The Next Step! Announcing the Opening of our 1st to 3rd Grades

Did you know that Ideaventions has a long history of PreK- 3rd education beginning with the founding of our out-of-school programs in 2010? We pioneered a very successful, multi-year, mini-Einsteins science curriculum and have taught thousands of students to enjoy discovery and exploration. Read on to learn more about how we are bringing this back to our school!​

When we decided to expand to high school in 2016, we also decided that our final goal was a K-12 school and that we would add the lower elementary school grades after our second graduating class. We believe in building our school the way you would approach an engineering project - develop the components slowly, improve and modify, and then integrate them together. Well, we’re here! We’re about to graduate our class of 2022 and we are turning our sights to 1st to 3rd grades!

Adding the lower grades is different from the high school grades since we can’t add one year at a time, so we wanted to complete our high school program first. We are starting with 1st through 3rd, then we’ll add Kindergarten in two years, which will complete the range of grades from K - 12. 

We are so excited to begin work with the lower elementary grades and to innovate in education and support our younger curious learners! Our plan had been to announce the expansion in September and decided to accelerate the launch to support 1st to 3rd graders as we know that we can make a difference in these children’s lives and the sooner we open the program, the more kids we're able to help. 
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In the tradition of our upper elementary curriculum, we will continue to provide students the opportunity for:

• Play, 
• Outdoor exploration, 
• Guided choice, 
• Project-based learning, 
• Hands-on activities and experimentation, 
• A solid foundation in classical literature, and 
• Innovation in engineering and computer science 

We have seen the tremendous gains that our students make when at our school, and the sky's the limit if we can begin working with the kids at younger ages. Like our upper elementary, middle, and high school programs, we have mixed-age classrooms where we will span two grade levels. 

What does a week look like for our future 1st - 3rd graders? 

• Daily math for 80 minutes, and they will have an opportunity to advance through math levels where they will be introduced to problem solving, and concepts not generally taught to younger grades, like set theory
• Daily language arts for 80 minutes where they will work on handwriting, be introduced to classic children’s literature and short stories from around the world
• Outdoor and movement focus with daily morning walk, daily recess, and 20 minute mid-morning break, in addition to weekly Physical Education
• Weekly computer science
• Weekly visual and logic puzzles
• Community and character education
• Integrated units for history and social studies, fine and performing arts, and engineering
• Integrated science that features hands-on labs and exploration, as well as integration with non-fiction language arts

We were glad to read about Fairfax County’s vote to require 15 minutes of recess daily for middle school students as we believe it is very important for all children to have breaks throughout the day, we just think they need more. All of our students, elementary, middle, and high school students have 30 minutes a day for recess, 30 minutes for lunch, mid-class breaks, and 30 minutes for a morning walk. 

We agree that downtime during the day is necessary for health and wellness, social development, and set the students up for success in academics. Younger children need even more opportunities for movement and our schedule is designed for breaks and movement throughout the day and throughout the week. 

I get so excited when I think of each part of the curriculum, which we have been slowly building over the past eight years. The integrated history units where students immerse themselves in world cultures and civilizations and through integrated projects work learn about engineering, art, music, community, and character education. In science, we will draw on our decade of experience in inquiry-based, hands-on learning where our students will continue to experiment in the science lab. 

As we draw our seventh year to a close we are proud of the strength and challenge of both our liberal arts foundations and how they come together with our engineering and science programs. We are excited to be able to provide these opportunities to 1st to 3rd graders looking for an academic challenge in a caring, hands-on, and creative community. 

First through third grade applications will be accepted starting on Wednesday, April 27.