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The Country School's new senior campus is on Daniels Hole Road in East Hampton. MICHAEL HELLER
The Country School founder Deena Zenger has announced a senior campus for prekindergarten through second grade will be opening on Daniel’s Hole Road in East Hampton this fall.
The campus will feature a 6,000-square-foot school with five classrooms, boys and girls bathrooms, a commercial kitchen, 2,000 square feet of covered patio space, a gym, a pool, a sports field, tennis courts and a modern playground.
“I felt compelled to extend our curriculum to include kindergarten through second grade,” Zenger said. “I believe parents should always have a choice with the decisions regarding their children, and children deserve a creative, enriching curriculum.”
In a press release, she said, “The Country School Association’s ‘whole child’ curriculum integrates wellness, academics, creative arts and life-building skills to provide a well-rounded basis for learning and growing. It promotes independence, good decision-making skills and a strong sense of self through teaching children conscious awareness and the mind-body connection.”
Literacy skills for preemergent through proficient readers is fostered through shared reading, read-alouds, one-on-one reading with a teacher, literacy play activities, direct reading instruction, syllabication, phonics, blending, comprehension and group discussions that support language development and literacy skills, she added.
Foundations of mathematics are learned by exploring concepts; developing number sense; understanding spatial relations; making comparisons; learning addition and subtraction, early fractions, time and money; understanding place value, measurement and lengths; working with geometric shapes and exploring standard units of measure.
Science is discovered through project-based programs that begin with a seed-to-table concept using problem-solving, observational skills and hard work. It then moves to local ecosystems and geology where the students build upon knowledge and experiences they already have to connect to new concepts and skills.
A Spanish program is geared for all levels with a focus on conversational Spanish, and art, music and wellness experiences are offered throughout the curriculum.
Zenger said The Country School Association offers a state-of-the-art education with parental freedom and choice at its core.
“Its purpose is to provide a safe and nurturing environment for school-age children to grow and thrive,” she said. “Students gain a strong foundation across subject areas through hands-on, project-based learning.”
The Country School was founded by Zenger in 1990. The Country School and Country School Association’s mission is to provide an innovative and preeminent education for children. The objective is to cultivate confident, ethical, mindful, life-long learners that have the power to change the world, says the press release, boasting a unique approach to learning based on connecting a child’s natural world to academic success using an interdisciplinary curriculum.
