Elementary School Electives
Everyone thrives on a degree of freedom and flexibility. Children learn better overall when given the opportunity to explore based on their personal interests and talents. Choice Time and Electives are two of the ways that Nea gives K-5 learners voice and choice.
Choice Time: Learners in the Lower Village participate in one or more "Choice" periods each week, when they can choose from a variety of activities such as creating art, building with Legos or Kinex, playing a game, interacting with friends, researching a topic of interest, or catching up on classwork. In the 3rd to 5th grades, the first fifteen minutes of Choice Time is designated study time.
Electives: Lower Village learners select two electives each trimester. Electives are multi-grade across TK-2 and 3-5. As part of our democratic culture, learners vote on the electives to be offered each trimester, and are encouraged to suggest electives that they would be interested in having. Past elective offerings have included:
TK-2 Electives
- Blocks
- Collage
- Dinosaurs
- Drawing
- Games (indoor and outdoor)
- Legos
- Mixed Media Art
- Origami
- Poetry
- Puppet Theater
- Puzzles
- Rocks
- Song and Dance
- Watercolor
3-5 Electives
- Arts and Crafts
- Author's Workshop
- Bugs
- Chess
- Coding
- Comic Book Making
- Gardening
- Lego Robotics
- Maker's Cart
- Math Art
- Math Games
- Outdoor Games
- Paper Airplanes & Aerodynamics
- Photography
- Poetry
- Reading Party
- Singing/Chorus
- Stop-Motion Animation
- Spanish
- Yarn Crafting
- Yoga