Kindergarten Strands

Numbers

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In Numbers, students develop their understanding of numbers through different mediums. Throughout the year, students will work in developing the foundations of counting with different manipulatives that help practice and begin to form connections between numbers and their daily lives. Students will explore shapes and make comparisons, and begin to use their skills in recognizing shapes and size relationship while block building and art making. In building these foundations, students become more proficient in applying these ideas to our units that involve shapes, counting, measuring and building. One of the highlights in our numbers unit is crossing into different strands to enhance students' understanding of numbers. For example; students will make beads in Clay to use in counting, measure ingredients in cooking activities, and in mapping our community in Community Lab.​

 

Storytelling Workshop

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Students explore the joy, and meaning of story and are introduced to engaging characters and settings that inspire them to discuss and imagine about the stories explored.  We encourage a love of books, and words and support children to take their individual next step in their literacy journey.  Students are challenged to visualize the stories in new, longer chapter books such as Winnie the Pooh and My Father's Dragon and also enjoy shorter texts that includes Aesop's Fables and other multicultural folktales and fables.  Children are ready to learn about how stories can have deeper meanings within them. We engage with story through art and storytelling mediums such as puppetry, dramatic retellings of these stories, and various mixed media 3D projects. 

 

We Are Scientists

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In Kindergarten students leave the classroom each week to explore the natural world and the cycles visible within them.  Through a partnership with the 45th St Composters, we are able to give children a rural experience in the middle of the big city.  Children go to the garden and learn about compost, help to plant vegetables and learn about insects.  We also develop students' observational skills, ability to make predictions and educated guesses about experiments in our class, and expand their knowledge about how the world around them works. We design projects such as  "The Botany Lab," where Kindergarteners create their very own garden out of recycled bottles. The students care for the plants and document their growth in the garden and learn about their biology along the way. Later on in the year, students explore astronomy by selecting images from the Hubble Telescope and painting the images, discussing what they see and learning about the images as we paint.  We also have a unit on electricity and circuits, where students will be able to get hands-on practice with snap circuits. Finally, we have a unit on monarch butterfly life cycles. 

 

Community Lab

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In the Community Lab, students start to learn about what it means to be in a community that not only involves their family, but now their classroom, school, and neighborhood. During the fall we learn more about our classmates and school community. We create a 3-D model of the school out of cardboard and other recycled materials. We interview different members of our school community and learn more about what different people within our community do to keep a community going. Later on in the year, we learn about our neighborhood community through interviews, photography, and by developing questions about how our neighborhood runs and seeking out the answers as a class.

 

The Arts

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The Arts are integrated into every strand as a necessary tool for learning. Students use and develop their skills as painters, music makers, theater artists, sculptors, and more to learn about everything from math to storytelling. Students will begin every day with a quick drawing prompt to challenge them to create outside their comfort zone and develop their ability to hold and use writing implements in the future. 

 

In addition to our regular lessons, which contain art activities that deepen our understanding of class material, students work with clay twice a week. Throughout the school year, students learn the foundations of clay and develop skills that are used in each project they make. Our goal for working with clay is to help students grow an appreciation for the medium and developing their abilities to build in 3D. Through this process, students grow their fine motor skills and gain a sense of control over their project's success which improves self esteem and self expression. As students discover that clay is a forgiving material to create with, they feel comfortable to experiment and create with confidence.  

 

Language

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Students learn Spanish through song and hands-on activities this year. They work with Spanish through stories, art and beginning conversation. Our focus is on developing the skills necessary for conversational Spanish.

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Roller Skating and Movement

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Students have ample opportunities for movement throughout their school days. In addition to their daily trip to the playground for recess, students take roller skating lessons once a week. They also participate in nature walks where we will observe the world around us. Students will have a brief morning salutation in their classroom at the start of morning meeting, this will involve some yoga and other stretches to help center ourselves at the start of the day. After recess, students return to our classroom and join our mindfulness meditation, breathing exercises and stretching that help connect their bodies to their minds. 
 

Home Learning

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We send home learning materials out twice a week. These home learning activities will be a chance for your child to share and work together with you on what they are learning in class. The activities will also give your learner an opportunity to practice what they have been working on in a new setting, which can help them deepen their understanding.