Curriculum Overview

Our curriculum theme for the year is ‘Our Community’ and focuses on three major areas:

• • • First Trimester: Community Helpers & Scientific Inquiry
    • Second Trimester: Urban Communities & Force in Motion
    • Third Trimester: Rural Communities & Life Cycles.

• Language Arts: The Kindergarten language arts curriculum focuses on the fundamentals of literacy. Students will have daily reading and writing experiences that foster development in letter recognition, letter sounds, letter formation, sight words, and emergent spelling and grammar knowledge. Phonemic awareness is an important part of the curriculum. Both in groups and independently, children are actively involved in working with letters, words, and sentences in a variety of ways. Students engage in literature each day by listening, reading, and responding. They learn about authors and illustrators as they are exposed to a variety of literary texts and genres. Kindergarten science and social studies concepts are introduced and supported using fiction and non-fiction book selections connecting students’ learning through the day. Kindergarteners apply D’Nealian handwriting, sentence structure, and story writing elements through the creation of their own stories, poems, captions, and personal letters.

• Math: The Kindergarten math curriculum takes an integrated approach, utilizing games, manipulatives, and activities to create meaningful connections with mathematics and other aspects of the curriculum. Number sense, an important base for mathematical understanding, is emphasized. Complex number patterns, geometry, graphing and data analysis, measurement, problem solving, and computation are part of the Kindergarten year. Students are given opportunities to explore ideas, work cooperatively, play games, and use the computer and IPads to reinforce and expand understanding.

• Social Studies: Under the year-long theme of ‘Our Community,’ science and social studies topics are woven into the day. The social studies curriculum begins with a focus on community helpers and the role that they play. During the second trimester, Kindergarteners will explore urban communities and discover elements of a community, typical and unusual modes of travel, and map use. Rural communities will round out the social studies curriculum during the third trimester. Farm life, including animals and crops, will be investigated. Field experiences, community service projects, and guest speakers enhance the social studies curriculum, when possible.

• Science: The Kindergarten science curriculum is closely related to the social studies curriculum and works in tandem to provide a well-balanced learning experience for students. We start our year with a scientific inquiry learning unit-exploring what science is, how we can explore and investigate the world around us, and how to ask scientific questions. Students explore force and motion and other transportation connections second trimester allowing students to utilize the scientific process and hands-on learning putting physical scientific concepts to the test.  Alongside rural communities, life cycles are the science focus in the third trimester. Students will be able to group living things, compare life cycles of various animals, and gain understanding of the needs of plants and animals. Additionally, students will end their kindergarten year by learning about farm-to-table and how some of their favorite ingredients are sourced directly from our local farms!

• Social-Emotional Learning: In kindergarten, my focus for SEL is on helping the students understand and  manage their emotions, build positive relationships, and develop essential social skills. SEL will be integrated into our everyday activities and routines to make learning engaging and effective. Some key components that will be discussed throughout the year are: self-awareness, self-managment, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Additionally, there are a variety of strategies that I will use in order to cover a majority of these components above are through: read alouds, role-play, emotion charts, songs and rhymes, modeling behavior, classroom activities, and calm down spaces. By integrating these strategies into our daily routines and activities, I will be able to help the students develop the foundational social and emotional skills they need to succeed both in school and in their future interactions.
• Technology: Kindergarten students access computers and iPads for a wide variety of activities that support classroom learning in all curriculum areas. The students access the Internet under teacher supervision to participate in age-appropriate activities and games. Keyboarding and word processing documents are introduced.

Trimester Celebrations: Each trimester the students will have the opportunity to showcase their new profound knowledge to you all. Parents and family will be invited into our classroom to get a closer look into what the students have been learning, experiencing, and talking about throughout the trimester. It is a very exciting time for the students as well as for the families so I hope that all parents can attend and join our celebrations.