineering and the arts come together, allowing creativity and curiosity to flourish. The Hub invites students - through electives and in their own free time - to design, imagine, and create incredible projects and works of art, with access to tools and teachers they need solve any problem and imagine any future.  

With an endless collection of craft supplies (paint, fabric, scrap wood, string), the Hub is the ultimate makerspace, with everything students need to make their ideas come to life.

Reach Beyond Block, or RBB, occurs once weekly across Hillbrook's campus. Reach Beyond block is co-designed and taught by JK-4 homeroom teachers, along with some specialists, staff, and school leaders, with lessons and experiences that inspire new interests and perspectives, engage local partners, and enrich learning. Students are empowered to identify their interests and dreams and transform them into reality with the skills and content learned from the other areas of their school experience. The ultimate goal: learning how to reach beyond ourselves and make a difference in our world.

RBB works cross-collaboratively, involves a mix of independent and group work, and promotes both leadership and listening. Students learn how to identify and solve problems through advocacy and leadership.

JK/K: Our Selves, Our Community & Making Change - We learn about others, near and far, who have made a difference in order to consider what difference we might make. 

1st & 2nd Grade: Movers and Shakers - Students explore ways they each uniquely influence their communities to create ripples of impact and change—in their classrooms, on-campus, and beyond.

3rd & 4th Grade: Teamwork, Leadership & What Matters to Me -  Field trips and service learning opportunities offer us new perspectives on people and environments beyond campus, connecting to in-school themes like kindness, ability awareness, waste & recycling, environmental health, local history, and social emotional skill-building.

Lower School is an adventure of laughter and learning  - here are just a very few of the activities we look forward to each year:

Field Trips - throughout the year, students visit local interactive learning hubs, including The Children's Discovery Museum, Sanborn Park, and Magical Bridges, as well as family farms, museums, and music performances.

After-School Enrichment - The fun continues after school - three times a year, students can sign up for Enrichment Classes after school. Past classes have included LEGO engineering, skateboarding, theater arts, chess, filmmaking, and world languages.

Author’s Walkabout (1st/2nd grade) - Throughout the school year, students build collections of original artwork and stories, which they share with parents and peers at the end of the year!

JK/K Family Celebration - At the end of their first year at Hillbrook, our youngest students celebrate a year of incredible growth, learning, and skill-building with a family picnic and singalong.