Kindergarten Curriculum Overview

Language Goals

• Students will construct, examine and extend the meaning of various kinds of text.
• Students will organize and evaluate information to share with others.
• Students will use literary knowledge to connect self to society and culture.
• Students will use written and oral communication appropriate for various purposes and audiences.

Children in Kindergarten will work on the following according to developmental stages:

Use appropriate decoding and word recognition strategies; develop an increasingly extensive vocabulary:

• Identify upper and lower case letters
• Understand concepts of print (letter, word, sentence, left to right directionality, top to bottom, return sweep of print)
• Understand concept of rhyme
• Understand concept of beginning sounds
• Sound/letter symbol associations for consonants and some vowels
• Identify 5-10 familiar words, including their name, number and direction words

Assimilate information from prior knowledge and experiences to understand text-

• Use picture clues to determine meaning of unknown words
• Recognize environmental print
• Ask and/or answer questions related to a story
• Make and revise predictions related to a story with teacher assistance
• Begin to differentiate between real and make-believe
• ID fiction/nonfiction

Develop an understanding of the literary elements used in creating stories-

• Identify title, author and illustrator with teacher assistance
• Identify character and setting with teacher assistance
• Retell familiar stories using beginning, middle and end

Respond to text in a variety of ways (speaking, writing, art)-

• Begin to express opinions
• Respond to literary texts from various cultures
• Begin to relate ideas from literature to situations involving self and society
• Discuss stories and ideas from fiction and non-fiction sources

Use a variety of resources (print, audio-visual, technology) to gather and evaluate information to share with others-

• Identify different resources available to gather information
• Identify different ways to organize and share information

Written and Oral Communication

Children in Kindergarten will work on the following according to developmental stages:

• Use left-to-right, top to bottom progression
• Write own first and last name
• Write using invented spelling, demonstrating some letter/sound associations
• Use conventional spelling for familiar words
• Use drawings with labels to share experiences
• Use oral language to tell the story depicted in drawings
• Use details in their drawings to develop the text
• Copy environmental print and other messages
• Experiment with different forms of writing (labels, signs, lists, messages)
• Use oral language for different purposes (inform, persuade, express self)
• Begin to follow rules for conversation (taking turns, staying on topic)
• Share and discuss work using complete sentences
• Share an idea on a topic
• Speak in front of a group (i.e. share)

Mathematics Goals

Students will develop number sense, use operations for computation with understanding, explain relationships between numbers and develop beginning concepts of place value using concrete materials. Numeration/ Operations

• Identify like/ unlike objects to form sets up to twenty
• Identify equal/ unequal set amounts (conservation)
• Rote counting to twenty
• Skip counting by fives and tens
• Associate numeral symbol and quantity to twenty
• Sequencing to one hundred (what comes before or after)
• Use of ordinal numbers
• Identify operations symbols ‘+’, ‘-‘, and ‘=’
• Simple addition
• Simple subtraction
• Solve oral word problems
• Introduction to place values up to one thousand

Students will develop an understanding of estimation and measurement. Measurement

• Linear comparison (long/ short, thick/ thin, tall/ short)
• Volume/ mass comparison (more/ less, full/ empty)
• Temperature comparison (hot/ warm/ cool/ cold)
• Time comparison (minutes/ hour/ days/ week/ months/ year)
• Identify time to the hour
• Name and order days of the week, months of the year
• Use of the calendar
• Recognize penny, nickel, dime and quarter

Students will develop spatial sense and understanding of geometry. Geometry

• Identify two dimensional and three dimensional shapes using materials
• Demonstrate the relative position of objects (over, under, beside…)

Students will develop an understanding of patterns Patterning

• Recognize and repeat simple visual, oral and rhythmic patterns
• Sort and classify objects by a single attribute

Cultural Studies Goals

• Students will develop an understanding of the diversity of human culture and the unique nature of places.
• Students will develop an understanding of chronological concepts in analyzing historical events.
• Students will use the process of scientific inquiry to develop their understanding of the natural world.

Typically, children in Kindergarten will work on the following:

• Identify the year and its parts (seasons)
• Identify the parts of a calendar
• Identify the needs of humans through time
• With assistance, develop a personal time line
• Use the clock as a measurement of passing time
• Identify basic land and water forms
• Identify continents, bodies of water, political boundaries
• Compare and contrast cultures and cultural traditions around the world
• Discuss the plants and animals of countries studied
• Use the Scientific Method (observe, predict, draw conclusions)
• Identify living/nonliving things
• Identify plants/animals, adults/offspring
• Identify parts of plants, leaves, flower
• Identify external parts of fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, mammal, insect
• Identify various animal habitats of vertebrates
• Participate in experiments with water, air, magnets, sound, electricity, heat