Kindergarten Curriculum Areas

The kindergarten program is inter-related and many of these areas of the program overlap. All of these subjects are taught throughout the week, with some units lasting beyond one week.

Developmental Reading/Language Arts

Strong reading, speaking, listening, and writing skills are developed in these areas:

Oral Language

• We do activities to develop expressive (speaking) and receptive (listening) skills. Some of the activities are: classroom discussions, dramatic play, role playing, guess box, story-telling, and circle time.

Phonics and Word Study

• We learn letters and the sounds they make. Pre-reading or early literacy skills are developed by reading out loud, hearing initial sounds, and rhyming (phonemic awareness.)

Reading

• Early literacy skills are developed through the use of books, voice-to-print matching, directionality, using pictures clues for meaning, reciting the alphabet, recognizing highfrequency words, and using beginning sounds to decode words.

Writers Workshop

• We develop beginning writing skills by story-telling, labeling pictures, and writing stories using “kindergarten” spelling with matching pictures. This is supported by journals, dictated stories or sentences, and books the children create.

Math

The math curriculum addresses all the state standards. The children use a variety of hands-on manipulatives, games, vocabulary, and written work to support the program. The concepts taught are colors, shapes, same-and-different, sorting, counting, patterns, number sense, data, geometry, addition, subtraction, time, and money.

Science

Several science units are studied throughout the year: weather, animals, magnets, health, and nutrition.

Social Studies

The social studies units are: self, families, community, feelings, and holidays.

Handwriting

We use a program called “Handwriting Without Tears” to develop fine motor skills. Fine motor skills are also developed with coloring, cutting, gluing, and writing activities.