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Our History and Program Values
Our History and Program Values
Founded in 2007, the ELC Kindergarten program offers the Knoxville community an alternative to a traditional kindergarten experience.
Our program offers a child-centered, play and project-based, intellectually rigorous curriculum. Our small class size allows us to support children's unique needs through individualized learning experiences.
We value:
investigating children's curiosities
exploring the community around us
cultivating a love for the outdoors
All children are equipped to learn, succeed, and be productive members of society with the support and guidance of knowledgeable, caring, and joyful adults.
In alliance with children, families, and our community, we embrace the opportunity to build a foundation for lifelong learning.
ELC Kindergarten Curriculum
ELC Kindergarten Curriculum
Our approach to curriculum is:
individualized — based on knowledge of how children learn in diverse ways, combined with an understanding of each child’s unique development and interests.
holistic — full of meaningful, rich experiences that support comprehensive development across domains and content areas and promote an enjoyment of the learning process. Children learn through a balanced approach of play and teacher-guided learning opportunities.
co-constructed — helping children see themselves as active participants in their own construction of knowledge and contributing members of their classroom and the broader community.
intellectually rigorous — based on universal standards for kindergarten while remaining child-driven and project-based. Skills are practiced in context — fostering critical thinking, challenging their current ideas, and building confidence in their efforts to make sense of the world around them.
Literacy and Language
Literacy and Language
The kindergarten year is a foundational time to develop reading and writing skills. In our kindergarten program, your child will begin to see themselves as a competent reader and writer.
We practice literacy skills in whole group, small group, individualized settings through:
Daily Routines and Rituals
Daily literacy instruction with Amplify CKLA curriculum
Emergent Projects using the Project Approach
Daily Routines and Rituals
Daily Routines and Rituals
Below are just a few of our daily routines that are designed to support language and literacy development through shared experiences and community building.
Morning Meeting: During morning meeting, we begin by reading a story aloud. Children share their thoughts and questions. We greet one another and have a sharing time. We practice the days of the week, months of the year, and report the weather. Each child has a contributing role to this special ritual each morning.
Writer’s Workshop: Writer's Workshop encourages the development of literacy skills by building upon each child's desire to tell stories. We know children are capable and competent storytellers. During this time, the children get to write, draw, and publish, and share their own stories.
Challenges: Challenges are a tool to support children's ability to attend to a focused task while remaining meaningful to the current learning in the classroom. Challenges are pencil-paper tasks that each child must complete each week - some with support and others on their own. Challenges have been source of great pride for the kindergarteners. At the end of each week, they are excited to have accomplished such hard work!
Amplify CKLA Literacy Curriculum
Amplify CKLA Literacy Curriculum
CKLA offers us a guide for skill development based on the Science of Reading research while allowing us to incorporate those skills into everyday classroom learning experiences.
This curriculum approaches literacy development from a sounds-first perspective - emphasizing the importance of sounds as building blocks of language rather than focusing primarily on letter names.
Through Amplify CKLA, children will learn to:
separate words into sounds
blend sounds to make words
read "Tricky Words"
read grade-level stories
make sense of what they read by asking and answering questions
hold their pencil efficiently and develop writing stamina
write letters, words, and sentences
Mathematical Thinking in Kindergarten
Mathematical Thinking in Kindergarten
We believe that math should be meaningful, engaging, and connected to real life. Here's what you can expect from our approach.
We believe children learn best when:
Math is taught in context
Lessons are hands-on, flexible, and based on children's skill level
Learning is active, playful -- encouraging thinking and exploration.
Our goals are to help children:
Problem-solve and think through challenges
Engage in math dialogue to explain their thinking
Make connections between math concepts
Your child will gain experience with key math skills, including:
Counting and number sense
Addition and subtraction
Shapes and spatial awareness
Reading and writing numbers
Sorting and interpreting data
Small Groups: Math small groups take place several times each week. In groups of 3 or 4, children work closely with a teacher on fun, hands-on activities like card games, math stories, and number play. These experiences give each child personal attention and a chance to build core math skills in a supportive, small-group environment.
Natural Inquiry: This happens multiple times throughout the day. Sometimes we need to figure out how many lunch spots to set when a friend is absent; other times we need to measure the space on a shelf to store a long lego structure. Problems crop up all the time that require children to use what they know about numbers and math to solve.
Math Workshop: Through whole group lessons, small group reinforcement, and individual practice, the children interact with real-life math concepts. An important component of this time is the opportunity for children to share their thinking with the group so we can learn from one another.
Science and Social Studies in Kindergarten
Science and Social Studies in Kindergarten
Our approach to science and social studies curriculum is an emergent, nature-based project approach. We spend an abundant amount of time outside every day and during that time, teachers carefully observe what the children construct, notice, and inspect. Often what the children are exploring outside translates to the science curriculum inside the classroom. Whether it is exploring ramps, bugs, weather patterns, water flow, or plants, our time outside offers a multitude of curriculum opportunities for science instruction and exploration.
Similarly, we spend a great amount of time walking around our community. Exploring our surrounding community and learning about citizenship creates a foundation for social studies curriculum in the kindergarten classroom. We learn about who makes up our community, different jobs in the community, what rights children have as citizens of this community, how to help and respect others, how to take care of our community, etc.
Rather than learning about these concepts inside a classroom, we are out in the community experiencing social studies come to life. The children learn about science and social studies concepts in a connected and meaningful way.
ELC Kindergarten Traditions
ELC Kindergarten Traditions
Class Mascot
Class Mascot
“Bringing Joe Moosey (former class mascot, now retired) home is the coolest thing. It is awesome. You take him home like, every 18th weekend or something. Everybody gets some turns, like maybe two. Or three, I guess if you don’t have so many kids.” –Duncan
Snickers the red panda is the most recently elected kindergarten mascot. Like the mascots before them, Rocky Top Tennessee and Joe Moosey, your child will bring the class mascot home at least twice this year, maybe more! It is your family’s job to document his weekend with you- however your family decides to do so. A few popular choices include:
Taking photos and letting children narrate what happened over the weekend as parents type their words in a Google document
Children draw pictures and write words to describe their big weekend
Children write words to go along with photographs taken over the weekend
When the child that got to take the animal home returns to school on Monday, he/she will share the events of the weekend at Morning Meeting. This activity allows children to share a little bit about their home life with the group.
Snickers joined two kindergarteners at their weekend swim lesson!
Bio Boards
Bio Boards
Each year, one of the first activities the children engage in is the creation of their Bio Board, which lives on the walls of the kindergarten stairwell for the whole year. Each child's Bio Board includes a self-portrait, an interview, and an image of the child from the beginning of the year. At the end of the year, we repeat this process to document how much has changed over the course of the school year. The Bio Boards not only show our school community who the kindergarteners are, but offers families a meaningful keepsake from their child's year in kindergarten.
Birthday Projects
Birthday Projects
“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit, and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.” -Susan B. Anthony
“A young child’s joy in discovery, learning, and finding something out for the first time is, in fact, the ultimate celebration!” -Francis Wardle
“If we are doing it [celebrating] for the children, let us choose things to celebrate that are meaningful, developmentally appropriate, and healthy for them.” -Bonnie Neugebauer
In the ELC Kindergarten program, we celebrate each child’s unique interests, abilities and personality. When celebrating birthdays, our goal is to emphasize the individual and celebrate as a community. Therefore, instead of having birthday parties in the traditional sense, we will celebrate each child’s birthday with a celebration of that child’s individuality. In preparation for the celebration, the birthday child will choose a special way to mark the occasion with the kindergarten community.
Typically, the child pinpoints something that they really love, such as trains, cooking, or fantasy play. Then, the whole class, divided into sub-committees, begins to prepare the materials necessary to create the perfect celebration. When the day of celebration arrives, the environment and curriculum show a strong connection to the interests and ideas of the birthday child.
The birthday child was interested in learning more about art, so the children decided a trip to the art museum was in order!
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