Kindergarten Curriculum
Reading Workshop:
In Unit 3 of Teacher's College, students will be able to become better readers by using reading strategies known as their “super powers”. In the first bend, pointer power is introduced. This reading strategy helps students point as they read, tapping each word once, checking that their reading makes sense, and anchoring their pointing by noting the words they know in a “snap”. In the second bend, students move from familiar to unfamiliar words that adds to students’ repertoires of super powers. These strategies teach students to search for meaning, use picture clues, and to use the sound of the first letter of a word to help them read. In the final bend, students use all their super powers as they work to make their voices smoother and to communicate their understanding of the text.
Writing Workshop
In Unit 4 of Teachers College Writing curriculum, students are working on writing opinion pieces about something they like or think and provide reasons for their opinion. Students have been making such wonderful progress with identifying an opinion they have and with each passing day and with each new piece, they are able to provide more and more evidence for thinking the way they do. Students drawings are getting better and more detailed everyday Students are continuing to push their writing potential by adding feelings and speech bubbles.Students are continuing to work on stretching out sentences, adding finger spaces, capital letters and punctuation. It had been so much fun learning about our kindergarten friends through their opinion writing!
Math
In math, students are currently learning about two-dimensional shapes. A primary aim of engaging our learners in this unit is to develop their spatial sense. The students being able to talk about shapes and their characteristics shows their learning of spatial sense. They are developing the language they need to help them classify and sort objects. Learning about specific attributes that describe a shape helps the students understand why it is that shape. So far, students have learned about circles, squares and triangles. They will also learn about rectangles and hexagons. The students have been exposed to vocabulary like, vertex and vertices and understand they are just fancy words for corners. Under the domain of geometry, students are working towards modeling with mathematics and examining characteristics to enhance their understanding.
Fundations
In Fundations, the students are learning to tap and stretch out their sounds and are learning 3-4 new sight words a week. As the students continue to develop their phonemic awareness, they will grow within their reading skills. Practicing and knowing their sight words will help the students read fluently, and immediately recognize those words that are constantly appearing in their books. All these skills are also important because, it will help the students work towards being independent writers. Being able to listen for individual sounds in spoken language will allow the students to connect the sounds to the letter.
Science
We are continuing our work in our current unit of Amplify Science,Pushes and Pulls. Students have learned to identify forces by experimenting with pushing and pulling different objects. Students are taking on the roll of an engineer and have Chapter questions that they must solve in order to answer the overarching unit question. We are currently working on Chapter 3 Question: How do we make a pinball move to a certain place? Students are learning that forces come in many ways such as kicking, pulling, throwing etc. They are learning how forces can be gentle and strong and are learning how direction comes into play when moving objects.
Social Studies:
Students will be able to understand the traditions and symbols of the United States to develop a shared culture and identity, as well as celebrate the differences and similarities between people and cultures by discussing focus questions, reading and analyzing a rich collection of diverse primary and secondary sources, examining artifacts, and interpreting images, such as paintings, photographs and maps.