The kindergarten program places emphasis upon the individual child’s creativity, learning readiness, personal awareness, and self-expression. Nurturing teachers create a supportive learning environment with large and small group lessons to meet every child’s needs. The goal in kindergarten is to engage children through meaningful projects and to build a lasting enthusiasm for learning.
Students develop a strong understanding of phonemic awareness, beginning with consonant-vowel-consonant patterns and building up to blends, digraphs, and long vowels. In addition to decoding words, students are able to read and recall high-frequency sight words. During small group reading instruction, teachers focus on decoding unknown words, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Students are provided with numerous writing opportunities daily. Children keep journals, write personal narratives, letters, nonfiction reports, along with persuasive and instructional stories. With teacher modeling and support students are able to construct thoughtful sentences using phonetic spelling and proper writing conventions.
In mathematics, the goal is to develop quick and accurate numeral recognition and value, which leads into counting to 100 by ones, twos, fives, and tens. Addition, subtractions, measurement, geometry, money, place value, graphing, fractions, calendar skills, and telling time are also taught in kindergarten. Children are provided with hands-on exploration to reinforce all math concepts.
To create a balanced academic program, science and social studies are a part of the daily curriculum. Children are involved in memorable experiments and STEM activities, using a scientific method as their guide. Animal life cycles, the human body, and states of matter are just a few of the exciting scientific topics that are covered throughout the year. In social studies, students develop map skills and learn about the world around them. Children are informed of events from the past and encouraged to make a difference in their future.
The classroom is equipped with current educational technology, such as a smartboard and several computers for enrichment, reinforcements, and remediation. Children are given opportunities to navigate educational websites and programs independently.
Children are introduced to enrichment specials including Spanish, music, art, and physical education. Children attend weekly story time in our library.
In addition to the rigorous academic program curriculum, kindergarten focuses on courtesy, listening skills, respect, and communicating with peers in a positive manner. Our students leave kindergarten as confident learners and they are well prepared for first grade.
