Kindergarten

In kindergarten, students develop their roles as contributing members of a learning community. There is focus on developing their sense of self, identity as a learner, and their role in belonging to a larger group. As they engage in academic pursuits, developing social emotional skills such as learning to name and regulate their emotions, advocate for their needs, and understand perspectives different from their own allows the students to apply and share new knowledge effectively. Students practice social and emotional strategies throughout the day, from the playground to choice time, and while engaged in learning activities. The kindergarten students’ experience of the classroom community empowers them to take action on projects that affect the wider world, like the Harvest Food Drive and other emergent projects. They demonstrate responsibility, ownership, and confidence allowing them to take increased academic risk. Kindergarten students engage with foundational knowledge across curricular areas in engaging ways that are responsive to their individual learning trajectories.

Our Curriculum

Literacy

Literacy is designed to build confidence and a strong foundation in both reading and writing. Students discover linguistics and phonics through multisensory approaches such as Zoo-phonics and Wired For Reading. They explore letter names and sounds, vowel patterns, rhymes and syllables all while building a toolbox of reading strategies. These skills are applied to group and independent reading, where students work, with teacher support, to explore books at “just right” reading levels. This direct instruction allows students to practice building confidence to take risks as they build a sight word bank, practice chunking words by syllable, and communicate overall comprehension of the story.

Writer’s Workshop is a time for students to practice as authors and illustrators. Using Handwriting Without Tears, students incorporate conventional stroke patterns for uppercase and lowercase letters as they practice their phonetic spelling to record their words onto the page. Each student is encouraged to listen for and record each sound as they work at the word and sentence level.

Reading Units include:

Name Celebrations and All about Me
Looking closely at the text: Observing and reading lists like Scientists
Pattern Books to Read, Write, and Teach
Stories and Legends
Letters and Correspondences
Poetry

Writing Units include:

Small Moments
Pattern Books
Observing, Labeling, and Listing Like Scientists
Letters to Friends and Family
Writing All about Books
Poetry and Opinion Writing

Math

Mathematicians in kindergarten explore ideas, play games, and search for mathematical connections in the world around them. Students are encouraged to inquire, investigate, discuss, and construct as they explore in all mathematical areas. They participate in ongoing investigations developed within real-life contexts that encourage children to mathematize their lives. The Bridges in Mathematics curriculum provides many opportunities for students to develop mental models, to explore multiple strategies, and to communicate their thinking in clear language. Students put forth their ideas in a community of their peers and learn to justify and defend their thinking, as well as understand and appreciate peers’ ideas. Problem solving skills are developed using story problems, which allow students to visualize the actions in the problem. Kindergarten students strive to move fluidly through visualization, recording, and reporting to deepen their overall understanding of the number system and other mathematical concepts. Students are encouraged to approach problems in a variety of ways, working to be accurate, fluent, and efficient in each situation. There is a focus on students developing their individual identity as a mathematician and fostering a lifelong enthusiasm for mathematics.

Skills include:

Numbers to five and ten
Bikes and Bugs: Double, Add, and Subtract
Paths to Adding, Subtracting, and Measuring
Two Dimensional Geometry
Three Dimensional Shapes and Numbers Beyond ten

Specialists

PE

Kindergarten students work on maintaining balance through locomotor movements such as sliding, skipping, galloping, and jumping. Additionally, students will begin to demonstrate emerging patterns in different manipulative skills such as throwing, catching, and foot passing.

Music

Kindergarten students use rhythm instruments, bodies, voices, and imaginations to explore opposites (high/low, fast/slow, loud/soft), make sounds with their mouths and bodies, and to play as an ensemble of musicians.

Library

Kindergarten students will participate in weekly Read Alouds, learn how to find books that include both words and pictures to learn multiple ways to read, learn to check out books and the importance of bringing books back

Spanish

Students continue to develop and expand their basic vocabulary through traditional games, songs, and movement activities. Students practice asking and answering questions in Spanish about feelings, weather, and likes/dislikes. They build sentences using nouns and adjectives to describe objects around the classroom.