Curriculum

Wise School offers an academic program that is based in core content, and taught through the lens of rigorous interdisciplinary gifted methodology. We provide a scope and sequence of distinctive scholarly opportunities that develop real world problem solving skills, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.

Our curriculum is organized to promote depth and complexity in discussion and question formation. Learning experiences are designed to provide a balance of research based pedagogical strategies using direct instruction, deductive reasoning, and inquiry-based learning. The scope and sequence of the Wise Learning Process focuses on 21st century skills and challenges students to ponder meaningful questions, such as:

  • What is the difference between being a critic and being a critical thinker?
  • What does it mean to be creative?
  • How do prompts help us when identifying and comprehending information?
  • What are the strategic steps that help facilitate the process of solving problems?
  • How do we connect to the larger picture?
  • How does generalizing concepts allow for a more universal understanding over time?
  • What are the tools, language, skills, and products of the disciplines and how do they relate to each other?
  • What does it mean to go through an inquiry-based process to investigate the things that spark interest?
  • Who am I as a learner? What are the different ways that people learn?

In the classroom, our upper grade students work with intellectual peers in reading, math, and Hebrew, while working together with grade level peers in science, social studies, project studio, technology, Judaic studies, and art. This balance allows educators to meet students where they are academically and challenge them to the next level, as well as building skills in working in collaboration with varieties of learners.

Wise School is a proud recipient of the 5-Star Award given by the California Association for the Gifted. We fundamentally believe that all children have the capacity, creativity and curiosity to engage in gifted education. Our students receive cutting-edge instruction benefitting all levels of learners across the disciplines. Our Wise Learning Process, developed through our partnership with the USC Rossier School of Education, is at the core of our academic excellence and continues to develop in its seventh year. Many Wise School faculty members have attended and taught demonstration lessons at the USC Summer Gifted Institute. Every summer, a group of our students are invited to participate in these demonstration lessons intended to inform and inspire teachers from across the country. Our ongoing partnership with Dr. Sandra Kaplan of the USC Rossier School of Education and the Wise Learning Process have continued to create an atmosphere of academic excellence and a growth mindset towards higher-level learning. We organize units and lessons around universal themes and big ideas in order to provide a more global perspective on the content and to allow for interdisciplinary connections. We believe that learning the skills of critical and creative thinking and applying them across the disciplines is essential to succeed in the unknown jobs of the future.

Students engage with a balance of texts by reading novels, short stories, poetry, non-fiction, informational texts, and online materials. By integrating common core English Language Arts standards, students think, discuss, and write about what they are reading using small group, whole class, and independent strategies. In Kindergarten through second grade, we use the Diagnostic Reading Assessment (DRA) to ensure that students are working with texts at their instructional level, and taking home texts that are at their independent level. In these grade levels, the students learn to read in flexible ability groups with a focus on fluency, decoding, word study, and comprehension. In our upper grades (3-6), students transition to reading to learn. They are given the Quantitative Reading Inventory (QRI) at the beginning and end of the year to determine their instructional level, and they are placed into homogeneous reading groups. They build explicit and inferential comprehension while developing research skills and expanding higher level vocabulary.

Wise School focuses on the writing process: brainstorming and organizing, drafting, revising, editing, and then final draft. The genres covered throughout the school year and across grades are narrative, informational, and opinion/argumentative. There is continuity across the grade levels as the curriculum incorporates five traits of writing (ideas, organization, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions). The teachers also include grammar and mechanics in their lessons. Our program spirals throughout the grade levels as we work toward developing students who are sophisticated, academic, and effective writers.

With an emphasis on mathematical problem solving, logical reasoning, and real-life application, students learn to think like mathematicians as they work through core content in flexible ability groups. Integrating technology, science and engineering with mathematical thinking encourages learning through discovery and hands on experiences.

We have an enVision math program in K-5 and a middle school Math Innovations Program in grade 6. All our math programs teach students how to master computational skills, problem-solving techniques, logical reasoning, and real life applications of concepts learned.

Our highly qualified science specialists work in a co-teaching model to provide a hands-on, interactive, and challenging experience that provides an interdisciplinary approach. Our team has developed the curriculum collaboratively using the guidelines of the Next Generation Science & Engineering Standards. Students develop a strong knowledge of physical, earth, environmental, and life sciences as well as a deep appreciation of the world around them. Classes are conducted in our state of the art science lab, which provides for natural integration of technology and engineering. Our STEAM team includes our Director of Technology Integration, our Project Studio teacher, and our art teacher. This team works with the grade level math teachers to design problem solving experiences that allow the students to see the application of learning in a real world context. The STEAM program culminates in the spring with an all-ages inquiry-based family STEAM fair.

The themes of social studies permeate all parts of the Wise Learning Process, as everything must be learned according to its context, the people, place and time in which it occurred. Our social studies program allows students to approach the world around them as geographers, economists, historians, sociologists, and political scientists in a developmentally appropriate way. The focus of the study in each grade level allows children to explore chronological and spatial thinking in increasingly complex ways.

Kindergarten: Our classroom community. Students discover the concepts of citizenship, community workers, and significant people that have made a difference.

First grade: Our place in time and space. Students focus on American and other symbols and how they have provided a sense of community over time.

Second grade: People who make a difference. Students explore the characteristics of heroes, and study heroes from the bible, the past and the present.

Third grade: Los Angeles history. Students investigate the physical and cultural landscape of our local region and the impact that the past has had on the present.

Fourth grade: California history. Students explore how the quest for power (economic, religious, intellectual, social) has motivated human behavior in the development of agriculture, industry, culture, and government in California over time.

Fifth grade: United States history. With a focus on studying multiple perspectives, students analyze the conflicts that led to the formation of our pluralistic society in which individual rights are secured.

Sixth grade: World history, ancient civilizations. Students consider the origins and contributions of ancient civilizations in order to justify common parallels and paradoxes. They investigate the convergences of economic, social and geographic events that helped form and destroy the world’s major civilizations from the Paleolithic era to Egypt, Rome, Greece, China and India. At the same time, their Judaic Studies course explores the same concepts in the history of ancient Hebrews.

Unique to Wise, our curriculum emphasizes Hebrew as a modern language aligning with studies that prove becoming bilingual has a positive effect on students’ intellectual growth in all subject areas. Students are immersed in the beauty, tradition and sophistication of the language, while learning to speak, read and write with natural fluency.

Designed for Jewish students in the Diaspora, our program will always feel relevant to children’s lives and cultural backgrounds. Hebrew is introduced in a nurturing, creative environment fostering basic skills through fun and engaging activities. As fluency increases, students experience hands-on projects to gain a deeper foundation. In upper grades, our program expands communication skills building on listening, speaking, reading and writing proficiency.

At WISE School the Judaic studies curriculum is a fully immersive and interactive program brought to life through an eternal cycle of story, song, prayer, celebration and daily interaction with our team of Rabbis and Judaic educators. Through our creative, dynamic and innovative WISE Judaic Studies program we amplify and animate our rich and meaningful past to inform the present and future value system of our students so that they can best express themselves in creative, dynamic and innovative ways in and of the world. To that end, our Judaic curriculum of spiritual growth is taught through a 21st century perspective yet gleaned from the foundational narrative of the Torah. Students develop a profound understanding of their heritage and Jewish values, knowledge of the Bible, love of Shabbat and holiday observances and a deep connection and commitment to the State of Israel; all with an unending dedication to making the world a better place (Tikkun Olam). It is the profound connection to our Jewish historical and cultural stories that will ultimately connect our students to universal cultural themes – a well from which they have unlimited access to inform them in a myriad of ways – personal, professional, local and global.

The WISE Technology Center challenges and inspires our students with its comprehensive range of technology platforms utilized in classroom as well as in our creative tech center. The technology program is designed as a reflexive building block curriculum to impact learning from the lower to upper grades where technology progressively enhances and helps to deepen the rigorous academic program. Various applications are used to organize independent study projects, creation of original content, and project curation for publication and display. All students in kindergarten through sixth grade participate in computational thinking activities and learn to program using Scratch programming language. Wise School is a leader in the world of Scratch and piloted the Creative Computational Thinking Curriculum for MIT’s Media Lab. Throughout the program research and presentation skills are also emphasized. Students learn to safely and effectively use a variety of internet research tools, software to create outlines for research as well as Powerpoint and Prezi to effectively communicate what they’ve learned. The program culminates in sixth grade with a 3-D modeling program that infuses design concepts with computational thinking skills. Our students have been recognized at the California Technology Showcase and the California Student Media Festival for their outstanding work in the areas of book publication, digital photography and video production.

At Wise School , we are driven to continuously learn, grow and expand. Our Diener and Kadner Families Library has fostered that drive in children for decades. Our consistently updated collection transcends imagination and serves up relevant and thought provoking opportunities to get lost in quality storytelling in every genre and time period. And we love that our newest readers will be attending a kindergarten story time in our reading nook while fourth graders are poring through research for their latest independent study project. Either way, our library is a hub of reading appreciation, full of the latest titles and technology to reinforce research skills, critical thinking and enhanced understanding.

“How do people build their homes in different places across the world?” “How would a Native American tribe construct their village if they lived near a river?” “What elements would a sacred space need?” These are questions constructed by students and teachers in the Wise Project Studio, a flagship innovation for our campus. An integrated, interdisciplinary convergence of art, technology and science, Project Studio is a virtual playground where students engage in divergent thinking exercises using a variety of educational modalities to arrive at an elevated result. In this hands-on workspace, students participate in a design thinking process of inspiration, ideation and implementation modeling real and evolutionary creative processes of unique and paradigm shifting companies. Emphasis is placed on collaboration and “sparks of thought” to build on each other’s ideas utilizing a diverse range of art materials in an environment that is inspired and student-centric. Throughout the process students discover their personal strengths and have an immediate opportunity to express and implement them within an open and versatile dialogue with their peers. This aspect of our curriculum strongly differentiates us from the “school as usual” approach to learning and sets the WISE student apart from the pack; best preparing them for life in the 21st century.

A Wise body and mind elevates the spirit and soul of every student. Our physical education program is designed to do just that. It includes a variety of classes and an expansive competitive, interscholastic athletics program in the upper grades. At the earliest age, an athletics foundation is established through a sequential program devoted to developing children’s physical skills and experience through participation in individual and team games. The importance of fitness and sportsmanship is emphasized in both non-competitive and competitive activities and a variety of developmentally appropriate playground games. Through this balanced physical education program, students establish a healthy pattern and commitment to lifelong physical fitness. In Grades 4-6, a balance is maintained between team games and individual skill-centered activities with 95% participation in our league sports, which include: • Boys’ and Girls’ Basketball • Boys’ and Girls’ Volleyball • Boys’ and Girls’ Soccer • Co-ed’ Flag Football • Co-ed Aquatics

What makes STEAM different from STEM? The A for ART! At Wise School, Art is interwoven throughout several disciplines, including the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Language Arts, Social Studies,  and Judaic Studies.  The enthusiasm of our students, faculty, and parents has led us to prioritize STEAM integration and initiatives within Wise School’s curriculum. Each winter, we have a STEAM Day dedicated to a variety of engaging learning experiences, with activities running simultaneously for all grade levels, including in-person and virtual lessons with outside vendors, experiments led by members of our STEAM Team, and in-class projects and games!

Our program inspires scientific thinking among our young Wise scientists. Our Science specialists, Karen Rubin and Mandy Snyder (who also holds a Master’s Degree in STEAM Education), work hard to continually align the curriculum with the Next Generation Science Standards. A large part of this alignment has been the implementation of various engineering design challenges across the grade levels that tie into the physical, earth, and life sciences. Each spring, our 6th graders prepare and present a Science Fair, in which they conduct research around a hypothesis and present their data and conclusions.  Elements of technology, engineering, and mathematics play a significant role in this culminating work.

Our Project Studio supports the engineering component of this program. With the guidance of Jason Meth, an ever-expanding library of building materials, and an expansive workshop, this one-of-a-kind interactive learning space facilitates amazing student creativity and collaboration. 

Our Art Specialist is always available to teachers and students to provide materials (often recycled), suggestions for their appropriate use in each project, and help planning ideas and challenges. Our technology specialist,  Judy Hoffman, helps guide students to create original content and to problem-solve. Our Tyberg Arts and Innovation Lab serves as a state-of-the-art dual learning space.

Our math program accentuates the methodology of moving students from the concrete to the pictorial to the abstract, allowing students to connect real-life mathematical situations to abstract concepts and symbols, and then use that understanding in engineering design challenges, in science projects, and in technology applications.