Academics

COVID-19 Update

What Is EL Education?

Being A Catholic EL School

Success & Results

Design Principles

Gallery of Student Learning Expeditions

Summer Learning

Curriculum
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Gallery of Student Work & Learning Expeditions
Galería de Trabajo del Estudiante y Expediciones de Aprendizaje

At Annunciation, our students out-perform their neighborhood public school peers by over 20% in Reading and Mathematics, out-pace their national peers by 30-45% in Reading Readiness, and succeed in High School & College at amazing rates - Click to learn more about our academic results! But our success does not stop there... We believe that "Mastery of Knowledge & Skills" is only one dimension of a three-dimensional view of student achievement: students must also grow in "Faith & Character" and create "High Quality Work." Through deep, real-world studies of community-relevant issues (called "Learning Expeditions"), students are challenged to take their learning and do something meaningful with it - they must put their faith into action, dig deep into their character, and create a "Final Product" that is of truly high quality for an authentic audience. 

Check out some of our students' incredible learning and beautiful work from their learning expeditions and other exhibits, performances, and presentations! In their learning expeditions, students applied learning from several disciplines (including language arts, science, social studies, religion, and the arts) to explore big questions and address community-relevant issues. Have a look!

2018-19 Learning Expeditions

Check Out Our 2018-19 Learning Expeditions:

Seasons of Service (Kindergarten): The world around us is always changing, especially trees. In our expedition this year, we studied trees to learn about the four seasons and what weather is most likely to occur in each season. We are also learning how the changing seasons affect our lives. For our final product, we are creating and illustrating a 2019-2020 school calendar, with a recommended act of service each month!
 
Mammals of the Land, Sea, & Sky (1st Grade): Mammals live all over the world, doing many different jobs in many different places. In our expedition this year, we became mammal experts! We learned all about them, the adaptations that help them survive in their diverse habitats, how they help humans, and how we can help them. We even made postcards featuring various mammals we studied, and we will be sharing them with the Denver Zoo.
 
Caring for Our Pollinators (2nd Grade): Pollinators are struggling, and they need our help! A neighborhood without pollinators would be a lifeless, colorless place – not the kind of place we want to live in. In our expedition, we studied plants and pollinators, and discovered that the process of pollination is more exciting, complicated, and important than we ever realized. Our world needs us to protect pollinators, and we are doing our part right here at Annunciation! To make our local ecosystem a better and more beautiful place, we built raised garden beds outside and will fill them with flowers specifically to match to pollinators that are native to Denver. 
 
The Utes – the First Residents of Colorado (3rd Grade): Maiku! (That means “Hello! Hola!” in Ute) Come to 3rd grade and learn all about our state’s first residents: the Ute people. Despite losing their homelands to the growth of the United States, the legacy of the Utes is all around us, shaping our state today! In our expedition, we visited museums, worked with the Ute tribe, and visited historic sites to learn all we could about Ute culture, history, food, and spirituality. We want to lend our voice to their case for official recognition, so we are writing letters to the Colorado General Assembly to advocate for new highway signage acknowledging traditional Ute land!
 
Honoring the Elderly (4th Grade): In 4th grade, our expedition is all about building positive relationships between young and old: to honor our elderly community members and let them know they are not forgotten. We learned about how our culture views growing older vs. how the sacred scriptures view growing older, and we did activities to experience what it feels like to age. Each week, we visit a senior living center and interview our partners, practicing patience, compassion, and understanding. To honor them, we are writing their life stories, and when we are finished, we will get to gift our elderly partners their very own biography!
 
Becoming Holy Heroes: Superheroes & Saints (5th Grade): Who do you look up to? Who do you aspire to be? In our expedition, we asked ourselves the same questions. We explored the qualities of superheroes, saints, and ourselves, and how they relate to each other. We even learned about Julia Greeley, a woman on the path to sainthood from our neighborhood, and we published a book about her. The more we learned in our expedition, the more we wanted to make superheroes that represent us and where we come from. This expedition has taught us how important it is to have role models that look and act like us, and because we did not see superheroes in the world that represent us, we each designed a superhero to fill that void.
 
Healthy Habits: Choice or Chance? (6th Grade): Food. So simple, yet so complicated: where it comes from, who has access to it, what it does for our bodies, how to prepare it healthily, and how to budget for it. To take a stand on food inequity, we are growing our own food, in our classroom hydroponic tower and in the raised beds we built right here at school. We plan to use this food to cook for guests at a luncheon we will host, and we are also distributing in our community the recipe cards for healthy recipes that we prepared in class. 
 
Who am I? My Culture, My Family, My Identity. (7th Grade): Visit the 7th Grade’s café upstairs and hear some of our poetic answers to this existential question. Our expedition this year has focused on our cultural and familial identities. Across all of our subjects, we have taken in-depth looks at our own heritage, studied the history of Mexico, South Sudan, and the American Southwest, analyzed our own genetic traits and how we inherited them, and delved into the stories of those who have had their own identities challenged upon immigrating to America. We are creating a book of Identity Poems in which we have poetically and photographically expressed who we are in relation to our culture and our families. When published, our book will be presented to the Cole Neighborhood Association and our school as a way of celebrating who we are in the community.  
 
It’s Getting Hot in Here: Reflecting on & Reducing Our Carbon Footprint. (8th Grade): God only gave us one planet, and it’s up to us to take care of it. As our generation confronts the threat of global warming, we ask ourselves how we can be stewards of a more responsible and sustainable world, one neighborhood at a time. In this cross-curricular expedition, we explored not only the chemistry of carbon dioxide and its effects on our planet, but we reflected on ways in which we can reduce our carbon footprint. To do our part, we are putting together a Carpool & Public Transportation Directory for families at Annunciation Catholic School. This tool, to be shared on our website and school app, can help families share rides or use public transportation to reduce the amount of CO2 they put into the air. In addition, we will be planting a tree on campus as part of the Denver Digs program!

>> We are still in the process of uploading pictures & student work from our learning expeditions. Check out what is posted so far, and keep checking back as more is posted! We try to keep this page up-to-date with the most current student work. ​

Learning Highlight Reel: 
​Remembering Past Expeditions

4th Grade Presents to Our City
​Council​man, Albus Brooks

4th Grade | Spring, 2017
In this year’s expedition, “Capable of Change,” the 4th grade students studied our community by the numbers, asking the question: what does the data tell us about our community, and how do we feel about that? They analyzed census data about the Cole neighborhood, created detailed graphs, wrote personal reflections, and invited our City Councilman, Albus Brooks, in to share what they learned and offer their perspective. Thank you Councilman Brooks for coming to listen and learn from our 4th grade experts.

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Theatre Performance of 'Brother Rabbit' at the Walnut Room Theatre

Middle School | Spring, 2017
With the support and direction of the CSU 4-H Theatre program, our Annunciation middle school “Young Performers" theatre troupe performed their rendition of “Br'er (Brother) Rabbit & Other Stories” on stage at the Walnut Room, a great local restaurant and concert venue in RiNo, near our school! We are incredibly proud of the excellent performance our students put on, and want to give special thanks to the Walnut Room for hosting the event, as well as tremendous gratitude to Ken Grimes & Robert Franklin of the 4H theatre program.

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5th Grade Visual Arts Exhibit at the Redline Gallery

5th Grade | Fall, 2016
In collaboration with local artist Dr. Ella Maria Ray, the Annunciation 5th grade students created an art exhibition displayed at the Redline Art Gallery in Denver's RiNo Arts District. In this installation, our students celebrate our multicultural community, call out injustices they see in our neighborhood, and explore their hopes and fears for our city and our nation. Their work has been featured by ​Westword,​ ABC Channel 7 News, Telemundo Denver, and Univision/Entravision Denver. ​

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What Is A Bird?

Preschool Expedition | 2015-2016
​How do you know if an animal is a bird? What do we look for? Well, after all of our learning, do we know birds! In this expedition, we learned how to identify birds by four general characteristics, and we learned what kinds of habitats birds need to survive. We also learned about a special bird - our school mascot, the cardinal - and what makes it stand apart from other birds. Check out our video and our work to learn all about birds, especially the cardinal!

Our Video...

Worms Are Not Yucky!

Kindergarten Expedition | 2015-2016
In Kindergarten, we believe that worms are important, but most people think they're bad. So, we wanted to learn about worms and change people's minds!  In this expedition, we became scientists: scientists who study worms - oligochaetologists. In the first case study, we investigated the life of a worm (life cycle, body parts, habitat, what it eats…etc). Then, we explored what oligochaetologists do and learned more about our worms through experiments. Check out our work and our video about why worms are not yucky!

Our Video...

How'd That Get There? The Mysterious Story of Seashell Fossil Found in the Mountains.

6th Grade Expedition | 2015-2016
During the summer of 2015, we found a sea shell fossil in a canyon in northwest Colorado. We were shocked! How did it get there? Was Colorado under water in the past? So, we set off on a five-month-long learning expedition to answer that question. We conducted field work in the mountains, worked with Joe Sertich (Paleontologist & Curator of Dinosaurs) from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and read and wrote a lot about the geologic history of our state. As a final product to show all we learned, we wrote and published a book about the geologic history of Colorado, complete with illustrations (click on the cover on the right to read the entire book online or order a copy). In this book the seashell (named MJ), takes us on a journey through time to experience Colorado over the past 400 Million Years! We hope you enjoy our book & contact deb.roberts@annunciationk8.org to order a copy!

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Restoring Our River in RiNo

7th Grade Expedition | 2015-2016
At Annunciation, we are fortunate to have a river ecosystem right in our neighborhood, but really, how healthy is the South Platte River ecosystem in the city? What can we do to improve it so trout and other native species can thrive there? In this expedition, we explored the biology and ecology of a healthy, interdependent, and balanced Colorado river ecosystem, and developed ways we can lessen the city's impact on our river. We even established a cold-water river ecosystem tank in our classroom, complete with trout and a diversity of macroinvertebrates like mayfly nymphs and crawfish. In collaboration with Denver Water, the Earth Force, and Wenk & Associates Landscape Architecture firm who is leading the construction of the new riverside park in our neighborhood called RiNo Park, we are putting our learning to good use! We have given input and design ideas to the architects to help make the new RiNo park a beautiful and enjoyable community space, while also using the park to make the river ecosystem more natural and healthy.

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Tiny Organisms, Big Role!

7th Science Expedition | 2014
​Just because you don't see or notice them doesnt mean they're not doing something important. In this expedition, we explored the important role of tiny organisms, like microbes and macroinvertebrates in the South Platte River. For our final product, we created post cards that were presented to the Greenway Foundation of Denver to be used to teach the public to appreciate the river ecology.