Curriculum
Oasis Trilingual Community School for TK (Transitional Kindergarten, 4 yrs old) to 8th grade offers a challenging and engaging curriculum in Mandarin, Spanish, and English. We believe in nurturing the whole child to develop the leaders of tomorrow.
Understanding academics through inquiry-based, hands-on learning to develop, design, and build their projects ensures a long-term connection to understanding and real-world application.
We use IB (International Baccalaureate) themes that span six to eight weeks to connect our trilingual language and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) programs together throughout the year.
For Mandarin, students take classes in Mandarin language arts, Mandarin/English math and science classes, and various enrichment classes, which results in 40% of their day in Mandarin.
For Spanish, students take Spanish language arts classes, Spanish/English social studies classes, and Spanish enrichment classes, meaning they get 35% of their day in Spanish, and English language classes are at 25%.
Our program is unique because it allows students to explore language at their level. Prior language experience is NOT needed for any grade level through our differentiation model and cohort-level classes!
We believe in cohort levels instead of grade levels to allow students the flexibility to grow through their challenges and access their strengths. Our Individual Learning Plans make it possible to meet every child where they are at in their learning!
English Language Arts
We combine the literary skills of Reader's and Writer's Workshop, Heggerty Phonemic Awareness, Fry's Sight Words, and Words Their Way curriculum for spelling. We have found that this curriculum combination cultivates learners with strong reading skills, a well-developed writing voice, and solid communication skills that transfer to our other two languages.
Mandarin and Spanish Language Arts
Through total language immersion, students learn to be fearless Mandarin and Spanish communicators!
We combine Organic World Language (OWL), where students use their languages interactively through kinetic interactions, games, and role-play with relevant themes across disciplines; students apply their English language arts skills from Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop to Mandarin and Spanish to develop literacy skills in all three languages.
For Mandarin we use, My First Chinese Reader and Mei Zho, and for Spanish we use our own teacher created curriculum aligned with and inspired by the IB Themes.
For our assessments, we follow the California World Language standards framework for both our target language assessments and track student growth with the American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines.
Mathematics
Using Singapore Math as our primary curriculum, we teach math in English and Mandarin.
This curriculum focuses on a deep understanding of how and why math works with a natural progression from hands-on manipulatives to pictorial to algorithmic equations that align with and exceed Common Core Standards.
In addition to Singapore Math, we use Math Circles curriculum and fun, engaging math projects so students can connect the real-world applications of mathematics.
Creative STEAM Lab and Trilingual Library
Our creative STEAM Lab (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) and Trilingual Library are where students express their creativity and critical thinking skills!
Through coding in robotics, our exploratory science experiments, and collaboration and design learning with our engineering projects in MakerSpace, students develop their STEAM fundamentals. Students also use our Lab's green screen for Filmmaking, Mandarin, and Spanish language projects. For example, they have played Mandarin weathercasters and reenacted characters from history in their bilingual Spanish/English social studies class.
If they want to check out books, they can use our ample Trilingual Library to take a book home to practice their literacy skills or to just read for fun during recess or lunch.
Social Studies
We teach Social Studies in both English and Spanish. Students read, write, debate, and present papers and projects in both languages. While aligning with the Common Core standards, students learn to be social scientists by learning about history through an inquiry-based perspective.
Through project-based learning, students explore, discuss, and investigate topics such as immigration, California's Chumash Native Americans, branches of government, geography, and financial literacy through our collaboration with the Junior Achievement Program. Our students' projects range from historical plays to gardening and cooking projects that connect with what the people grew and ate during that time.
Social Emotional and Service-Learning
At Oasis, our mission is to educate and inspire our students to be respectful, compassionate, and resilient humans. With a foundation built on Responsive Classroom, our teachers, staff, and parents are supported to facilitate this crucial part of character development. We start off our day with a Morning Meeting, designed to foster deep community connection, emotional understanding, and accountability and to ‘center’ ourselves to start the school day right. Students are taught conflict management skills and how to reflect on their actions and emotions actively.
Cultural Celebrations
Students participate in many fun activities each year for our Mandarin and Spanish cultural celebrations. For the Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival, and Dragon Boat Festival, students learn about Chinese culture by participating in night markets, performing in dragon dances, and pi ying xi (Chinese shadow puppet plays). They also cook authentic dumplings, tangyun, make Chinese lanterns, lucky money envelopes, and calligraphy scrolls.
For our Spanish Día de Los Muertos, Cinco De Mayo, and Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations, students make homemade tortillas, tamales and salsa, read and write about Latin American history, sing and dance to Latin music, make Day of the Dead altars, paint murals, and make paper marigolds and colorful papel picado banners.
Parents are welcome to share in the festivities with their children!
