Reading

St. Joseph's Kindergarten enjoys the Science of Reading, which is a phonics and phonemic awareness approach to reading.  We use Heggerty's Phonemic Awareness Program and the University of Florida's Foundations.  We emphasize learning to read and pronounce words by learning the spoken value of letters from speech to print, letter combinations and syllables.  Wonders includes whole group and small group learning with systematic and explicit phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary instruction.  Learning activities will include listening to stories, creating stories, writing, reading, word study, role playing, buddy reading, journal writing, comprehension activities, sight word practice, and games.  Writing our Catholic Faith teaches proper letter formation with a focus on faith.

Math

Go Math by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Calendar activities are the basis of the math program.  Number Sense is the basis of early mathematical understanding, and is explored through hands on activities, concrete manipulatives, and math talks. Technology is integrated into the units of study.

Mathematical Principles are strongly encouraged.  These include:

• make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

• model with mathematics.

• use appropriate tools.

• attend to precision.

Units of study include: oral counting, number recognition, ordinal position, addition and subtraction stories, sorting, patterns, graphing, money, measurement, two and three dimensional shapes, and more.

Religion

The children participate in prayer daily during morning assembly, as well as daily prayer in the classroom.  In kindergarten we teach children that Jesus is the basis for everything we do, and He loves them unconditionally.  The children become aware of Jesus’ love for us, respect for all people and individual differences, and Christian values.  The Christian calendar, as well as special church events, are celebrated in fun and age appropriate ways!  We will begin attending mass weekly in October.

Social Studies & Science

Social Studies themes make up the framework of the kindergarten program.  We use themes that are relevant to the life experiences of the young child, which in turn makes learning useful and meaningful.  

The natural world, the environment, plants, animals, weather and the seasons are studied through hands on discovery, observation, and experimentation.