FECEP
The Family and Early Childhood Education (Head Start) program involves parents, other volunteers, and community professionals in working with staff members to provide comprehensive services to meet children's educational, health, nutritional, social, and emotional needs.

The program serves approximately 1,090 students, aged three through five, in classrooms located in 50 schools. The program provides services to children from birth to three years of age and to expectant mothers at the Early Head Start Center in the Reston area. For eligibility criteria and additional information, call 703-846-8720.

Kindergarten
Kindergarten is an integral part of the total educational program of the Fairfax County Public Schools. The kindergarten program is designed to encourage and support children's social, emotional, physical and cognitive development. Children are involved in daily learning experiences with language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and music and movement. Small and large group activities provide children with opportunities to develop a positive self-image and the social and cognitive skills necessary for later learning. Ongoing performance assessment is an important part of the kindergarten program and occurs as children are engaged in a variety of activities throughout the school year. Curriculum, instruction, and assessment are responsive to children's individual differences, strengths, interests, learning styles, and rates of development. In the kindergarten program children are involved daily in learning experiences that will enable them to communicate orally, interact with others, solve problems, think critically, inquire, observe, create, and develop concepts for reading, writing, and math.

First Grade
The first grade teachers at Saratoga work and plan as a team to provide your child many opportunities to learn and grow.

In first grade, students learn basic skills and knowledge in social studies, science, health, physical education, art, music and technology with an emphasis on reading, writing, and mathematics. The level to which these skills and concepts are learned depends on the prior learning experiences of each child and parental support.

Our primary goal in the first grade is to provide an environment that is supportive and nurturing to your child's learning needs.

Second Grade
Second grade is a time of developing independence and responsibility. The students complete Learning Logs, our daily home-school communication written by the students, and weekly homework packets. Second graders write in a variety of forms and read a variety of genre moving into the much anticipated chapter books. They solve real-life math problems using addition, subtraction, fractions, charts, graphs, and more. The social studies units of study include: Native Americans, Ghana, Mexico, colonization, and famous explorers. In science we learned about animals and their environments and the physics of toys. Second grade is an adventure for students.

Third Grade
Welcome to Saratoga's third grade. Third grade is an exciting and active time. Saratoga has five third grade classrooms. Third grade is a time of personal growth. Students have the opportunity to explore Ancient Cultures, Math Magic, and Science through experimentation. Language Arts includes a variety of writing, reading, spelling, speaking, and listening activities.

SOL Web Sites from the Virginia Department of Education and FCPS

Fourth Grade
Fourth grade is a transition year for many students. Organization and time management are areas the students will learn and develop throughout the year.

They are given opportunities to use and apply many of the reading, writing, and oral communication skills acquired at earlier grades. For the first time since entering elementary school they will learn to read, extract, and apply information from the social studies text book. These skills will help them to further develop their comprehension skills when working with content area trade books. In addition, the students will work their way through the writing process while researching and writing reports, stories, poetry and other forms of written communication. In oral communication the students learn how to effectively present what they have learned using appropriate presentation skills.In math, the Houghton Mifflin textbook is used as the primary resource for study.

Fifth Grade
An exciting year awaits all who enter fifth grade at Saratoga. We are a busy bunch! In fifth grade we have hands-on exploration of environmental, physical and microsopic science. Classroom literature projects, including our school magazine keep us "on-the-go!"

Our fifth graders become young entrepreneurs in our semi-annual Free Enterprise Day. After earning and accumulating coupons for responsibility, behavior, and achievement awards each quarter, students create and run their own businesses through this token economy system. Students learn valuable skills as they share this common experience with the entire fifth grade student body.

What do you do with used stamped envelopes? If you're a fifth grader at Saratoga, you turn them into King Tut or King Arthur!!! Students collaboratively collect and sort postage stamps throughout the year in order to design a mosaic of something related to our world cultures curriculum.

History comes to life at Saratoga! As students learn about our world's past and present, they can experience many real life opportunities. Our visiting Knight explains the hardships of life in the Middle Ages. Students learn the medeival craft of brass rubbings through their own designs. They participate in cultural music programs and classroom role-playing activities such as "Who's Who" in History.

Sixth Grade
The sixth grade team uses a modified middle school approach. During this transition year to seventh grade, students are provided opportunities to demonstrate a depth of learning through completing various projects (group and individual), and making various oral presentations. Students are expected to use a daily planner to assist them in fulfilling homework and project requirements. Our goal is to provide our students with a smooth transition from elementary school to middle school.