Enrichment

Specialists in music, Spanish, reading and physical education are on staff and meet with students individually and in group settings. Music instruction includes elements of music appreciation, theory, and composition. A weekly all-school sing celebrates song and community; primary grades learn to play marimbas. All students attend Spanish classes two or three times per week. Art is integrated into classroom projects, and students are introduced to art history and different media, such as ceramics, acrylics, photography, collage, and digital imagery. Outdoor education is an intrinsic component through nature walks, outdoor inquiry-based exploration and hands-on work in the school's Secret Garden. Local field trips and multi-day camping trips are a curricular component, on an age-appropriate basis. Preschool students engage in movement and music groups and primary students participate in physical education classes several times per week. Third and 4th graders walk to nearby Medgar Evers Pool for weekly swimming lessons. All students make regularly scheduled visits to the school library to check out books and listen to books read aloud by our teaching librarian. Technology plays a role in the classroom as students learn to edit their writing, practice keyboarding skills and do research projects utilizing computers and word-processors.

Service learning at Giddens builds compassion while providing students with hands-on practice in identifying problems and solutions and engaging in the larger community in practical and helpful ways. Examples include tending and harvesting vegetables from the school's Secret Garden for the St. Mary's Food Bank located across from the school; helping to design an all-accessible playground for a neighborhood park; and writing letters to city officials and demonstrating on behalf of homeless families.