Imagine Schools Standards-Based Curriculum
At Imagine Schools, we have developed a curriculum that guides teachers and students toward the high level of learning expected in today’s world. This process is used every time lessons and assessments are planned. It describes the curriculum and, along with the Imagine Schools School Design Model, sets the parameters for teaching and learning in an effective classroom. The curriculum represents the best thinking of education professionals, as well as the input of business and community members as to the needs of students in a global society.
The curriculum is characterized by challenging academic standards that lead to high achievement for all students. Standards are clearly articulated at each grade level, building upon a solid content base in each academic subject. Students expand prior knowledge through a spiraled thematic curriculum, focusing on inquiry and project-based applications of key concepts and universal ideas. Instructional practices vary, ensuring that teachers meet the needs of students with diverse learning styles.
The curriculum provides students and teachers with world class learning opportunities, with a focus on the following:
- Learner centered results
- Authentic and challenging materials and activities
- Critical thinking and creative problem solving
- Technology as a learning tool
- A hands-on, minds-on approach to learning
- Personal and global perspectives
- Reflection and exchange of ideas
- Interdisciplinary thematic units
We believe that engaging students in a rigorous standards-based curriculum is essential to student achievement and success. The curriculum characteristics allow for flexibility, yet maintain high and appropriate expectations for all. At Imagine Schools, the curriculum ensures that students enjoy the moment, and learn for a lifetime.
Exceptional Student Education (ESE)
When making the decision to enroll a child in a school, a parent must be aware of not only the educational services the school can offer but also the process in which students are placed into the Exceptional Student Education (ESE) or Gifted.
At Imagine Schools North Manatee, we have teachers that concentrate on not only working with our ESE students but also working in conjunction with the teachers of these students. Working as a team, it is our goal to plan out lessons, activities, and accommodations that will allow our students with Individual Education Plans (IEP)’s succeed.
If you do decide to enroll here at the school and you would like your child to be evaluated for an IEP, our ESE team will set up a meeting with you to determine what steps to take.
If your child is currently involved in an IEP our ESE team will meet with you to figure out if any modifications to the IEP will be necessary. These modifications will be small and will be used to best meet the needs of the child while attending our school.
At ISNM, we offer Speech, Language, and Occupational Therapy services. We contract out for these services and we follow the objectives set forward in the IEP. We also offer specific programming for Gifted students.
Voluntary Pre-kindergarten or VPK gives children a jump start by preparing them for school and enhancing their pre-reading, pre-math, language and social skills. By developing the skills children need to become strong readers and students at an early age, children are more likely to be successful in school. VPK classrooms offer high-quality programs that include high literacy standards, developmentally appropriate curricula, manageable class sizes, and qualified teachers.
Benefits of early education and the VPK program:
The most important growth and development in the brain happens by the age of five.
The early years are the learning years. A child’s ability to be attentive and to follow directions emerges in the early years. Structured early learning fosters these abilities for later success in school and in life.
- Pre-K prepares children to be ready for school.
- Children who participate in high-quality early childhood education programs develop better language skills, score higher in school-readiness tests, have better social skills and fewer behavioral problems once they enter school.
- 1=They are better prepared for Kindergarten, especially in the areas of pre-reading, pre-math and social skills.
- Pre-K promotes a love of learning in children.
- Pre-K enhances what a child learns at home and instills a love for life-long learning.
A child must be 4 years of age on or before September 1 of the program year, and reside in Florida to participate in the VPK program.
They must also apply for an eligibilty certificate at :
The Early Learning Coalition of Manatee County, Inc.
3526 9th Street West, Suite 200
Bradenton, Florida 34205
VPK is offered from 8:30am-11:30am with aftercare offered until 3pm and extended care until 6 pm.
Please contact the school office for an application and/or more information 941-981-5345.
This section is being updated, please check back soon.
Children need to creatively express themselves and at Imagine Schools North Manatee, we encourage and support their expression.
Grades K-7 attend Art where they investigate different artists and art periods, utilize a wide range of materials and practice different skills to create amazing works of art. We continue our character education in the Art room and celebrate our differences and the differences in other cultures. Many projects incorporate other subject areas along with the FL Sunshine State Standards for Art, so that children can apply their academic studies in a creative way. It’s amazing how much we learn when we’re having so much fun!
We have started to offer specific types of art classes for the middle school students. In spring 2012, we offered Visual Art, Painting, Printmaking and Arts and Crafts. Each class focused on a specific skill in art while meeting FL Sunshine State Standards.
In the primary grades (K-2) students are given multiple opportunities to explore and identify various sound sources, read simple notated rhythmic patterns, respond and move to music, as well as to sing well-known children songs, traditional American folk songs, and songs from others cultures.
The main focus of the primary music lessons are to sing in tune and move and play in time. Students play un-pitched percussion instruments such as drums, maracas and cymbals, as well as pitched percussion instruments like the xylophones and metallophones. Also in second grade students receive rudimentary instruction in the soprano recorder.
Music Intermediate (3-5)
Students in the intermediate grades build on the fundamental music skills learned in the primary grades. Like primary students we learn song from other cultures however now we now sing in foreign languages as well. This year we have sung in French, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, and Zulu.
In third grade we begin two-part sing with rounds and ostinatos. By fourth grade students are singing in two-part harmony, and this year our fifth graders are attempting to sing in three-part harmony on an arrangement of The Lion Sleeps Tonight from the Lion King (Let’s just say it’s been an adventure).
During the intermediate years there is a strong focus on note-reading and purposeful practice particularly with the soprano recorder though we do work with the xylophones and guitars as well.
Music Middle School
Description: Choir students will develop and improve their voices, learn to read music, and perform together in a cooperative, supportive environment. The choir will perform a wide variety of choral music, including classical, multi-cultural, and popular. There will be one required performance at the end of the semester.
Description: Learn to play the guitar or improve your existing guitar skills. Students will be introduced to the basic elements of music theory and guitar playing, including: a basic understanding of chord structures, rhythmic techniques, chord progressions, and note reading. There will be one required performance at the end of the semester. You may use your own guitar in class.
Description: Students will complete exploratory stations in which they listen to, play, read, notate and compose music with instruments such as guitar, recorder, xylophones, boomwhackers and keyboards as well as with the computer (Mixcraft5 and Finale Notepad).
Survey of Contemporary Music
Description: In this class students will listen to diverse genres of contemporary American music, including folk music, blues, disco, hip hop, jazz, pop, rock, R&B and country music. Students will be encouraged to listen outside of their comfort zones to diverse music and analyze the various styles that have grown out of American history. This class has a few homework assignments that require listening to and analyzing music.
Response to Intervention (RTI)
Our school, like all other public schools in Manatee County, have begun to utilize Response to Intervention (RTI) to assist all of our students.
RTI is the process that has replaced the Child Study process that was used to place children in the ESE program.
RTI asks our educators to use best teaching practices, student data, and intense interventions to ensure that every child is making learning gains.
RTI is a three-tiered model. In Tier 1, you will find the entire student population. Tier 1 instruction is the type of instruction that we provide to every student. In other words, our daily instruction.
Utilizing student data, we identify those students that are working below grade level. These students are placed in Tier 2.
In Tier 2, we provide intense interventions that are in addition to our regular Tier 1 instruction. We monitor and compare the students in Tier 2 with not only other student in Tier 2 but the regular Tier 1 population.
If the data supports that more interventions are needed, the child will move to Tier 3 which is the highest level of intervention.
If Tier 3 Interventions prove to be ineffective in assisting the child in their deficiency, then the appropriate testing for a specific learning disability can be utilized.
This is a new process that will benefit the students and the school as a whole.