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Kingergarten

Terri McGough – KA                                                Marcie Steel – KB
t.mcgough@stjoansk-8.org                                    m.steel@stjoansk-8.org

Kindergarten Curriculum

The Kindergarten curriculum at Saint Joan of Arc provides a nurturing and loving experience for all students. Our curriculum focuses on the whole child and helping students enjoy school and learn at the same time. All of our subjects are God centered while providing a hands on and productive environment for learning.

Religion/Spirituality
Sadlier WeBelieve Series

Our religion series is rooted in God’s Love and the teachings of Jesus. Every year we follow a new theme provided by the Trenton Diocese. This year’s theme is Discover God’s Love. In our WeBelieve books we discover God’s many gifts together including His gift of creation in the land, water and the animals, His gift of family and friends and the gift of ourselves. The series helps guide the teacher and children through an interactive, enjoyable and relatable series of stories. Our religion curriculum also includes many special spiritual and mindset growth activities throughout the year as well as special school liturgies including: 

Language Arts
Houghton-Mifflin Journeys Series

The Journeys Series provides the tools that gently guide Kindergarten students through their language arts learning experience. It is a literature-based reading program that focuses on reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Quality literature is used to expose the students to many forms of print.  Letter recognition, phonics, phonemic awareness, comprehension strategies and reading strategies also help promote reading readiness.  Students are introduced to writing through the use of phonics-based spelling. Teachers also often supplement the reading program with their own special books/lessons and strategies such as use of the Lucy Calkins Readers and Writers workshop pedagogy.

Some special activities within the language arts program include Daily Five learning centers, guided reading groups and writers workshop.

Mathematics
Houghton Mifflin Mathematics

Our mathematics curriculum is aligned with the NJ and Trenton Diocese Common Core Standards and focuses on two critical areas: representing and comparing whole numbers, initially with sets of objects; describing shapes and space.

The curriculum is also introduced to our students through hands-on experiences.  This is accomplished with the use of math manipulatives, which are used to engage the students in various tactile activities.  These hands-on activities help the students develop an understanding of math concepts.  Some concepts that are covered are: positions, patterns, classification, number recognition, comparing and ordering of numbers, geometric shapes, measurement, the meaning of addition and subtraction, time and money.  Daily activities also include interactive calendar time which helps students become familiar with the months of the year and days of the week, the digital date, place value, ten frames, and tally marks, etc. Some special activities throughout the year also include a One Hundredth Day celebration.

Science/Social Studies

The Kindergarten curriculum is also supplemented daily with many hands-on science activities which help to teach the basics of the physical sciences, Earth sciences, life sciences, and scientific principles of investigation, data collection, and experimentation.

Social Studies is also taught throughout the week and year with the help of robust Scholastic Magazine series that helps focus on geography, national holidays, and activities celebrating cultural differences. 

Specials

The students participate in the following classes once a week: Spanish, library, music, art, physical education and computer classes.