Junior Kindergarten

The junior kindergarten program is designed for the "older" four-year-old and "younger" five-year-old child who has indicated through admissions testing and interviewing the likelihood of success in the school's subsequent grade levels. The purpose of junior kindergarten is to create a learning environment and to offer learning opportunities and challenges that lead naturally to the regular kindergarten program.

Units of Inquiry
I'm Me, I'm Special
If You're Happy and You Know It
Sally Go 'Round the Sun
Let's Go

Books and Reading
Since reading is an essential component of all learning, the program is designed to direct children, even at this early stage, to develop a love of books, care for and use books properly, love being read to, desire to read, appreciate literature, gain pleasure in listening to records and tapes and following along in storybooks, and use picture dictionaries and other children's reference books.

Mathematics
The math readiness curriculum utilizes many hands-on, concrete experiences to teach classification, pattern recognition, numeral recognition, number concept development, shape identification, and estimation.

Science
The junior kindergarten science program is experiential, based on natural phenomenon that can be observed by the child. An important part of the science experience is asking questions, speculating, and experimenting with materials to discover possible answers.

Work jobs
Twelve individual learning centers are provided each month to reinforce language arts, math, fine motor skills, and science concepts being taught during that period. The purpose of workjobs is to provide an opportunity for free choice in a child's work and to develop responsibility and self-direction.

Art
Children experiment with color and shape and with the use of various media to discover what can be accomplished with them. Providing satisfying experiences with such materials as tempera, clay, crayons, and finger paint is the goal. Creation of an end product is of secondary importance. In addition to art in the classroom, children work with an art specialist once in a seven-day cycle.

Music
Music is a vital part of every junior kindergartner's school day. In addition to singing, children feel and express themselves through response to rhythms with such movements as marching, running, stamping, dancing, and hopping. Developing the capacity to listen quietly is encouraged. In addition to music in the classroom, the children meet with the music specialist once every seven-day cycle.

Physical Education
This program helps each child develop an awareness of his or her own body and its capabilities. Particular emphasis is placed upon the application of basic movement patterns to the everyday activities of work and play. Muscle coordination is promoted through outdoor play and through the use of indoor equipment. Junior kindergarten students attend PE four times during a seven-day cycle.

French and Spanish
In junior kindergarten, oral comprehension and expression in French and Spanish are introduced through visual materials, songs, and games. Instruction is creative and interesting to these youngest students.

Library
Students visit the library for scheduled library lessons once per cycle. Additional instruction and research time may be scheduled periodically, as needed. The library curriculum enhances and extends the classroom curriculum, fosters literary appreciation and targets information and research skills. Students enjoy a variety of genres in story time, develop active listening and viewing skills, reinforce concepts through experiential activities, learn to confidently use a library, and purposefully explore a wide array of media, both traditional and technological.