| Kindergarten Schedule |
7:00-8:20 |
Morning Extended hours |
| Explanation of the Schedule |
| Morning extended hours During this time, children of all age levels, preschool-grade 8, will be combined. For older children, this will be a time to study or read. For younger children, different selected activities will be open to them each day, such as books, play dough, or other manipulatives until the school day begins. Please see the Early Childhood Center Handbook, page 8 and 15 for further information. |
| Signing in The first thing students do when they come into the classroom is "sign in." Each child will find his name on the sign in chart and then write his name beside it as best he can. |
| Devotion We will begin each day with the Word of God. Our devotions will include discussing and singing the Psalms and Liturgy (music that our Lutheran church body uses in worship) and discussing a vocabulary word or a concept that relates to the Bible story for that day. |
| Bible story We go immediately from the devotion to the Bible story. We’ll spend the entire week on one Bible story and work on a Bible verse that goes with each story. The first day, the teacher simply tells the story. The second day the teacher tells the story again, maybe using some props. The rest of the week, the teacher will be giving the students the opportunity to do the telling as much as possible. We will send home a detailed copy of the story each week. Homework will include reading the story at home and going over the memory verse with your child. |
| Story reading For story reading time, books will be chosen carefully. One type of book that has been particularly useful in promoting “emergent literacy” is predictable books. “Emergent literacy” refers to the Kindergartner ’s level of development in reading and writing skills. Predictable books contain repetitive language and/or predictable plots. These books are the sort of stories children can easily become involved with and can naturally "read" independently. We will choose four or five stories each week and read them daily. The goal is to have the students involved in telling/reading the story by the end of the week. As the year goes along we'll naturally get more focused on some specific words and sounds. Story reading is a lot of fun, but it's also building children’s language skills, which is fundamental to success in reading and writing. |
| Music Our Savior's uses Sing and Make Music, the music program developed by our Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. It's a comprehensive music curriculum which includes both sacred and secular music. Some specific skills that will be introduced are dynamics, rhythm, tempo, pitch, and the very important concept of beat. We'll also be using some rhythm instruments. The music easily leads into and is often in connection with the next part of the program— movement. |
| Movement During movement time, we'll work with basic skills like body awareness, jumping, hopping, leaping, galloping, skipping, muscle strength, balance, and directionality. It’s important for children to develop healthy habits, like being active, early on in life. We encourage the children to try moving in new ways and build their confidence with practice. Movement and music will often go together. |
| Group activities These group activities will be based on High/Scope’s Key Experiences. The High/Scope Educational Research Foundation is an Early Childhood program developed back in the 1960s which continues today. A number of studies have documented this Early Childhood model as having a positive correlation to later success in school and beyond. The Key Experiences are an important component to High/Scope’s philosophy. They were developed to encompass all areas of a child’s early learning and development. Key Experiences range from social skills to movement to language and they are all covered at some point in our program. This group time will be used to touch on the Key Experiences that are not directly covered in other areas of our program, such as math, art, science experiments, and some language activities that go along with the stories we’ve been reading. |
| Pre-writing In this part of the schedule we will be using Handwriting Without Tears material. This program is designed specifically to develop pre-writing and early writing skills. Handwriting can be very difficult later on if a child develops incorrect habits. Through specific fine motor emphasis it is hoped children will develop good habits, as far as pencil grip, holding the paper, and how to make different strokes involved in making letters. |
| Snack For snacks we'll stick with things like fruit, cheese, yogurt, muffins, and fruit juice and stay away from candy and sticky stuff. We'll always have a choice of crackers available if students don't like the "snack of the day." Sometimes the snack will reinforce a letter or concept we’re working on, like grapes for letter G, or circle and square crackers when we’re working with those geometric shapes. |
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Recess |
| Active Learning Active learning occurs when a child has direct and immediate experiences and derives meaning from them through reflection. There are five components necessary for active learning to take place. These components are materials — there needs to be a variety of materials for the child to work with; manipulation — the child needs to be allowed, within reason, to have a hands-on experience with these materials; choice — the child needs to be allowed to do, within reason, again, what he wants to do with the materials; language — there needs to be an opportunity to talk about what the child is doing; and support — there needs to be encouragement and someone to facilitate, if necessary, what the child is doing. Active Learning will be organized with a Plan-Do-Recall routine. This Plan-Do-Recall process is the centerpiece of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation mentioned earlier in connection with group time. Plan The "Planning" part of the sequence is the child telling what he is going to do during this active learning time. The value of Planning time includes building purposefulness, organization, focus, prioritizing, decision making, responsibility, accountability, sequencing, and gives some control to the students. Children develop the desire and ability to remain at a task long enough to act on their desires. At first, plans may be rather vague, but as the year goes on, plans become more detailed. We will plan in a variety of ways, such as identifying a picture of the area the child chooses for his plan, or bringing a toy from that area to the group. Do The next part of the schedule is doing the work of carrying out the plan. There is a lot going on while children are carrying out their plans. Children are playing with purpose, participating in a social setting, using language in many ways, solving problems, and making discoveries. Possible choices during this time include the block area where children develop spatial and problem solving skills. In the house area, much role playing goes on which involves lots of social interaction and language skills. The art area involves working with a variety of mediums. There is a book and writing area, which once again gives opportunities for literacy development. Another choice is working with manipulatives, which builds the concepts of pattern making, sorting, classifying, and fine-motor skills. There will be other varying work areas throughout the year as well. During this time the teacher will be helping to facilitate the children's plans, participating with the play, conversing with the children about what they are doing, and trying to extend the play, that is, introducing them to new ideas. Recall When active learning time comes to a close, everyone is involved in clean up after which we'll gather for Recall. During Recall time, the children are remembering and reflecting on their experiences. The children are associating their plans, actions, and outcomes. They are talking with others about personally meaningful experiences. We will do this in a variety of ways, very similar to planning. |
| Lunch This is another wonderful opportunity for social interaction among children and teachers. It’s also a chance for children to practice autonomy (doing things for themselves) — an important part of a young child’s development — by participating in getting their lunch ready and cleaning up after themselves. They also practice autonomy by getting themselves ready to go outside, using the restroom by themselves, cleaning up toys, making choices during active learning time, etc. |
| Noon Recess Kindergartners again enjoy a recess break with the older students outside on the playground. |
| Bible History Projects The Kindergartners construct a project for each of the Bible History stories taught. The main purpose of the project is to give the students another way to remember and review the story. Projects for the year along with a text version of the story are collected together in a notebook which each student takes home at the end of the school year. |
| Reading Instruction Formal reading instruction mainly involves use of Beginning to Read, Write, and Listen (Macmillan/McGraw-Hill). A "Letterbook" is the basis for instruction for each letter of the alphabet. The name, symbol, and one sound each letter represents is taught using this phonics approach. Students gain experience in blending the letter sounds to form words. By about the fourth week in school students have been introduced to the letters "d," "o," and "g," and so are equipped to figure out the word "dog." Of course since we are a Christian school we teach the word "God" at the same time. We spend about four days on each Letterbook and then the student takes it home to keep. We also use reading material from other sources so that children have opportunities to become familiar with high frequency words. A third source for reading material is literature which taps into the flow of language as a cue source for reading. Using these three cue sources — phonics, high frequency words, and the natural flow of language — helps to round out our reading program making it a balanced approach to reading instruction. |
| Math The Saxon Kindergarten Math curriculum is the basis for our Kindergarten math instruction. This program develops a solid foundation in basic math concepts including number related work, geometry, graphing, and money. There is a great deal of work with manipulatives so concepts being developed have a concrete basis. |
| Study Hall At the end of the afternoon Kindergarten instruction part of the day students spend time doing worksheets that review reading and math lessons taught recently. Along with review of specific academic skills, this Study Hall time gives students practice in correcting mistakes on previous work and in working quietly and independently --- all important skills for classroom work throughout formal schooling. |
| Stories This is another opportunity to promote emergent literacy. We will read stories different from those being read in the morning, possibly a chapter book or a book in a series, or books chosen by students. |
| Closing Prayer We will end the day as we began it, with Jesus, our Savior, and thank God for all the blessings He has given us that day. |
| Afternoon extended hours During this time, children of all age levels, preschool-grade 8, will be combined. We will have recess outside and have a snack. When we go inside, this will be a time to study, read, or play a game for older children. Younger children may choose what they would like to do and all children are responsible for cleaning up what they were using when they are picked up. Please see the Early Childhood Center Handbook for further information. |