Kindergarten

The Kindergarten year marks a unique and very important moment in a child’s development…

The particular opportunities and challenges of this stage of development are reflected in Salmonberry’s carefully crafted Kindergarten program.  This is a year of tremendous growth and change for children and Salmonberry makes every effort to provide the optimal bridge between play-based and explorational early childhood and a deeply engaging, rigorous and project-based elementary program.

Mornings

Kindergarten age students spend their morning hours integrated into the multi-age early childhood classroom.  This allows time and opportunity to continue to develop their imaginative capacities.  During these hours, the Kindergartners continue to explore with manipulatives and art materials, but here they experience a sense of mastery and leadership.  They model refined skills and creative insight for younger students, while stretching themselves to get the most out of this rich environment.  Kindergartners are likely to take on leadership roles during circle time, story time, movement and even snack and lunch.  The Kindergartners receive a differentiated experience during the morning hours by having access to a wider range of materials as well as by the expectation of what they can and will create.

One example of this differentiation may be found in the students’ journals.  While all students in the Early Childhood have a classroom journal, the Kindergartners are expected to manage and maintain their own work, selecting pieces for inclusion and producing their own writing in their own hand as captions and summaries for most of their journal work.

Afternoons

In addition to time in the multi-age early childhood, Kindergartners may also enroll in special focused time in the afternoons.  From 1-3 each day, after preschool-age children have been dismissed, Kindergartners take advantage of their increased attention span and cognitive capacities as they are led through project-based work and beginning skill work in reading and literacy as well as mathematics, sciences and arts.  This afternoon time, at a student:teacher ratio of never more than 5:1, is an ideal setting to begin one’s journey into the world of academics and its various disciplines.

The Kindergarten afternoon time includes work in a math curriculum focused on developing a deep visual understanding of many critical math concepts such as patterning and numeration.  It includes a “balanced literacy” approach to beginning reading and writing, using both whole-language methods as well as an introduction to phonics, and a read-aloud component that introduces students into longer and more complex narratives.  There is thematic work that delves both deeper and broader into areas of science and social studies.

Certain afternoons also include integrated instruction with Salmonberry’s primary grades class.  Working with first and second graders, particularly in the arts allows Salmonberry Kindergarteners access to strong role models and they begin to develop the more mature sense of community-based learning that will be at the foundation of their elementary experience.

Salmonberry’s unique Kindergarten program ensures that each student will be challenged at his or her particular developmental level.  The careful blending of play and work, nurturing and rigor, imagination and logical thinking, all with tremendously caring and intimate instruction, help each individual, on their own time table, to make the successful transition from preschool to elementary school without the stress that is too often associated with this critical developmental moment.  Salmonberry Kindergartners become eager participants in the process of learning, and confident community members, ready to take on the significant challenges that lie ahead.