Kindergarten

In kindergarten, students identify as a reader, writer, and mathematician, and recognize that they are an active participant in the learning process.The development of their social-emotional learning emphasizes self-awareness, self-management, and relationship skills.

Literacy, mathematics, and inquiry continue to be the core curricular components in kindergarten, with units focused on community, identity, life cycles, and wildlife. Students begin to develop the social awareness they need to thrive in a group setting and become motivated to seek out new information and develop their skills.

By the end of the year, they have increased their ability to understand the emotions of others, recognize the impact of their actions on others, and take action to uphold kindness, safety, and fairness in their school community.

Kindergarten Academic Overview

The Arts

In music, students 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 collage, clay, sculpture, sewing, weaving, and printmaking. Kindergarteners develop skills with basic woodworking tools, while also using wood and other media to explore and express their thinking.

Literacy

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 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 closely monitored and early intervention is 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

Mathematics

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

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.

Wellness

Kindergartners play outside each day around campus, including on the playground and in the Fir Grove. Twice a week they participate in Wellness class 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.