Academics
Classroom lessons are based on the Colorado Academic Standards.Our goal is for all students to reach proficiency by the end of an academic year. You can access the standards for all courses and grade levels on the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) website. Detailed information and curriculum links can be found on the specific content pages.
Curriculum Maps
Click the grade to explore curriculum maps and curriculum for each grade level.
Explore the Standards
Assessment
EPES uses standardized assessments and other testing to measure student growth, identify student needs, inform parents, guide curriculum, and communicate district performance.
Overview of the Core Elementary Standards
Reference: https://www.cde.state.co.us/apps/standards/
Reading, Writing & Communication
The reading, writing, and communicating standards move from developing skills in reading, writing, and communicating to applying these literacy skills to more complex texts through the elementary years. Standards at each grade emphasize skills related to speaking and collaborating with others as students work with literature and informational readings and participate in individual and group research projects.
Mathematics
The mathematics standards in the elementary years focus on number and operations. Ideas from measurement and geometry help students learn about numbers and quantities. In each grade, students make sense of problems, explain their thinking, and describe their world with mathematics.
Science
Three-dimensional science standards in the elementary grades lay the foundation for students to work and think like scientists and engineers. In elementary grades students will explore disciplinary core ideas in Physical, Life, and Earth and Space sciences by engaging with phenomena in the world around us. Learners in elementary grades develop and ask testable questions, collect and analyze different types of evidence, and write and communicate our understanding. We also see strong connections to skills students will use to be successful with literacy and mathematics. Mastery of these standards will result in young learners who have a deep understanding of how scientific knowledge can provide solutions to practical problems we see in our world.
Social Studies
The social studies standards in the elementary years begin with individuals and families and move from there to explorations of neighborhoods, communities, the state of Colorado, and the United States. In each grade, students investigate historical events, examine geographic features and resources, consider economic decision-making processes, and define civic roles and responsibilities.
Overview of Elementary Standards for Specials
Physical Education
The physical education standards in the elementary years focus on enhancing movement concepts and skills, understanding basic health-related components and skill-related components of fitness and how it relates to personal fitness, demonstrating respect, and the ability to follow directions. In each grade, students demonstrate various movement concepts; assess personal behaviors; connect fitness development to body systems; demonstrate respect for self, others, and various physical activity environments; and utilize safety procedures during physical activities.
Comprehensive Health
The comprehensive health standards in the elementary years focus on developing individual skills to enhance physical, emotional, and social wellness and using those individual skills in family, school, and community environments. In each grade, the standards ask students to investigate healthy eating and living habits, explore positive communication strategies, examine effective decision-making, and identify ways to ensure personal and community safety.
The Arts
The Colorado Academic Standards in visual arts are organized by elements of the creative process taught in a cyclical, interconnected manner the way artists learn, connect, think, come up with ideas, experiment, plan, work, refine, share, and reflect in repetitive ways.
The music standards in the preschool and elementary years focus on general music knowledge and skills. In each grade, students perform a variety of music styles, identify and write music notation, practice musical creativity, and describe their own musical preferences.
Computer Science
Computer science may be taught at all levels preschool through high school, but the State of Colorado only has standards for computer science in high school.
World Languages
Instead of being organized by grade level, the world languages standards are organized into ranges that describe the progression of learning a student should experience as they grow from novice language learners to an advanced user.
Collaborative Literacy Curriculum K-5
The Colorado Reading to Ensure Academic Development Act (Colorado READ Act) focuses on early literacy development for all K–3 students. The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) provides districts with the READ Act Advisory List of Instructional Programming, which is rigorously vetted for alignment with the Science of Reading and evidence-based practices in literacy instruction.
Center for the Collaborative Classroom is proud to have Being a Reader and SIPPS (Systematic Instruction in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words) on the CDE’s READ Act Advisory List of Instructional Programming.