Our Kindergarten program incorporates play, centers, and academic instruction throughout the year.  Students begin to develop and follow routines and expectations that will help them succeed both socially and academically. Each classroom builds a community that allows for students to work with adults and peers in small groups and in whole class settings.

In Kindergarten, students learn, manipulate, and explore the letters and sounds of the alphabet to build vocabulary and early reading and writing skills.  Students study words and patterns through a phonics block, learn early reading behaviors and skills in Reader’s Workshop, begin to develop writing skills and experiment with spelling patterns in Writer’s Workshop, and begin to develop number sense in Math Workshop.

In reading, students learn to talk about books and retell stories using both pictures/ illustrations and text, select books that are “Just Right” for them, learn about the differences between fiction and nonfiction texts, and get to know several authors (like RoseMary Wells or Ezra Jack Keats) and their books very well.  Students are encouraged to tell their own stories through narrative writing, which includes small moments and comic book writing, informational writing where they tell about something they know, and opinion writing where they can reflect on a book they’ve read or a moment in their lives.

The math curriculum focuses on two critical areas as defined by the Common Core Standards: developing an understanding of number sense by representing, relating, and operating on whole numbers; and describing shapes and space.