Programs/Curriculum

Language Arts

Wonders - The McGraw-Hill Reading program we use in kindergarten is called Wonders. Based on the Common Core State Standards, this language arts program has many components such as reading and writing workshop with big books, interactive read-alouds, retelling activities, visual vocabulary lessons, leveled readers, and many digital resources.

As we work through the units, students will continue to build their foundational skills related to the reading process, as well as speaking and listening. Students will read many types of literature in this program including many opportunities with informational text. Writing is another important component of this program.

Fundations - Fundations is the main phonics program we use throughout all grades at Goldwood. There are 5 units in Kindergarten Fundations, and below is a summary of each unit.

  • Fundations Orientation During the Fundations Orientation lessons, students will be working with their classroom teacher to establish various routines and new concepts that will guide their learning as they work with Fundations for the entire year.

  • K Fundations Unit 1-- Unit 1 contains many new concepts for our kindergarten readers. Each week introduces 2 or 3 letters. New concepts covered in Unit 1 include: Letter-Keyword-Sound for consonants and short vowels, letter formation for lowercase letters a-z, sound recognition for consonants and short vowels, print and word awareness, rhyming, phonemic awareness for initial and final sounds, story retelling, beginning composition skills, and fluency and phrasing with echo and choral reading.

  • K Fundations Unit 2-- Unit 2 is 4 weeks long, and new concepts include:

    • Phonemic awareness skills such as blending, segmenting, and manipulating sounds.

    • Blending and reading three-sound short vowel words. For example: map, mad, and rat.

    • Story prediction

    • Alphabetical Order

    • Upper-case letter formation

    • This unit will focus on tapping to blend and segment words correctly. We've learned 2 main strategies to help us hear all the sounds in words. You may see your students start using these strategies at home! Here is what “tapping out” a word should look and sound like if you were using your thumb and fingers to tap out the word "map". On one hand, touch your index finger to your thumb and say the /m/ sound. Then, have your middle finger touch your thumb and say the /a/ sound. Next, have your ring finger touch your thumb and say the /p/ sound. Blend the sounds together to say "map" and have all three fingers close on the thumb.

    • Another tapping out strategy that may be a little easier is using our arms and hands. The student stretches one arm straight out in front of them and places their other hand on their shoulder. If we were using the word "map," the first sound /m/ would be when they tap their shoulder, The /a/ sound would be when they tap their elbow, and the /p/ sound would be when they tap their wrist. Then they blend it together by moving or making a smoothing motion from their shoulder to their wrist saying the whole word quickly like "map!"

  • K Fundations Unit 3-- Kindergarten Fundations Unit 3 focuses on tapping, tapping, tapping! This unit's concepts continue to build students' foundation of phonemic awareness skills such as blending, segmenting, and manipulating the sounds in words. Nonsense words are also introduced in the CVC word pattern. Examples of nonsense words include "bez" and "sut" We will also start to work on distinguishing between long and short vowels sounds. Trick words covered include: the, a, and, are, to, is, his as, has, and was.

  • K Fundations Unit 4-- Digraphs are the major concept learned in K Fundations Unit 4. The digraphs we focus on include wh, ch, sh, th, and ck. Students will start decoding three-sound words containing these digraphs such as bath, chop, and thick. The trick words covered in this unit include: we, she, he, be, me, I, you, and they.

  • K Fundations Unit 5-- Unit 5 in Kindergarten Fundations focuses on basic sentence structure. We will be practicing many writing concepts as we work in this unit such as an uppercase letter at the beginning of the sentence, spaces between words, and sight words spelled correctly. The trick words covered in this unit include: or, for, of, have, from, by, my, do, and one.

Math

Everyday Math- Everyday Math is an enriched,comprehensive, and balanced mathematics curriculum. It builds on fundamental mathematical strands such as numeration, measurement, geometry, operations, patterns, money, data and chance. This math program:

-places high priority on children developing automatic recall of the basic number facts.

-recognizes that computation is an important and practical part of mathematics, and has been designed to ensure that all students can compute accurately in a variety of ways.

-balances skills and concepts.

-recognizes that practice is necessary in developing competency in mathematics.

-both the answer and how you get it are important.

-works to develop both students’ knowledge of mathematics and their ability and willingness to apply what they know.

Science

Pearson's Interactive Science- Our science program focuses on the state of Ohio and consists of 4 units: Science, Engineering, and Technology, Life Science, Earth Science, and Physical Science. We will learn about the nature of science, how to solve problems, living and non-living things, Earth and sky, and objects in our world.

Social Studies

Pearson's myWorld Social Studies- Here We Are!-- Correlating with the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, our social studies program highlights the importance of working in the 21st Century learning environment and skills needed in order to be a thoughtful and successful citizen in our community. The chapters focus on cooperating family and school environments, various jobs people have in our world, where we live, traditions, and life then and now.