Kindergarten is an exciting and wonderful time for children. They are introduced to a fun filled exciting new world of learning. Kindergarten students are included in many of our school’s activities and enjoy every minute of it. Instruction centers around hands-on-activities and incorporates social interaction.
Religion is an integral part of all phases of our curriculum. Each week’s theme leads the children to appreciate their own uniqueness and to sense God’s presence in all the wonderful things around us.
Students learn about the relationship numbers have to each other. They are introduced to shapes, sorting, geometry, patterns, positional words, graphs, tally marks, fractions, addition, subtraction, measurement, time, and money. All lessons are taught with hands on activities, visuals, and songs.
Science and Social Studies
Science and Social Studies are integrated throughout all subject areas. Students are introduced to the science lab during the year, and the seventh-grade students help implement experiments. Social Studies concepts including community helpers, beginning map skills, American symbols and landscapes are introduced.
Students enter Kindergarten at many different levels of reading readiness. Teachers evaluate each student and create small groups of similar skill levels to address all reading needs. Teachers scaffold the reading skills and teach in a systematic way that allow skills to build upon one another. Skills that are focused on are letter recognition and sounds, phonemic awareness, patterns in words, such as rhyming, vowel/consonant patterns, and word families, reading sentences and simple books. There are various reading level units with big books and reading charts. Language Arts is incorporated into the reading series.
Phonics is the foundation for reading. A supplemental phonics program that stresses beginning, middle, and ending sounds is included as an addition to the Reading Readiness curriculum.
Kindergarten students complete monthly writing assignments in addition to journal writing in their writing tablets. Journal writing consists of copying sentences from the board and drawing a corresponding picture. The teacher holds a conference with each student to help them edit and enhance their writing skills.
Handwriting is taught through direct instruction and independent practice. Daily, students practice proper letter formation and printing their name. Studies show that this activity improves fine motor skills and eye hand coordination.