In 2019–2020, Bricolage will adopt Tier 1 curricula across all subjects and grade levels. Tier 1 curricula are closely aligned to Louisiana state standards and are rated superior in quality by the Louisiana Department of Education. Our students’ academic strengths and needs are as diverse as their backgrounds, and our academic model engages each child at his or her ability level. ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS AND LITERACY Bricolage students are voracious readers. Visitors may see them reading in the morning carpool line, during recess, and in the cafeteria. During the 2018–2019 school year, however, data showed that our students required additional support to effectively ‘read to learn’ and write from a text—two concepts that will be essential to their success through middle and upper grades. Younger students also demonstrated phonics deficiencies which pointed to gaps in our previous ELA curricula. To target these and other literacy challenges our curriculum committee took time to identify more rigourous English Language Arts curricula. Beginning in the 2019–2020 school year, Bricolage will implement American Reading Company’s Foundational Skills Toolkit (grades K-1) and Wit and Wisdom (grades 2-6). American Reading Company’s Foundational Skills Toolkit promotes educational equity with leveled libraries and embedded differentiated support, and students engage in intellectual discourse around text and focus standards. Wit and Wisdom uses authentic texts to help students master essential reading, writing, language, speaking, listening and vocabulary. Benchmark assessments administered in fall 2019 indicate that both curricular shifts are already effectively targeting skills deficits early in the school year. MATHEMATICS Beginning in the 2018–2019 school year, Bricolage implemented the
full suite of Bridges in Mathematics across grades kindergarten through five. Bridges is closely aligned with Bricolage’s approach to encouraging creative problem-solving. Bridges uses visual models to help students construct, understand and apply mathematical concepts and ideas. We also selected Illustrative Math as our 6-8 grade mathematics curriculum, another Tier 1 curriculum which will be rolled out during the 20192020 school year. Illustrative Math includes a particular emphasis on applying mathematical concepts, and students have many opportunities to make connections between contexts and the concepts they are learning. Both programs foster deep understanding of mathematical concepts and support students to solve complex problems. Through the programs fifth grade students saw particularly strong gains in mathematics during the 2018– 2019 school year, and we are encouraged that these results will continue to improve as we scaffold these curricula. SCIENCE Despite the freedom Bricolage students have historically been given to investigate and explore— primarily through Innovator’s Workshop—students’ science achievement over the past two years indicated that they required a richer foundation in science instruction. During the 2018-2019 school year, Bricolage piloted Amplify Science in the fifth grade, combined with mathematics into a daily STEM block. Amplify blends hands-on
investigations, literacy-rich activities, and interactive digital tools to empower students to think, read, write, and argue like real scientists and engineers. Not only is Amplify strongly aligned with our vision and instructional strategies for developing problem-solvers, early results are encouraging. We are thrilled to scale the Amplify curriculum to all grades K-6 in 2019–2020. FOREIGN LANGUAGE The 2018–2019 school year marked the first time Bricolage offered foreign language instruction. By all accounts—especially students’— Spanish with Bricolage’s very own ‘La Maestra Loca’ is an incredible asset to our school community. During the 2018-2019 school year, La Maestra Loca taught third through fifth grade Spanish using a technique called Comprehensible Input. The basis of this approach is that language input can be understood by listeners despite them not understanding all the words and structures in it. Students do all of this speaking in Spanish, because you cannot learn Spanish by speaking about it in English. La Maestra Loca uses an immersive approach to teaching language— her students use Spanish almost exclusively. They have conversations about dinosaurs, dragons, Disney characters and Fortnite. Students make up stories and then act them out. They watch Youtube videos and talk about them. They listen to popular Spanish music and discuss the lyrics. Through this method students acquire grammar naturally just like when they learned their first language at home. Beginning in 2019-2020, all fourth, fifth and sixth grade students will receive Spanish instruction daily. Over time, we will expand our foreign language offerings to more grades and additional languages, building off of the solid foundation La Maestra Loca has already established. 13