Children, Community and Campus

WHO WE ARE

Old Mission Peninsula School is located halfway up Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City, MI. OMPS spreads across a 15 acre campus located between orchards and vineyards with views of West Grand Traverse Bay. Our curriculum highlights the beauty of our campus where students can take full advantage of unlimited outdoor learning opportunities. Children can study at the frog pond, explore the wooded trail surrounding the school, celebrate the arts at the outdoor amphitheater, plant and grow numerous plants in their own garden beds, explore the weather station, or even go snowshoeing during the winter months. Our curriculum choices were made to exemplify and extend students' learning outside of the classroom. OMPS holds high academic expectations for all learners. Each student has their own starting point and capabilities, and we believe all students can achieve greatness in their own way.

OMPS follows best practice of completing formal benchmark assessments 3 times a year.  These are the NWEA, Aimsweb, and Delta assessments.  In addition to this, students take an SEL screener twice a year.  The third, fourth, and fifth graders participate in the state mandated M-STEP assessment during the spring of each school year.  ​
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For more information on how Old Mission Peninsula was founded as a Public Charter School please visit:  https://www.ompef.org/ ​

click here to donate to the old mission peninsula education foundation

LITERACY

Curriculum: Backed by the Science of Reading.
The Core Knowledge Sequence provides a detailed outline of specific content and skills to be taught in language arts, history, geography, mathematics, science, visual arts, and music. Specific and Sequenced: Most curriculum standards provide general goals and objectives but offer teachers little guidance about the specific knowledge students should learn in each grade. In contrast, the Core Knowledge approach is to specify, in a clear grade-by-grade sequence, what students need to know. Excellence and Equity: Only by specifying the knowledge and skills that all children should share can we guarantee equal access to that knowledge. Educational excellence and equity require that every child in a democracy have access to important shared knowledge and language.

Starting Early: It’s important to begin building strong foundations of knowledge in the early years. The Core Knowledge approach focuses on preschool through grade eight. In these early years, especially the preschool and elementary grades, schools can do the most to help children lay the groundwork for language development and future success.

The benchmark assessments used for ELA are: NWEA, Aimsweb and CKLA check-ins and unit assessments.​

For more information go to: CKLA  ​

MATH

At OMPS teachers and students use the curriculum Math Expressions. Understanding math is more than just knowing each number. It is also looking beyond numbers to understand how and why they work. Our curriculum allows children to make sense of math by exploring, discussing, and demonstrating their understanding of key concepts. Children are encouraged to look deeper and expand that knowledge into understanding through hands-on experiences. This lets students become true problem solvers, without simply memorizing processes to get an answer. The program, through its comprehensive nature, allows teachers to address differentiated learning. When children understand math, they’re not relying on memorization. They’re relying on themselves.
For more information go to https://www.hmhco.com/programs/math-expressions#overview
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SCIENCE

At OMPS, our K-5 students use the Delta Foss Science Curriculum, one of the leading publishers of elementary school science curriculums in the United States. The curriculum exposes students to scientific phenomena and gives them the opportunity to understand and explain these phenomena through active investigations. Students take on the roles of scientists, engineers, and designers, solving real- world problems and issues. This program is extremely student driven and hands-on. This curriculum is aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards and fosters inquiry-based science where children learn scientific methods through investigations.

For more information go to https://www.deltaeducation.com/foss/next-generation ​

SOCIAL STUDIES

At OMPS, our K-5 students use TCI’s Social Studies curriculum. This curriculum allows students to engage in exciting and meaningful learning experiences while carefully following the Common Core State Standards. TCI is especially user-friendly because we have a print version and a digital version at our fingertips to make learning more captivating and accessible to students whether in school or at home. Each unit in our TCI curriculum centers around an essential question. The purpose of the question is to maintain the student’s focus on the topic and promote more inquiries based on that one question; forcing the students to dive deeper into those topics. Students also engage in exhilarating activities that encourage students to get excited about the unit and topic leaving them wanting to discover more. ​

For more information go to https://www.teachtci.com/social-studies/