Junior Kindergarten

Open Court, Kindergarten Curriculum 

Students master the alphabet and begin to work on phonemic awareness, learning to identify sounds, letter combinations and blends, rhymes, and to recognize and write key sight words. They learn to form letters and numbers, how to put their full name and the correct date on their papers, and to write short sentences. They read together daily with the teacher encouraging them to identify words and familiar phrases in stories, and later to read short passages independently or to each other.

Saxon, Kindergarten Curriculum

Students work on number recognition, counting and patterns. They use manipulatives and are introduced to concepts such as “more than,” and “less than,” simple addition and subtraction, graphing, sorting, matching numbers with objects, and more. 

Each week students discuss a different theme which is introduced through social studies, science, and art projects. Themes include: primary colors, food pyramid, metamorphosis of a caterpillar, space, seeds, insects, magnets, holidays, and more.

Lessons are “hands-on,” and designed to engage students’ sense of discovery in the observable world around them. Science often involves cooking, art and other messy projects.

Jr. Kindergarten students have music every day. They sing a variety of songs, learn about different musical instruments and genres, and enjoy rhythm and movement activities. Students also participate in a variety of all-school performances such as graduation and the Winter Chorale.

Students in the full day program have Spanish every day in the afternoon. Children are introduced to the language through music, art and conversation. Topics covered include: introducing yourself and others, greetings, numbers up to 50, colors and shapes, family members, body parts, farm animals, and fruits.

Jr. Kindergarten typically goes on a few field trips throughout the school year. Favorites include: Montalvo Arts Center and the Heritage Theater. In addition, we invite a variety of organizations to our classroom to enrich our topic work, including Happy Hollow Edzoocation, puppeteers and more.