Nature Addition | Grove School

Hopefully you've looked around and The Grove School feels like a great place for your child. Fantastic! We’d love to meet up with you in person, answer your questions and tell you more first hand. Shoot us an e-mail or give us a call and we’ll get back to you shortly.

The Grove School of Plano
p: (877) 664-7683
f: (972) 208-1341

The Grove School of Cary
p: (877) 684-7683
f: (919) 460-7450

We're looking for rare individuals. Teachers with degrees in early childhood or environmental education and a fire in the belly to make a difference. Administrators with a head for business and a heart for helping children reach their full potential. People who are so invested that they'll stay with us for years, growing and developing our educational community. Is that you?

Look around the site.
Do our goals mesh with yours?
Share your resume with us.
- The Grove School of Plano
  6800 Independence Parkway
  Plano, TX 75023
  p: (877) 664-7683
  f: (972) 208-1341
- The Grove School of Cary
  2590 Laura Duncan Drive
  Cary, NC 27513
  p: (877) 684-7683
  f: (919) 460-7450

Kids learn through play, but what about the grown ups? The Grove School is a playground for everyone. Join the fun!
(Psst, you can move the colored circles with your mouse.)

You and us, face to face, let’s get to know each other.
Use the numbers or emails below to schedule a time to meet.
- Videos, photos, tweets—help us create something to talk about. Why?
  YouTube
  Flickr
  Twittter
  Yelp
- RSS Updates. What’s RSS?
  The Grove School
  The Grove School of Plano
  The Grove School of Cary
- Contribute to our blogs. How?

The Grove School of Plano
6800 Independence Parkway
Plano, TX 75023
p: (877) 664-7683
f: (972) 208-1341

Find us
The Grove School of Cary
2590 Laura Duncan Drive
Cary, NC 27513
p: (877) 684-7683
f: (919) 460-7450

Find us

Each day, your child moves between structured group activities, one-on-one with teachers, and indoor and outdoor play. In everything we do, the focus is on developing critical foundational skills in language arts, math, science, social skills and personal expression. And we're always attentive to the unique personality, interests and needs of your child, suggesting appropriate activities to keep them happy and engaged.

The school day also includes learning opportunities structured
around these themes.
- - Nutritious eating habits and the importance of rest, fresh air and plenty of physical activity.
- - Self-expression through different types of media and the basics of shapes, dimension, texture and composition.
- - New experiences with rhythms, instruments, notes and musical terms.
- - Explorations of the world around us with an emphasis on ecology through the sciences.
- - Introduction to storytelling with props, puppets and costumes.

- EARLY PRESCHOOL
  Games, songs, movement and art help children reach developmental milestones for two year olds. They explore and discover at their own pace and gain confidence with social skills such as cooperation, sharing and taking turns.
- PRESCHOOL
  Children are encouraged to explore with an emphasis on self-confidence and mastery of learning. Three and four year olds develop and strengthen literacy, math and science skills through thematic units and activities that combine learning and fun.
- PREKINDERGARTEN
  Children learn to share, cooperate and practice independence through a curriculum designed to meet state and national early learning standards. We also introduce four and five year olds to projects, journaling and alphabet letters and sounds.

We also offer before and after school programs to continue the day’s learning. Activities might include yoga, phonics and Spanish. Since each school offers different opportunities, please connect with the school director about your options.

Nature Addition

Leah Hull | August 30, 2011 | Comment

As early childhood professionals, we understand that math operations do not need to be taught to children as young as four. Rather, it is first necessary to ensure that students understand that objects have value, and that counting is more than just saying numbers. Number awareness is a fundamental concept that must be introduced before higher operations are conceptualized. When I walked into Ms. Leah’s class last week, I loved the way she reinforced the math skill of counting objects, while introducing the children to the basic concept of addition. I asked Ms. Leah to write a short summary of her lesson and explain how she integrated it with the “healthy mind, healthy body, and healthy planet” values of The Grove School.

During the unit Outside My Window, we talked a lot about recycling and taking care of our earth. We have been learning how to write and recognize our numbers, so a fun activity we decided to try was Nature Addition. This was the first time most of these kids had seen or talked about addition. We discussed what a plus sign and equal sign does. We then had some fun picking out different pieces of nature (leaves, grass, wood chips, rocks, etc) and putting them on our addition mats. We put a few pieces on one side of the plus sign and a few more pieces on the other side, then we counted each side individually and then counted all of them together to see find the total. It was fun to get to start practicing big kid math , and what better way to do that then to use little pieces of the world around us!