For school year 2025-26 The Juniper School houses three Grades classes; Grade 1/2, Grade 3/4, and Grade 5
At The Juniper School, each teacher takes a class on a multi-year journey and is committed to a personal path of practice that cultivates self-actualization: the conscious realization of one’s talents and potentialities. This self-actualization serves as a model to children. A rich, broad and engaging curriculum that focuses on visual art, music, literacy, number sense, embodied movement, appreciation of the natural world, handwork, dignified form, social health and emotional intelligence are the hallmarks of the journey of First Grade and beyond.
With each year, the form, strength and health of the class increases in a way that seeks to empower each child’s sense of responsibility, special gifts and love for learning. When children reach the end of Third grade and the beginning of Fourth, their burgeoning sense of identity lends itself to a sense of real leadership and challenge-- the children move forward (with the teacher receding a bit) to rule their classroom environment with dignity, responsibility and a striving to do what is right yet challenging. At this point, the curriculum becomes increasingly more demanding and complex, focusing more on subject matter in depth.
The multi-age classroom environments lend a sense of closeness and family, while allowing for variations in each child’s development to be met with gentleness and confidence. Literature that matches the archetype of the class’s stage of development is brought through the teacher in a way that nourishes the soul and intellect. Each summer, teachers take part in deep training that allows them to become equipped to meet both the growing children and the new curricular needs. Continued, kind assistance and accountability from the community of parents serves to inspire the classroom environment as well.
Together, our shared purpose is to help children love learning for its own sake, to self-start, to ask questions, to use their powers of observation, documentation and interpretation. Through rhythm and simplicity and balance, we teach them to be at ease in the world and with each other. We provide the resource of strong and committed adults who will support them at every turn. If they find ways to gain confidence, and if they have trusted adults to turn to, then they tend to resolve the sense of separation and forge connection, trust and commitment to themselves, each other and our world. This form of education is intended to spark true freedom in the child, that they may determine their path in life with the skills, strength, empathy and motivation that are needed.
The following letter explains the journey of our grades classes as they progress into the higher grades.
Dear Juniper School Families,
Our shared intention as a Grades teaching faculty is to work with each child’s willing, feeling and thinking life in a way that helps them become the strongest, clearest version of themselves. This is a task we take to heart each day.
The Grade School began in 2018 and since that time, we have been able to grow and refine our curriculum and teaching methods. In February 2025, the Grades faculty had a chance to reflect on the strengths of our program- and where we have room for more clarity. Upon this reflection, we have shifted our offerings slightly.
Moving forward into 2025-26 and the foreseeable future, we feel that we can offer an excellent education to children in Grades 1-5. Classes will begin their journey with a stand-alone grade 1, then split grades classes 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, and then a final stand-alone Grade 5. We intend to limit these larger split grade classes at around 22-24 children. In the spring of Grade 5, the children will participate in the Greek Pentathlon at the Ann Arbor Steiner School, which provides an embodied, lived experience of what it might mean to lead our lives with beauty, truth, and grace. This feels like a fitting finish for our students- and a purposeful, confident way for them to move into the pre-adolescent years of growth and change. Every child, whether they finish Grade 5 in either the 4-5 split or the stand alone Grade 5 will have an opportunity to join the Pentathlon.
We have learned that the child of age 12 and the needs of the 6th grade are quite different from that of Grade 5- more challenge, more organizational systems to support executive functioning skills, and varied mentors to serve these children well. Most area Middle Schools start in grade 6 and we want to support this natural transition.
With appreciation and warmth,
The Juniper School Grades Faculty
