KINDERGARTEN

KINDERGARTEN CLASS

The Woods Kindergarten and Pre-First grade programs provide flexible curricular materials that address the unique differences in ability and development of the student. Experienced teachers guide and encourage each child to develop critical and creative thinking skills.

Individualized, phonetics-based reading programs help children develop oral language, reading, and writing skills in a preparatory learning environment. A superior reading, math, science, and social studies curriculum ensures a cumulative educational experience. Art is organized into thematic units designed to encourage creativity and open new pathways to knowledge.

In addition to academic skills, the our local kindergarten program develops a sense of self-confidence and respect for others, responsibility, and positive feelings toward learning through an accumulation of experiences.

Our kindergarten/pre-first grade curriculum includes the following elements:

Comprehensive reading-language arts program
Hands-on mathematics curriculum
Literature-based, multi-cultural social studies
Science
Physical fitness and health
Spanish instruction
Music and movement
Computer technology instruction
Manuscript
Literature appreciation
Art activities
Time for Kids Educational Magazine Educational field trips

KINDERGARTEN CURRICULUM

LANGUAGE ARTS

The Beginning to Read, Write, and Listen program, a comprehensive reading-language arts series, is the foundation of the kindergarten reading curriculum. It provides a multi-sensory program of visual, kinesthetic, and auditory activities designed for children when they are ready to begin reading. In BEGINNING, the child learns about the alphabet: the letter names, how to write the letters, what sounds the letters represent, and the system of relationships between letters as their sounds are blended together to form words. Phonics is an essential ingredient in beginning reading instruction. Beginning to read, write, and listen provides an explicit, systematic program structured to meet the specialized needs of the kindergarten student.

In BEGINNING, each child has a set of twenty-four letter books that focus on one letter of the alphabet. The booklets are filled with multi-sensory and multimodal activities with a strong emphasis on traditional readiness tasks. The major language skill areas are stressed in each letter book and designed to motivate and involve the kindergartener and make phonics learning FUN!

MATHEMATICS

The kindergarten math program uses a hands-on approach to teaching math. Math lessons are designed to provide students with concrete experiences, helping them develop a foundation in order to learn abstract math concepts. Children will have meaningful experiences and observe relationships and connections while exploring mathematical ideas.

Daily activities give the kindergarten student a chance to develop skills such as, data collection, record keeping, and pattern observation. Throughout the school year, students will be actively involved in numeral recognition, counting, directional concepts, graphing, sorting, patterns, relationships, measurements, telling time, addition, subtraction, and geometry.

SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES

Students learn about their interaction with the world around them in our science and social studies curricula. Some of the units covered in science include growing plants, weather, internal body structure and organs, personal health, and animal habitats. In Social Studies, we use a literature-based curriculum that meets the National Council for Social Studies and the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skill Standards. Through the use of nonfiction photographic books, picture concept cards that reinforce vocabulary, and learning center activities, students build social studies vocabulary and expand their knowledge base. A global and multi-cultural element is present in every aspect of the curriculum to broaden the student’s understanding of his or her earth.