Nuweetooun School is a school with a core curriculum of Native culture and history combined with environmental studies. The rest of the curriculum is woven into these main concepts through practical, hands-on, experiential learning experiences.

Literacy is learned through a balanced literacy approach. This approach allows students to self-select their own literature to read independently for part of the time. It includes a guided reading component to fortify reading strategies and comprehension. Students participate in peer and teacher conferences where they reflect on their learning and establish new goals for themselves. Teachers also share good literature through whole group instruction. Next there is an individualized spelling and vocabulary development workshop. Reading and writing are equally important to literacy. Writing is taught through the writing process, prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Students explore great writing from their favorite authors. They learn to write in varying genres and for a variety of purposes. They learn to critically revise and edit their own writing as well as the writing of others. Students accept themselves as authors. We celebrate our written publications during Author Celebrations.

Reading and writing are integrated throughout our day. Storytelling is part of literacy as well as part of oral history. Students not only hear stories, they tell stories about their history. We encourage and teach traditional language (Narragansett and others as available) and we encourage its use in storytelling and music.

Social studies is explored through research or inquiry-based projects. We make our school a living museum that explores history and how it impacts us today.  We collaborate with Tomaquag Museum and explore our Native history and how it is woven into the history of the United States of America.  We learn about how government works by studying tribal governments and the United States government, and we discuss how both impact our lives. We engage our students in research projects, including development of an exhibit for our museum. Students learn public speaking and present their projects to an audience as volunteer docents of the museum.

Nuweetooun School students use modern technology and more traditional methods to explore our geography and the many different people who inhabit this earth. For example, we may compare the topography here in Rhode Island with that in other regions of our country and world, and discuss how crops and technology allow people to survive in different environments.

Science is all around us. It is in our gardens, nature preserves, air, water, and the land we call Mother Earth. We learn all about our planet, our ecosystem, the universe and how we are all connected to our environment. We study ecology, botany, chemistry, and biology using experiential and inquiry-based learning.

Health and wellness are woven into our school day through peer problem solving techniques, cooking for health, healthy lifestyles, nutrition, exercise, and practices for the nurturing of our spirits.  We will exercise our bodies by playing traditional Native American games and sports as well as more modern sports and games. We also exercise our bodies and spirits through traditional dances.

Mathematics is integrated throughout our curriculum. We use real-life experiences to make math concepts concrete for students. For examples, we learn concepts such as area and perimeter as well as measurement when mapping the gardens. We learn estimation and measurement through cooking. We learn problem solving through our real experiences such as developing a schedule for volunteering in the Museum, or money math while working in the school store.  We then move to abstract paper and pencil tasks.

The arts are integrated into all subject areas. We concentrate on traditional Native arts such as finger weaving, making corn husk dolls and mats, pottery, basketry, painting, and beadwork, to name a few. We do a large group project each year building something such as constructing a wetu (traditional home), a bridge, or a outdoor stone fire place. We also explore traditional songs and instruments. We will learn to play some traditional and non-traditional instruments. All of these teach math, social studies and science as well as literacy concepts.

Our mission at Nuweetooun School is to teach the whole child, mind, body, and spirit in a way that fires ones imagination for life-long learning.