The kindergarten program at St. Peter Tri-Parish School was established in 1975. It was established to provide young children with a solid foundation in the Catholic faith and in core academic areas such as reading and mathematics.
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
At St. Peter Tri-Parish School young children continue to learn about their rich Roman Catholic heritage in our full-day kindergarten program. The teaching of religion is at the heart of the program and is incorporated in each child’s daily experience. The program is child-centered, using movement, dramatic play, music and art to enhance various themes. The program enables each child to grow in the knowledge and love of God.
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Kindergarten-age children are growing rapidly, developing fine and large motor control, and are beginning to establish self-help skills. Through physical activity and structured physical education classes the children gain self-control of their body and muscles, and eye-hand coordination.
SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The kindergarten children are afforded daily opportunities to develop social skills such as sharing, self-control, helping, negotiating, and communicating.
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
The kindergarten program is organized to provide children with positive, meaningful cognitive experiences, which strengthen sensory awareness, curiosity, problem-solving skills, and language development.
FAITH FORMATION
A variety of resources are utilized to introduce kindergarten children to the four pillars of the Catholic Church: Creed, Sacraments, Christian life and Prayer.
- Creed: To relate everyday events of their lives to the Gospel.
Through Bible stories, interactive songs, finger plays and storytelling the children establish themselves as stewards of creation.
- Sacrament: To participate in the social and worship life of our faith community.
The kindergarten children worship with our parish and school community on a regular basis.
- Christian Life: To participate in community outreach; to model
loving service to others.
The children demonstrate love of God and others by recognizing their call to serve God in discipleship.
- Prayer: To participate in children’s liturgy, spontaneous and daily prayers and devotion.
A prayer table is established in the classroom and is utilized to reflect the symbolism of church and liturgical seasons. Prayer and worship is at the heart of the kindergarten program.
VISUAL RECOGNITION
- Distinguishing between pictures & words, letters & words.
- Establishing one-to-one correspondence of print.
- Following left-to-right, top-to-bottom directionality of print.
- Recognition of all upper & lower case letters.
- Recognition of own name in print.
- Recognition of names of peers.
- Reading some environmental and functional print.
- Reading color words: red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, black, brown.
- Reading basic sight words.
- Using rhyme chunks to decode new words.
- Recognizing parts of a book: cover, title, author, illustrator, title page, first and last word on page.
AUDITORY RECOGNITION
- Discriminating between like and unlike consonant sounds.
- Discriminating short vowels sounds.
- Identification of rhyming words.
- Ability to generate rhymes.
- Associating letter symbols with letter sounds.
- Associating sounds with written words.
- Hearing and discriminating syllables in words.
- Demonstrating blending & segmenting of sounds to read word families.
COMPREHENSION
- Retelling a story in sequence with a beginning, middle and end.
- Making predictions based on illustrations & predictability of story.
- Demonstrating comprehension of text through literal questions/inferences/cause & effect .
ORAL COMPREHENSION
- Memorization of rhymes and finger plays.
- Effectively communicates through oral expression.
- Communicating orally in age-appropriate sentences.
- Demonstrating comprehension of text through literal questions/inferences/cause & effect .
LITERATURE APPLICATION
- Distinguishing between fantasy and realism .
WRITTEN EXPRESSION
- Using illustrations and inventive spelling to write a story.
- Using storybook language (i.e. Once upon a time…).
- Copying print from classroom sources .
HANDWRITING
- Demonstrating fine-motor coordination through coloring, cutting, gluing.
- Writing first and last name from model.
- Using appropriate grip for writing and cutting.
- Demonstrating top-to-bottom, left-to-right .
Saxon Math is a developmentally appropriate program that encourages the exploration of mathematical ideas and stimulates curiosity about the world of mathematics. Mathematical thinking and reasoning is fostered through hands-on activities where children develop, explore, test, discuss, and apply mathematical concepts.
The following concepts are presented:
NUMBER CONCEPTS
- Exploration of mathematical concepts through hands-on manipulation of materials.
- Sorting and classification of subjects.
- One-to-one correspondence.
- Equalization of sets.
- Identification, creation and extension of basic patterns.
- Exploration of problem solving strategies.
- Ordinal numbers.
- Pairing of numbers.
- Representation of number sets.
- Joining and separating of sets .
MEASUREMENT
- Collecting and recording of quantitative data using tally marks and data.
- Sequencing of time, days of the week and months of the year.
- Identification of measurement vocabulary.
- Identification of the fractional part one half as a fair share.
- Measurement using non-standard units.
- Identification of time to hour using a digital and analog clock.
NUMBER VALUE
- Comparison of more/fewer/ same; larger/smaller; longer/shorter; through observation and construction with concrete objects
- Representation of number sets using a graph.
- Understanding of the concept of zero as a number.
- Representation of number quantities of 0-31 using numerals.
- Identification of money: pennies, nickles and dimes.
Science is integrated with other areas of the curriculum so that children experience science as a common, everyday occurrence. The following themes are covered:
EARTH SCIENCE
Plants-Basic features, basis needs, life cycle.
LIFE SCIENCE
Weather-patterns in nature and seasonal changes.
PHYSICAL SCIENCE
Properties of objects.
The main focus of social studies at this age level is to expand the world of family and community. Social studies is fully integrated with language arts and seasonal themes.
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