Kindergarten

Kindergarten

Children around 5 years old are very interested in learning, knowing and discovering.  Within a smaller class size, children are supported and challenged to collaborate with their peers in multi-step projects involving planning, researching, experimenting and reflecting.  The Sun House offers children opportunities to build reading, writing, listening and comprehension skills, as well as explore unique interests in construction, dramatics, the arts, math, and science.

Curriculum Goals

1. General

  • Respect self, others and the school
  • Respect nature and the natural world
  • Follow directions and rules
  • Communicate with peers
  • Work in large or small groups
  • Express own intentions clearly
  • Participate in multi-staged projects
  • Understand the process of planning, researching, participating and reflecting on the learning process

2. Visual Arts

  • Develop critical and creative thinking skills and expression
  • Identify  primary and secondary colors
  • Understand color mixing and use of light to change color and texture
  • Understand spatial relationships
  • Experiment with lines and shapes
  • Use color and medium to express emotion
  • Use imagined or observed imagery to explain and understand people, places and things in the environment
  • Recognize differences among people
  • Recognize individuality in expression and creation

3. Mathematics

  • Develop recognition and understanding of numbers 1 through 30
  • Read and write numbers
  • Count numbers in a set
  • Recognize individual categories
  • Estimate
  • Recognize and compare attributes of objects
  • Display understanding of color, weight, height, width, length, texture
  • Compare similarities and differences of geometric shapes
  • Develop an understanding of data collection, recording and analysis
  • Sort and classify objects
  • Create and understand patterns

4. Social Studies

  • Develop an understanding of self
  • Compare how individuals are similar and different
  • Compare how cultures are alike and different
  • Recognize all people have basic common needs
  • Describe differences and similarities in people and how they are unique and valued
  • Examine diverse families, cultures and routines
  • Exhibit skills of an active member of a community such as responsibility, trustworthiness, respect, thoughtfulness and caring
  • Recognize and describe changes in people, places or communities over time
  • Locate familiar places in a house, classroom or on a simple map
  • Create maps or guides of familiar places
  • Explore how resources are used within a community
  • Develop personal responsibility for materials, space and use of resources
  • Demonstrate a basic knowledge of currency and how it is used

5. Language Arts

  • Build reading, writing, listening, comprehension and expression skills
  • Develop book and print awareness
  • Demonstrate knowledge that the alphabet is a sequence and has identifiable meaning and function
  • Read or begin to read
  • Make connections through written, oral and other forms of language
  • Demonstrate comprehension of text that is read, written and seen
  • Write/illustrate a coherent story
  • Recognize upper and lower case letters
  • Write letters in a predictable form
  • Attempt spelling and decoding of words

6. Science

  • Make observations
  • Demonstrate how to care for animals and create appropriate habitats
  • Observe and demonstrate understanding of patterns in humans and other animals including an awareness of basic needs, growth and change
  • Understand weather
  • Begin understanding weather’s effects on human behavior
  • Build understanding of properties of common items and develop appropriate vocabulary for describing these things such as color, size, shape and texture
  • Demonstrate ability to use science tools for measurement
  • Understand use of nonstandard and standard measurements
  • Participate in scientific process to hypothesize, test, observe, re-test and report

7. Dramatic Arts

  • Build an understanding of real and make believe, using self and language to act out a variety of roles
  • Use improvisations to demonstrate understanding of roles and creative uses for self and others
  • Develop ability to use a variety of instruments
  • Recognize music and rhythm
  • Build a foundation for an understanding of music and use of music for emotions and storytelling
  • Develop an understanding of integrated arts, using dance, theatre and music to express ideas and emotions
  • Build a repertoire of controlled, intentional, meaningful physical movement
  • Work as an individual or part of a group to create works of art

8. Physical Development

  • Fine Motor Skills
    • Use pencils, scissors and beading items
  • Gross Motor Skills
    • Skip, hop, jump from one foot to the other, balance, throw and catch
    • Follow rules of group games and sports

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