Waiting until kindergarten to start formal schooling gives kids more time to play and explore. But it also means they need to learn how to get along with a larger group of peers and follow rules.
They’ll begin to understand the importance of healthy lifestyle habits, such as eating well and getting enough sleep. They’ll also be introduced to the basics of science.
Math
In kindergarten, kids build foundational math skills such as counting, understanding numbers and shapes and beginning addition and subtraction. They will also learn about money and time.
Kindergarten students also develop a grasp of simple probability, like how much more likely it is to get heads than tails in a coin toss. They will also practice patterns and classification, identifying objects that are similar or different based on one attribute, such as color or shape.
Kids will also start learning about place value, which involves comparing the size of groups or objects, such as 10 beans plus 6 beans is equal to 16 beans. They will also work on basic measurements, like length and width. Kids will begin to understand simple graphs as well.
Reading
In kindergarten, children develop early reading skills such as phonological awareness and knowledge of letter sounds and names. This is the foundation for later skills such as decoding and comprehension.
Throughout the year, teachers provide explicit phonics instruction that allows students to practice sounds, syllables, and phonemes in the context of words. They learn to recognize high-frequency words (such as the first word in a sentence and those found on street signs, billboards, and computer screens) that are not spelled out in full but that children often see and read, known as sight words.
By the end of kindergarten, children should be able to recognize and name all 26 letters of the alphabet in both upper- and lowercase, and they should know that each letter makes a different sound. They should also understand the basics of sentence structure and punctuation.
Science
Science in kindergarten nurtures children’s natural curiosity about the world around them and teaches skills for exploration. It’s a good time to introduce young kids to the basic concepts of science, such as sorting objects by color, shape and size.
They’ll also explore the Earth’s natural features, such as mountains, rivers and oceans. They’ll learn about the four seasons and the weather and will be encouraged to ask questions about the environment.
Encourage your kids to ask questions about the world around them and get them involved in simple hands-on experiments with their own everyday objects. It’s a great way to develop critical thinking, problem-solving and scientific inquiry skills. For example, encourage them to observe the way water molecules move or to mix colors of liquids and see how they change.
Social Studies
Social studies, which is also called humanities, teaches kids about the world around them. It helps them appreciate and respect their own customs and traditions, as well as those of other cultures.
In kindergarten, students explore national and local cultures and begin to learn about geography and history. They study their own family’s heritage and values, as well as the American culture they live in, including its enduring values of opportunity, equality and justice.
They also start to develop an understanding of the community in which they live, learning about their role in it and the laws that govern it. They’re taught to respect the diversity of the people who make up that community, preparing them for an increasingly global future. These skills, along with civic engagement and a knowledge of how our government and economy function, will prepare them to become good citizens of the United States and the world.
Language Arts
Kindergarten students discover that words, sounds and symbols all have meaning. They learn that letters represent the sounds they hear in spoken words and that those words can be written to communicate ideas. They build a vocabulary by discussing new words and reading literature, which also teaches them grammar and builds their language skills.
Kindergarten kids learn that rhymes, upper and lowercase letters and their sounds, blending, and sight words lay the foundation for reading readiness. With a comprehensive curriculum from Calvert, they will work with colorful workbooks to practice consonant and vowel sounds, phonograms, and frequently used sight words.
Kindergartners are also introduced to the concepts of identifying numbers and counting objects. They may also learn about the properties of matter, such as the effects of pushing and pulling on an object, and why animals, plants and weather patterns exist.