Lower School

Skyuka Hall Lower School: A Place of Love, Learning, and Belonging

At Skyuka Hall, we believe every child is beautifully unique and deserving of a learning environment that honors their individuality. Our Lower School, serving grades K–5, is a place of healing and hope where we nurture the whole child—academically, socially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually—during their most formative years.

With a typical student-to-teacher ratio of 10:1, our dedicated educators provide personalized instruction tailored to each student’s learning profile. Every child receives an Individualized Learning Plan (ILP), a living document reviewed three times a year by teachers and administrators. Each ILP outlines academic strengths and concerns, accommodations, and recommended instructional strategies to ensure every child receives the support they need to thrive.

Teachers and administrators closely monitor each student’s assessments and benchmark progress throughout the year. This ongoing tracking allows us to provide both remediation and enrichment opportunities, ensuring that each learner receives individualized attention and is supported in achieving their fullest potential.

Our classrooms are designed to be safe, nurturing, and sensory-sensitive spaces. Features such as ambient lighting, flexible seating, noise accommodations, and scheduled sensory breaks help create a calm, supportive learning environment. Instruction is multimodal and rooted in experiential learning, blending hands-on activities with direct instruction to foster deeper engagement and understanding.

Skyuka Hall takes a non-traditional approach to learning and assessment. We use a standards-based grading system that measures student mastery of specific skills, providing families and students with clear, meaningful insights into progress.

Students enjoy daily enrichment activities that spark creativity and build essential life skills. These include art, music, Spanish, STEAM, physical education, and social-emotional learning (SEL). SEL is a central part of our program, cultivating durable skills such as communication, leadership, teamwork, and resilience. Alongside these, students develop strong executive functioning skills that prepare them for a smooth and confident transition to middle school.

Our caring, highly trained staff brings a wealth of expertise and a deep commitment to each child’s success. At Skyuka Hall, we see and celebrate your child for who they are. We walk beside them with love, acceptance, and a deep belief in their limitless potential.

Lower School Core Curriculum

Mathematics

Mathematics at Skyuka Hall: Building Understanding Through Compassion, Connection, and Play

At Skyuka Hall, we understand that every child is unique, bringing a wide range of strengths, challenges, and prior experiences to the classroom. Our mathematics program is rooted in love, acceptance, and a deep respect for the neurodiverse learners we serve. We are committed to creating a nurturing environment where all students feel safe to explore, make mistakes, and grow.

Students enter our school with a variety of math skill levels. To ensure each child’s needs are met, we provide targeted remediation when needed while simultaneously offering grade-level instruction. This dual approach allows us to support foundational development while encouraging meaningful engagement with age-appropriate concepts.

All students participate in 90-minute daily math blocks based on the Bridges in Mathematics curriculum. Bridges is a multisensory, play-based program designed to promote deep conceptual understanding through visual models, repetition, and hands-on learning. These materials help students represent and interpret numbers, shapes, patterns, and relationships in ways that are accessible and meaningful. Students work independently, in pairs, and in small groups before sharing their strategies with the class—promoting collaboration, confidence, and critical thinking.

For learners who need additional support, we use the Bridges Intervention curriculum. This program complements classroom instruction through consistent language and engaging activities that reinforce core concepts and skills.

All of our teachers have been trained in Marilyn Zecher’s Multisensory Math, an Orton-Gillingham-based approach that supports a wide range of learning profiles. This approach focuses on conceptual understanding while incorporating direct, explicit strategies for skill development. It allows for flexible instruction, whether used for brief concept reinforcement in the classroom or more intensive academic therapy to strengthen foundational understanding. These strategies may be used in pull-out or push-in settings and are always tailored to the individual student.

At Skyuka Hall, math instruction is guided by a diagnostic and prescriptive approach. Teachers and administrators carefully track student progress through ongoing assessments and benchmarks. This data informs instruction, ensuring that each child receives the remediation or enrichment they need to make continuous progress.

Our ultimate goal is to help students develop mathematical reasoning, conceptual clarity, procedural fluency, and the confidence to approach problems with independence and resilience. We want every student to see themselves as capable mathematicians, supported by a compassionate community that believes in their potential.

Reading & Language Arts

Language Arts at Skyuka Hall: Building Literacy with Purpose, Care, and the Science of Reading

At Skyuka Hall, we are deeply committed to ensuring every child becomes a confident, capable, and joyful reader and writer. Our Lower School literacy program is thoughtfully designed to support neurodiverse learners by meeting each student at their point of need and building a strong foundation in reading, spelling, writing fluency, and comprehension.

We understand that becoming a fluent and proficient reader requires more than just the ability to decode words. It involves the integration of phonological awareness, decoding, vocabulary, background knowledge, and comprehension. That’s why our curriculum is structured around Scarborough’s Reading Rope, ensuring instruction targets all strands necessary for skilled reading.

Phonics and Foundational Skills Instruction

Four days a week, Lower School students receive 45 minutes of direct, explicit, and systematic phonics instruction using Fundations by Wilson Language Training. Fundations provides a multimodal approach to reading, spelling, and handwriting that makes learning engaging and effective for both students and teachers. With an approximate 8:1 student-to-teacher ratio in small groups, students are placed based on ability to ensure instruction is personalized and targeted. Fundations is grounded in Structured Literacy principles and aligned with the science of reading, laying the groundwork for lifelong literacy.

Fundations also complements our reading intervention program, the Wilson Reading System, which reinforces foundational concepts and offers additional support through consistent instructional language and strategies.

Comprehensive English Language Arts Instruction

Students receive 90 minutes of English Language Arts instruction daily using Amplify CKLA (Core Knowledge Language Arts) 3rd Edition, a comprehensive K–5 curriculum grounded in the Science of Reading and Writing. Amplify CKLA blends systematic foundational skills with rich content knowledge, helping students build vocabulary, fluency, and critical thinking through structured reading and writing experiences.

The curriculum includes a wide variety of texts—from decodable readers to engaging read-alouds and novels—that expose students to complex language and diverse ideas. Writing instruction is woven into daily lessons, emphasizing both mechanics and composition to support clear, effective communication.

At Skyuka Hall, we believe that strong literacy skills are essential for lifelong success, and we are committed to helping every student reach their full potential. Our nurturing classrooms, expert teachers, and evidence-based instruction combine to create a learning environment where neurodiverse students thrive—not in spite of their differences, but because their differences are embraced, supported, and celebrated.

Science

Lower School Science: Hands-On Learning for Curious Minds

At Skyuka Hall, science instruction is rooted in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and designed to support neurodiverse learners through engaging, hands-on experiences. Our curriculum helps students make meaningful connections across four key domains: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Engineering Design.

We integrate Crosscutting Concepts like cause and effect to help students see patterns and relationships in the natural world. Through Science and Engineering Practices, students learn to ask questions, plan investigations, analyze data, and design solutions—building essential problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Our teachers combine direct, explicit instruction with multimodal, experiential projects that encourage creativity, inquiry, and collaboration. From building models to conducting experiments, students explore scientific ideas in ways that are accessible, engaging, and tailored to their individual learning styles.

Skyuka Hall’s science program nurtures curiosity, deepens understanding, and empowers every student to see the world through a scientific lens.

Social Sciences

Lower School Social Sciences: Building Knowledge, Citizenship, and Perspective

At Skyuka Hall, we recognize that strong readers need more than just phonics and decoding—they need rich vocabulary and background knowledge. That’s why we make social studies a priority in our Lower School classrooms.

In many schools, the social sciences receive the least instructional time, often overshadowed by math and reading. At Skyuka Hall, we understand the vital role social studies plays in developing thoughtful, informed students. Our instruction is aligned with Tennessee State Standards and helps students build a meaningful understanding of history, geography, civics, and culture.

Students use Tennessee History booklets to explore national and global events while also learning about Tennessee’s important role in history. These lessons are further supported by our English Language Arts curriculum, Amplify CKLA, which integrates social studies content through rich texts, historical narratives, and thematic units.

Through this thoughtful and consistent exposure, students engage with a wide range of ideas and perspectives. They build essential knowledge, develop a stronger sense of citizenship, and gain the skills needed to think critically about the world around them—laying a strong foundation for middle school and beyond.

"Chilldren have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves.” ~ Jean Piaget

Lower School Enrichment Curriculum

What is Enrichment?

Developing strengths, integrating learning

Skyuka Hall is dedicated to providing a well-rounded education for all students in order to help them become self-aware, confident, knowledgeable, and resilient. We know that many students with learning differences do best when they are in motion, participating in the arts, and engaging in high interest activities. Each day, students in the lower school attend an enrichment class that helps to foster their creativity, problem solving skills, and confidence. This allows for an intentional and necessary break from the rigors of academic work.

Music

Lower School Music: Expression, Exploration, and Artistic Growth

At Skyuka Hall, music is more than a class—it’s a space for self-expression, creativity, and connection. Our Lower School music program is designed with sensitivity to neurodiverse learners, valuing movement, sensory awareness, and the joy of making music while steadily building foundational technique.

Students are encouraged to explore and express themselves through a structured yet flexible curriculum that supports individual growth. They learn to select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for performance, while also developing and refining technique. Music instruction guides students to convey meaning, organize creative ideas, and understand the intent behind artistic choices.

Through active listening, movement, and performance, students connect music to their own experiences and explore how it reflects cultural, societal, and historical contexts. Music at Skyuka Hall fosters confidence, imagination, and a lifelong appreciation for the arts.

Physical Education

The goals of the physical education program at the primary level are for students to develop the motor skills necessary to participate in athletic endeavors and to promote a healthy lifestyle. Older students in the lower school will learn how to sharpen individual skills and how to use those skills in the context of teamwork. Teamwork skills are integrated into the program to guide students in developing the necessary tools for problem solving and to promote self-esteem. Students are encouraged to resolve disagreements by means of cooperation, team building, respect and compromise.

STEAM

Visual Arts

The development of self-expression and creativity is fostered through weekly art instruction. Our intent is to help our students flourish and realize their strengths through the use of multiple modalities designed to integrate various functions of the brain. Students are introduced to different design concepts, how to use various familiar and unfamiliar media, and to a robust study of art history.

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