Children are encouraged to take books and tapes home as soon as they enter school. Indispensable to the science program is the campus country environment, which allows for maple sugaring, developing a wet lands project, tending bird feeders, cultivating vegetable gardens, adopting trees, and tracking the campus throughout the seasons. All classes have computers along with a mini lab in one building and a large Mac lab in another. Students are taught word processing, simple programming, the use of the Internet, and research skills. Foreign language study begins in grade three.
Children choose French, Latin, or Spanish by sixth grade.
In the upper grades, the students work in conjunction with their Dean to plan their academic program. Honors courses in Mathematics, Foreign Language, and Science departments are available as well as Advanced Placement courses in all disciplines. Riverdale dedicates the tools of educational technology to the teaching of the liberal arts. All classrooms on both campuses are fully networked. Each of the three primary classroom buildings has a computer lab.