Products for Teachers & Classrooms: The Essential Curriculum

The Essential Curriculum has been developed over the past 20 years, including rigorous field testing and evaluation for effectiveness. The program is designed for classroom teachers teaching in Grades Pre-K through 7; additional grade levels are under development. The curriculum has been evaluated with positive results in a wide variety of schools – public, independent, religious-based, suburban and urban. The program focuses on teaching skills, behaviors, and attitudes necessary for every young person to lead a successful, secure, and productive life. Teachers have found the program to be critical in maintaining classroom discipline and in maximizing classroom management , thereby making their job of teaching subject matter significantly easier.

Each grade level of The Essential Curriculum is constructed to provide all the information and teaching tools that make teaching the curriculum as teacher-friendly as possible. The manipulatives that accompany the program are necessary for teaching the curriculum, though some can be made or acceptable substitutes found by individual teachers.

The Curriculum Catalog, presented by grade level, describes each item and its purpose, as well as describing the theme for each grade level of The Essential Curriculum. The catalog is accompanied by an order form for each grade level, according to whether the program is being taught for the first time in the classroom (first-time order form), or whether supplies that are used by individual students each year are being replenished (re-order form).

For each grade level, the curriculum is divided into three types of learning and teaching: principles, supporting concepts, and skills. The curriculum is organized conceptually in the following way, and the same topics are taught year after year with different, developmentally appropriate techniques and activities.

Key Principles

• Admitting, correcting, and learning from mistakes
• Identifying the appropriate roles of emotion and reason
• Learning to identify and fulfill one’s true responsibilities
• Respecting one’s own rights and the rights of all others

Supporting concepts and curriculum topics

• Human individuality
• The proper ways to seek excitement and fun
• The roles of effort and pride
• Human relationships

Skills

• Goal-setting
• Moral reasoning
• Introspection
• Empathy

Each grade level has a Teacher’s Manual and a Student Workbook or activity book. For each Teacher’s Manual, an Introduction section gives tips on how to use the manual and general ways to utilize the awards and other manipulatives accompanying the grade level. Pictures of the Student Workbook page have been inserted into the Teacher’s Manual so that they precede the text that accompanies them. The Manual uses a quotation style of explanation; for many teachers, it is the easiest way for them to communicate the ideas that they will be teaching. Teachers may use whatever style of presentation that they prefer. Teacher instructions and responses are presented in bold italic and sometimes in parentheses.

Each lesson has the following sections:

• Before Presenting, with tips to help in lesson preparation
• The Concepts, with a brief description of the important concepts contained in each lesson;
• The Objective, with a summary of the teaching/learning objective for the lesson;
• Suggestions for an Enrichment Activity are presented for each lesson in the curriculum through Third Grade, with one or more supplemental activities that reinforce or present the concepts of the lesson in a different way.

Each student workbook or activity book is filled with exercises that accompany the curriculum and are designed as fun, interactive activities in all learning modalities that reinforce the concepts, skills, and theme of each grade level. Individual reflection, team “competitions,” gross motor activities, fine motor activities, music, puppets, stories, songs and games are all designed as teaching tools to increase comprehension of abstract ideas and provide opportunities for skill practice. Reading, spelling, writing, drawing, logic, problem-solving, and analysis are all utilized in the curriculum. A variety of teaching activities reflect the “multiple intelligences” approach in the curriculum.

While some activities are “competitive,” with a clear winner, winners or a winning team, all games are won by chance rather than by skill, though students must use knowledge of the concepts to play. Many activities are so popular with students that they ask to play them over and over throughout the year. Many games may be played in a variety of ways to supplement and integrate with other classroom subjects and activities.

From this introduction, feel free to browse the product catalog of these products and to examine product pricing.

Please contact the Teel Institute at 816-753-2733 to order.