While the theme of each unit focuses on one curricular area, the units are multi-disciplinary, incorporating activities from each of the four major subject areas of Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. Each unit provides at least forty hours of instruction.

The instructional units are divided into two levels:
Primary (grades K-3) and Intermediate (grades 4-6).
Some of the units will overlap from the end of one level to the beginning of the next. The overlap allows for developmental differences and variation in abilities in certain disciplines. Both research and our experience tell us that gifted and advanced students can work successfully within a three-year range. The biggest range occurs in the primary materials, not because of the student’s ability to understand, but because of the difference in fine motor skills. A first grade student may need more help in recording his work because he has not yet developed writing skills to keep pace with his thinking skills.

The units at a particular level are not sequential.
They can be used as interest and time dictate. One does not build upon the other. However, all extend and reinforce the skills found in national standards for core curriculum and in gifted standards. As you use the units in subsequent levels, you will notice that all address the same skills with increasingly demanding expectations of performance and with more challenging requirements.

The Les Penseurs curriculum is differentiated from that usually presented in the classroom.
It is differentiated in four ways: content, pace, process, and expectations. The high-end activities address the advanced student’s need for learning at higher levels of abstraction, complexity, variation, and depth, while still meeting the standards of the core curriculum. The content is multi-disciplined, designed not only to broaden the student’s base of general knowledge but also to help the student recognize the interconnection among subject areas. The pace of the activities can be adjusted for each child or class. The materials are process-based and content-based which means that the focus is on how the student learns as well as on what he learns. The content is advanced; the expectations for student performance are high.

Instructor Guide
The Les Penseurs Guide provides a more detailed explanation of the strategies found in the lessons.
It includes:

	the rationale for the LP curriculum
	the characteristics of gifted and advanced learners
	general explanation and “how to” for the strategies used for advanced students
	assessment techniques and scoring rubrics

The materials use this icon () to indicate when supporting information is provided in the Instructor Guide.

Structure for Learning
Structure for Learning pages that serve as a guide for working with the student precede each activity in the unit. On these pages are found: