Kindergarten
KINDERGARTEN
Our teachers!
Gina Zarbok
651-982-8942
DeAnn Fagerland 651-982-8943
Sarah Cooper 651-982-8944
Kindergarten students show so much social and academic growth from the beginning of the school year until the end of the year. It is an exciting year for students, parents and teachers. We have fun meeting new friends, going on field trips, and of course, learning new things using manipulatives, technology, and educational games!
During kindergarten, some of the essential skills that are taught in math are counting, sorting, making patterns, addition, subtraction and coin identification. Our science curriculum includes units exploring living vs. nonliving, weather, and the life cycle of a guppy. Students will learn to recognize both upper-case and lower-case letters as well as the sounds that they make. We also use the Handwriting without Tears curriculum to learn how to correctly form letters using fun and hands-on activities. Our reading curriculum exposes children to new vocabulary words, elements of a story, and reading comprehension skills. As part of our balanced literacy approach we also use Daily 5 every day to guide students in practicing reading skills, working with words/letters, listening comprehension, and writing. By the end of the school year, kindergartens will have learned 40 high-frequency (sight) words!!
Kindergarten students participate in the Columbus Kids of Character campaigns focusing on the topics Citizenship, Self-Control, Perseverance, Tolerance, Kindness, Responsibility, Honesty, and Respect. We explore each theme with a partner classroom and reinforce that learning in our individual classrooms. Through these campaigns, students build life-long skills which can be applied throughout their schooling and beyond!