Kindergartners arrive in the fall ready to take on the world. “Real school” awaits them, and they eagerly seize the opportunity to learn everything and to make new friends with whom to share their experiences. Learning is at its best for kindergartners when it is both structured and exploratory - structured through a clear and predictable environment and schedule; exploratory through carefully constructed opportunities in which children can approach learning through varied intellectual avenues. It is the goal of the Kindergarten program to provide a safe, physical, and social environment that allows for experimentation, where children can express knowledge and ideas in ways that are familiar to them, and then take risks to pursue new avenues of learning.
Social and academic development/pursuits hold equal importance in Kindergarten; much of what a kindergartner learns during the school year will never be seen on a piece of paper. Play, which takes place both in the classroom and on the playground, is a critical part of the Kindergarten day. It is a time when children learn to navigate independently social situations and cope with personalities that differ from their own. With each new experience, imagination and creativity thrive, and children gain independence and confidence.
The most challenging and important part of being in Kindergarten is learning to become a successful, independent individual within the larger community. Kindergartners are at the center of their own universe, and often find it hard to see the world from any other point of view. It can be difficult for them to approach an educational or social task any way other than “their way”, and they can be quick to identify a different idea or method as “wrong”. They are also a study in opposites. Although they may find it quite difficult to take on the perspective of a classmate when a conflict involves them directly, if a child in the room is crying, they are quick to lend care and support.
As the newest members of the Milton community, Kindergartners begin to see themselves not only as part of their class, but as part of the greater Junior Building, Lower School, and Milton Academy communities. They build relationships with their classmates and teachers, and children in other grades, particularly enjoying time spent with fifth grade buddies. We identify appropriate ways to treat people, space, and materials, to celebrate strengths and talents in each child and in his or her classmates, and to discuss why what each child does and says is important and has consequences. We encourage the children to work cooperatively and to turn to one another for knowledge and understanding.
It is through these experiences that kindergartners begin to recognize themselves not only as individuals, but also as necessary and responsible members of a greater learning community.
Literacy
The literacy program in Kindergarten is designed to develop the critical set of skills necessary for future proficiency in reading and writing. Phonological awareness, letter recognition, letter-sound correspondence, concepts of print, vocabulary development and listening comprehension are explicitly and consistently addressed throughout the year. During the course of a child’s day, phonological awareness (the ability to identify and manipulate units of sound) is strengthened through work with rhyming and alliteration, and through activities involving syllable identification and the blending and segmenting of sounds. Read-alouds, in turn, offer children the opportunity to enhance listening comprehension skills, while simultaneously expanding their vocabulary. Word study, with its emphasis on letter recognition, letter-sound correspondence and concepts of print, bolsters children’s confidence in their ability to communicate, as they apply what they have learned in their writing.
Every child who enters Kindergarten is considered a writer. Beginning on the first day of school, children are given a variety of materials with which to write and illustrate and are expected to record their thoughts. Journals, month pages, research exercises, and writing workshop stories, combined with the day-to-day recording of information, provide contexts that are meaningful and appropriate for children of all levels. As children experiment with writing, their output reflects their growing understanding of the correspondence between sounds and letters, as well as their appreciation for how information is laid out on the page. Much of their work will be published, shared with classmates and then placed in the classroom library for community enjoyment.
Mathematics
The aim in Kindergarten is to provide children with interesting and exciting opportunities for mathematical thinking. Mathematics for five and six year olds should be concrete, hands-on, and based on personal experience. Daily activities are designed to create eager observers and recorders of pattern, size, quantity, and shape.
Often using themselves and their environment for data collection, kindergartners raise questions, use manipulatives to solve problems, and report back to a teacher or the group. Group discussions about how information is gathered and recorded allow children to appreciate different ways of thinking, and to understand that there is more than one way to find a solution to a problem.
Because kindergartners are at the center of their own universes, mathematical experiences are most successful when personally meaningful. As we keep track of the days we have spent together in Kindergarten, children are exposed to the ideas of place value and to recognizing, and then recording, one, two and three digit numbers. As we begin to reach larger numbers on the classroom number line, we group by twos, fives, and tens in order to count more quickly. Patterns, first identified on the daily calendar, suddenly seem to appear everywhere in the environment. As we collect information about classmates and community - letters in a name, height, number of siblings, hair and skin color, age - graphs and charts line the walls, and children discuss information and draw conclusions about the community in which they learn. These experiences lend purpose to recording information numerically and to creating opportunities to discuss quantitative relationships - more, less, equal, about - in ways that are meaningful to them.
Social Studies and Science
We begin the school year by learning to share, to respect each other and ourselves, and to take responsibility for our space and the materials we use to learn. It is crucial that children learn to manage their environment and to interact with each other in a positive and productive manner so that the best learning can take place. We ask the children to think about possible ways to gather information, what resources they can use, how they can be resources for each other, and how they can best present what they have discovered. In Kindergarten, understanding the culture and practice of being a student is as important as learning the subject matter that is covered.
Throughout the year, it is our goal to imbue in our students fervent curiosity, a love of learning, and recognition of themselves as learners.
Each unit of study in Kindergarten begins with and revolves around something familiar. The first major unit of the year relates to the summer reading book and builds and expands on what the children already understand about the world around them.
Then, in the fall, pumpkins are the focus as we purchase, investigate, measure, taste, carve, and then observe as our pumpkin rots to seed. Winter cold brings bread baking and eating, the chemistry of ingredients, the science of yeast, and a discovery of bread in cultures around the world. In spring, Anansi the spider, the ultimate trickster, arrives. We research spiders and read about Anansi’s fellow animal tricksters ultimately creating our own trickster tales and sewing the famous trickster pillows.
Art
The Kindergarten art program introduces children to a variety of traditional and non-traditional art materials through play, discovery and exploration. Through this exploration, basic art vocabulary and techniques are introduced and practiced. Painting, drawing, sculpture, collage, ceramic, and printmaking projects are used to introduce concepts such as line, texture, shape, pattern, and color. The curriculum often overlaps with Kindergarten classroom themes and subjects. Along with strengthening creativity and artistic skills, students learn to be responsible for the art materials and the community created in the art room. The art program provides the time for self- expression and the pleasure of creating while also developing necessary creative thinking skills that are useful throughout life in solving problems, communicating, observing, and interpreting information.
Library
During their weekly library visit, the kindergartners find a friendly and welcoming place in the Loizeaux Reading Room as they begin to develop the skills essential to becoming active and thoughtful library users. Selecting books to sit and "read" or to share with each other enables the kindergartners to develop the habit of exploring the book collection and to experience the excitement of selecting their own books. They strengthen their deductive and letter recognition skills, as they determine what letter that week’s two books have in common. Listening to new books as well as to old favorites feeds their imaginations and sparks lively discussions.
Music
The basis of all musical skills is a sense of rhythm and pitch. In Kindergarten chants, songs, rhythmic and musical activities will be used to develop their singing voice and focus their natural inclination toward movement. Students will explore both full body and isolated movement. Imitating melodic lines in a call and response style reinforces vocal skills while rhythmic skills are developed using a variety of percussion instruments, body percussion, and dance. Kindergarten students are encouraged to listen and respond to verbal and non-verbal cue and work cooperatively and creatively with one another.
Physical Education
In Kindergarten the emphasis is on the development of movement concepts including body awareness, space awareness, and motor skills. Kindergarten children practice locomotor skills such as running, hopping, skipping, galloping, and sliding. They begin to use these skills in game situations requiring chasing, fleeing, and dodging. Children begin to manipulate balls through throwing, catching, kicking, dribbling, and volleying. Skills such as turning, twisting, rolling, balancing, transferring weight, jumping, and landing are used in movement exploration and educational gymnastics. Learning to share space, equipment, and each other is another important part of the Kindergarten curriculum.
Woodworking
Students are introduced to basic hand tools and are helped to execute small projects with wood. Skill development, sharing, self-direction, risk-taking, and follow-through are some of the year’s objectives.
