Primary and Kindergarten Curriculum Overview (3 - 6 Years of Age)
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, numbers 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 Goals
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.
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:
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:
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:
Recognize and repeat simple visual, oral and rhythmic patterns
Sort and classify objects by a single attribute
Culutural 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