Curricula

Young children must be provided a rich and varied environment that allows for social, emotional, physical, and intellectual development. An environment in which children can make choices and decisions, question and take risks, make mistakes and try again, assume responsibility for their own learning, and enjoy their many successes. The kindergarten program helps children view themselves as competent and worthy. Children with high self-esteem are more likely to have confidence, attempt new tasks, take pride in a job well done, and be able to live and work happily and purposefully with others.

The kindergarten curriculum is broad and rich and introduces children to a wide range of concepts and skills while helping them gain insight into the world. It is organized into three major instructional strands. These strands integrate teaching strategies that offer children the opportunity to learn content from other subject areas while developing all the skills necessary to understand the world around them in addition to fostering a zest for learning.

These units meet the language arts and social studies objectives based on children’s natural instincts to communicate with others. The primary learning approach of the strand will be through expressive and receptive language and will include appreciation of literature and poetry, vocabulary development, reading/writing‐like activities, letter perception, and an orientation to printed language. These language experiences will be centered on the children and their immediate surroundings and extend to the world‐at‐large.

A natural development of the language experience process is reading. Our reading program is a developmental approach that focuses upon broadening each child’s experimental base. It provides an environment rich in printed materials and balanced literacy experiences emphasizing meaning and fostering each child’s desire to become literate.

Kindergarten students demonstrate literacy by:

• Identifying signs and large print from their immediate environment;

• Recognizing letters;

• Writing their names and a small repertoire of words using invented or almost accurate spelling;

• Understanding reading conventions (book parts, reading left to right and top to bottom on a page);

• Becoming familiar with rhymes, fairy tales, and favorite stories;

• Developing a sense of printed words, spoken words, and word meanings;

• Identifying and understanding rhymes;

• Recognizing nonsense words within rhymes;

• Repeating initial and final sounds;

• Developing phonetic awareness;

• Sitting and listening to stories;

• Identifying and understanding examples of humor, sadness, and fantasy in stories;

• Enjoying language connections such as words, word rhyming, and vocabulary activities.

Recognizing that a child’s development cannot be hastened and that learning styles differ, the teacher will use discretion in providing a variety of concrete experiences. Emphasis will be placed on activities related to playing, observing, listening, speaking, thinking creatively, illustrating, writing, and reading.

Mathematics Strand

Learning tasks are arranged for children to explore the mathematics within the world around them. Playful lessons, engaging activities, and recognizing patterns, spark a child’s natural curiosity to explore and build connections in mathematics. Through tasks that involve hands-on activities and inquiry, students begin to develop critical thinking and communication skills.

This curriculum provides learning experiences by:

• Developing number sense with counting and exploring the relationship between numbers and quantities

• Comparing numbers through counting objects as well as when presented in numeral form

• Understanding addition as putting together and subtraction as taking apart

• Composing and decomposing numbers 11 to 19 to build the foundation for place value

• Sorting, classifying and comparing measureable attributes

• Identifying, describing, comparing, creating and composing shapes.

Science Strand

The Kindergarten Science strand builds upon students’ natural curiosity through exploration of basic phenomenon in their natural world. Strands in the areas of Physical, Earth, and Life Science provide learning experiences by presenting students with interactive science experiences that focus on hands-on activities.

In the Physical Science unit students explore the concept of force by evaluating pushes and pulls, and then arriving to an understanding that forces can be used to shape the world around us.

In the Earth Science unit students explore the Earth’s weather phenomenon. Through their observations, they arrive at an understanding of patterns and develop an ability to make future predictions based on prior observations.

In the Life Science unit students explore what plants and animals need to survive, and then observe about how plant and animal behaviors are centered on meeting their needs for survival.

Kindergarten Goals

Physical Science – Investigating Motion and Energy

• Investigating how a push or pull (force) changes the motion of an object

• Exploring how magnitude of force affects changes in motion

• Investigating how objects exert forces on each other by touching

Earth Science – Investigating Weather

• Using descriptive vocabulary to characterize weather

• Observing how energy from sunlight is absorbed by the Earth

• Describing how plants and animals react and prepare for changing weather

Life Science – Investigating Plants and Animals

• Identifying patterns in what plants and animals need to survive

• Exploring properties of animal habitats

• Investigating conditions necessary for plant growth

Art/Music/Movement and Health Strand

It is the intent of this strand to offer major units planned for meeting the significant developmental needs of this age group by providing creative activities in art, music, physical education/movement, and healthy living. These shall reflect an understanding and appreciation of the nature of the kindergarten child who is continuing to form a positive self-image. The primary learning approach of the strand will be through aesthetic experiences including singing, listening, movement and rhythm, and improvisation. These activities will enhance motor ability, perceptual ability, socialization, listening, and speaking.

Attainment of these skills can help a child function independently and can contribute to his/her self- assurance. Physical activity stimulates all vital body processes and promotes better eating and sleeping habits.

The learning experiences accommodate various learning modalities such as visual, auditory, and tactile/kinesthetic. They provide opportunities for children to develop concepts, communicate orally, interact with others, solve problems, think critically, inquire, observe, explore, discover, and create.

The kindergarten program utilizes a variety of instructional approaches including individual, small group, whole group, role-enactment activities, and activity centers.

The instructional strands support and enhance the child’s development through:

• A concrete, hands-on manipulative approach which includes observing, comparing, imitating, investigating, and questioning;

• Meaningful play experiences through which children:

1. Make sense of their world

2. Understand concepts and satisfy innate curiosity

3. Take their first steps in the mental operation of symbolic thought

• Exploration through the senses to help children further understand the world;

• Opportunities to use language to communicate through listening, speaking, and writing;

• Activities promoting eye-hand coordination, large and small muscle strength and control, balance, coordination, health, growth, body image, and good posture;

• Activities which foster understanding, cooperation, and socially responsible attitudes.

The integrated units allow for creativity and diversification with the assurance that objects and goals will be met when the children are involved in meaningful learning experiences.

Family Living, Health and Safety, & Drug Education

The Family Living, Health and Safety, and Drug Education curriculum is a program intended to be a joint initiative between the parents and the schools. Parents and teachers must work together and complement each other to provide a successful program. Classroom teachers teach the approved curriculum in grades K- 2 and school nurses/health educators teach the approved Family Living and Drug Education curriculum in grades 3-12.

Curriculum revision, textbook and supplemental material approvals follow regular Board of Education procedures. Curriculum outlines and courses of study may be reviewed in the Office of Instruction, 302 Elm Street.

Parents who, for reasons of conscience, object to certain portions of the program may have their children excused from those program portions, upon written request to the school principal.

A summary of the principle curriculum topics:

Wellness focus: signs and symptoms of common illness, basic needs of all human beings, self-care, healthy food choices; safety: injury prevention, how to get help in emergencies, stranger danger, bullying decision making, refusal skills, medicines.

Physical Education, Health and Safety

The aim of physical education, health and safety is multifaceted. Physical education creates opportunities to develop neuro-muscular skills and body vitality. It also stimulates socialization, self-reliance, cooperation, and the development of good sportsmanship. The program on each grade level is organized to provide total participation of every student to the best of his/her potential. Through the study of health, drugs, and family living units, students learn to take proper care of their bodies. Safety units include a study of first aid and an awareness of potentially dangerous situations.

Physical education in kindergarten will focus on movement exploration experiences that help students to understand themselves and how they move. Movement challenges are success-oriented and encourage students to think, reason, perform, discover, and create. The program includes body management, manipulative skills, dance, fitness, gymnastics, and games of low organization.

The health education curriculum for kindergarten students teaches the basics of wellness including healthy relationships with family and friends, proper nutrition, healthy snacks, how to help classmates with food allergies, adequate rest and sleep, safe play, proper care of the teeth, the importance of visiting the doctor and dentist, learning the parts of the body, the need for shelter and proper attire, how to get help for first aid and emergencies, how we feel when we are sick, staying safe and preventing injury, how to express our feelings and needs, how to be good friends and citizens.