Kindergarten

In music, kindergarteners develop their own musical talents while expanding their ability to be part of a musical community. Visual arts provides students with new opportunities to engage in drawing, painting, collage, clay, sculpture, sewing, weaving, and printmaking. Kindergarteners work individually and collaboratively in woodworking and tinkering while exploring ways of supporting each other and building social emotional strengths.

Reading and writing are integrated throughout the kindergarten program. The classroom is a print-rich environment, and reading is a part of every student’s day—whether students are reading the daily schedule, searching for information in a book, or enjoying a story. Kindergarteners develop their ability to identify and write letters, begin spelling out words phonetically and learning basic word patterns, and reading common high frequency words. The focus is reading and writing within a meaningful context, as students make connections between the text, themselves, and the world. The development of phonemic awareness and phonics skills is built through direct instruction, multi-sensory techniques, and is closely monitored so that early intervention can be provided to students who need additional support. 

Skills

• Expressive and receptive language
• Phonemic awareness
• Identifying and writing letters
• Producing the primary sound for each letter
• Reading common high frequency words
• Concepts of print (print moves left to right, top to bottom; one-to-one word correspondence)
• Retelling a story through drawings, creative movements, and discussion
• Making connections (text to self, text to text, text to world)
• Making predictions
• Spelling words phonetically
• Communicating ideas through writing, drawings, and dictation

Kindergarteners explore math through play, stories, and noticing and wondering about numbers, patterns, and systems. They investigate using mathematical tools that help them recognize and organize numbers, count, compose and decompose numbers, and delve into the mathematical world around them. Kindergarteners work independently, in partnerships, in small groups, and with the whole group to spark ideas and make connections with peers. 

Big Ideas in Kindergarten

• Exploring math in our world
• Counting, comparing and quantifying numbers
• Composing and decomposing numbers
• Understanding the Base Ten system as a group of ten and some more
• Exploring and comparing shapes

Inquiry is at the heart of the kindergarten curriculum. Students are supported in their open inquiry and independent thinking, an approach that fosters curiosity, openness to differing perspectives, and the desire to keep learning. Teachers provide provocations, or sparks for learning, and students wonder, ask questions, and share their knowledge and ideas with classmates.

The classroom environment is carefully designed to allow for exploration with a variety of materials and mediums for creative expression and storytelling. Teachers design four or five units of study a year around essential questions, such as “What is our relationship with nature?” and “How do we study something?” Small study groups are also formed in response to questions that arise out of the children’s interests, experiences, and explorations.

Kindergartners play outside each day around campus, including on the playground and in the Fir Grove. They participate in wellness class twice a week where there is a focus on developing their physical, intellectual, social, and emotional selves. In Wellness, kindergartners learn how to participate cooperatively in physical activities while developing skill, control, and coordination.