Curriculum
Offering rigorous curriculum and a full spectrum of the arts. Polaris has a principal and teachers trained to meet the academic and affective needs of high achieving and highly gifted students. An enriched and extended Denver Public Schools curriculum provides the foundation for learning experiences in which students are encouraged to achieve excellence in areas of strength and supported to make continuous improvement in weaker academic areas.
Polaris offers creatively integrated curriculum and individual differentiation to help meet the unique needs of this populatation of learners. Students are grouped and regrouped flexibly on the basis of demonstrated educational need rather than by age or other limiting data. The individual academic needs of students determine their pace through the curriculum. Students with individual academic/arts passions are offered the opportunity to explore those interests with the guidance of a teacher and/or mentors.
Among the curricular materials available are: William and Mary High Ability Language Arts curriculum, fine literature and Great Books, Six-Trait Writing, Great Source writing and math handbooks, University of Chicago's Everyday Math, Saxon Algebra 1 and Geometry, McREL's Challenge Math, EXEMPLARS in math and science, GEMS, FOSS and AIMS hands-on math/science units, Joy Hakim's history of America series, History Alive units from Stanford University, Interact simulations and the best educational software available.
Believing that our students should experience "a trip around the world and back in time" during their elementary years, we have determined the following focus areas for each grade level:
Kindergarten: From Polaris School to Polaris in Space
First grade: Island cultures of the World
Second grade: Central and South American cultures and rainforest research
Third grade: Asian cultures and Denver History
Fourth grade: African cultures and Colorado History
Fifth grade: Greek and Roman history and early US history
The Polaris Program weaves the arts into all curricular units, and grants frequently fund work with artists-in-residence (visual, theatre, photography and dance). A "Math, Art and All that Jazz" grant in 2001 involved students in grades 1-3 in an architectural study of Curtis Park Historic District, with multimedia displays created as final projects. The same grant funded the creation of a fence mural by 4-6 graders and immersed all students in the composition of jazz. In 2002, an actress worked with several grade levels, with the fifth graders writing a splendid poem displayed in our entry and performed as shadow theatre. Speaking of Dance and Cleo Parker Robinson dancers have worked with fifth graders each Spring. Young Audiences yearly provides a Hispanic dancer to enhance the second grade South American unit, and Cherry Creek dance linked dance to each grade level's themes during February of 2008. The fifth graders write and perform an opera each year.