8th Grade

At The Learning Castle and La Cañada Preparatory, our focus is predicated on the individual success of every student and the promotion of the critical skills students will need in future academic pursuits.

At The Learning Castle, teachers utilize a wide array of consumable curriculum along with our own Color Me Smart® curriculum. Over the past thirty years, the Color Me Smart® curriculum (‘CMS’) has been created, honed and continues to be honed through actual classroom use. With over 3,000 worksheets covering ELA, math, geography, science, social studies and Spanish, CMS provides TLC teachers with the precise tools to accelerate learning and to aid in the recovery of remedial students. CMS is also used at the upper grade levels to re-introduce or re-enforce basic skill sets. The use of consumables, whether it be CMS or another curriculum, is fundamental to the teaching process at both schools. The teaching method at TLC and LCP is founded on a five-step methodology of assessment, gap identification, gap addressing, reassessment and advancement. Because each student’s gaps are different, consumables provide the most precise path towards mastery.

At La Cañada Preparatory, teachers take pride in organizing a curriculum that is tailor-made for each student while ensuring the student not only meets the state standards but is also challenged to progress beyond grade-level concepts. Although state standards provide framework to which departments do adhere for traditional benchmarks, they do not provide insight on how and what material is sequential and relevant for students who are working at faster or slower paces. Since assessments are an omnipresent and valuable resource at our school, our departments design curriculum that allows students to progress within their aptitudes.