Kindergarten

FUN:  We learn every day!

• Learn about measuring devices, estimations and size using many different tools
• Experience new types of communications by using or studying the postal service, telephones, and email
• Learn about responsibilities by sharing important daily jobs in the student garden and in the classroom

LIFE LESSONS:  We learn to get along with each other and the environment!

• Respect healthy bodies and minds as we learn how eating and drinking the proper foods and liquids, rest and exercise should be routine
• Respect the environment on frequent nature walks, with an emphasis on water habitats
• Learn about school rules, structure, and people in the school community and having respect for them
• Become confident in themselves by exploring family responsibilities, manners, feelings and their favorite things

THE BASICS:

Language Arts:

• Create as they write and read sentences, books and brief stories, focusing on vocabulary words from lessons
• Concentrate when they write, identify or sequence the alphabet. What dinosaur begins with the letter A? Appatosaurus!
• Compare and contrast different story types, non-fiction and fiction. The Monarchs migrate in the winter, fact!  Molly Monarch tells her children stories before they make the journey, fun fiction!
• Excel by drawing and dictating individual monthly book reports, and contribute to weekly “Letter of the Week” class books
• Laugh when they say rhyming words and ending sounds, and create fantastic “non-words.” Monarch butterflies are wingtastic!

• Gasp in awe when they study life cycles and metamorphosis. They compare the size of a butterfly egg to that of a dinosaur egg, ostrich egg and a sparrow egg. The butterfly study, of course, takes them almost daily into our student garden, where insect-friendly plants are surrounded by a rattling jungle of sky-high bamboo! 
• Track the changing weather and seasons as they monitor the daily temperatures and the gradual shift in the height of the noon sun from August through May
• Explore their senses through discussion of how feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling affects their day-to-day experiences
• Study plants and animals and their interdependence, learning how some animals and plants are endangered, and what they can do to help

• Learn to love math, through the Everyday Math program which encourages innovative, creative ways to solve problems
• Celebrate the number 100, by counting down each day of school, reading and writing the numbers just over 100
• Sort, graph and classify by color, size and other categories, in centers, during nature walks and even lunchtime!
• Count forward and backward, and skip counting, which actually gets them skipping around the room!
• Begin exploring addition and subtraction
• Create and locate sequential patterns
• Enjoy lines of symmetry. How does one wing of a butterfly compare with the other?

• Write, address and mail picture postcards from family travels to the class, reinforcing geography, writing and number skills
• Celebrate holidays and traditions and the many differences in the classroom, the community and beyond
• Compare city and country life, their buildings, workers and means of transportation