Kindergarten Curriculum

The elementary visual arts curriculum helps students understand how media, technique and process are used to create works of art; how artworks are structured and how art has a variety of functions; how to identify, analyze and select subject matter, symbols and ideas for personal/cultural expression and how historical and cultural contexts provide meaning for works of art, and to assess the merits of their own artworks and the artworks of others.

Resource
Discover Art, Davis

Topics

• Different types of media such as crayon, pencil, paint, clay and paper
• Basic skills such as making marks, cutting and pasting
• Art created based on personal experiences and imagination
• Visual elements of line, shape and texture
• Color names and color mixing techniques
• Artworks and how images convey ideas
• People around the world make different kinds of art for many reasons
• How their own artwork reflects their experiences

Guidance

Guidance, which is integrated into other curriculum areas, helps in establish goals, expectations, support systems and experience for all students. It is designed to enhance student learning by helping students acquire and use lifelong learning skills in three broad areas of development: academic, career and personal/social. The curriculum employs developmentally appropriate strategies to enhance academics, provide career awareness, encourage self-awareness, foster interpersonal communication skills and convey life success skills for all students. The guidance and health curricula complement each other to provide knowledge and skills in the area of drug prevention.

Resources
Variety of district-selected materials

Topics
Students will acquire knowledge and skills in the following areas:

• Improved academic self-concept
• Improved learning
• Plan to achieve goals
• School success
• Career awareness
• Organization and time management
• Self-knowledge
• Interpersonal relations
• Personal safety

Development of self-awareness (emotionally, socially and physically) and the best ways of keeping well (healthy decision-making) are emphasized. Topics introduced in the first years are reviewed and discussed in more depth each year along with new topics. The health and guidance curricula complement each other to provide knowledge and skills in the area of drug prevention.

Resources
Your Health, Harcourt, Inc.

Topics
Mental/Emotional/Social

• Conflict resolution
• Cooperation and respect
• Self management
• Feelings
• Responsibility

Chemical Health

• Medicines
• Drugs

Safety and First Aid

• Bus safety
• Fire safety
• Pedestrian/bike safety
• Playground safety
• Emergencies
• Personal safety
• Stranger

Growth and Development

• Five senses

Communicable/Chronic Diseases

• Cleanliness
• Handwashing

Consumer Health

• Identify helpful adults

Environmental Health

• Reuse

Decision-Making

• Choosing healthy behaviors (decision-making model)
• Reinforcing healthy decisions (refusal skills)

Reading, writing, listening, speaking, spelling and handwriting are all important components of language arts. Skills and strategies in each area are modeled, taught and practiced, taking into account the unique needs of each learner. Knowledge and skills are acquired through connected experiences between home, school and community. Students read from a variety of texts, including fiction (short stories and whole books), poetry and nonfiction (textbooks, newspapers and magazines). Students read (or are read to) and write daily.

Resources
Invitations to Literacy, Houghton Mifflin
Literacy 2000, Rigby
Handwriting - K-5, Zaner-Bloser

Topics
Reading

• Predicting before, during and after reading
• Summarizing information
• Relevant facts and details
• Main characters - plot and setting
• Similarities and differences in letters and words
• Letter-sound relationships (phonemic awareness)
• Rhyming words

Writing

• Using writing skills to plan, compare and write
• Print concepts, including upper and lower case letter, proper spacing, and writing left to right and top to bottom of the page

Speaking

• Complete sentences
• Responding to questions
• Relevant contributions to discussions
• Appropriate listening skills

Spelling

• Spelling frequently used words correctly

Handwriting

• Legible printing of letters and numbers

While connecting mathematical experiences to the world around them, young children are challenged to become increasingly sophisticated in dealing with mathematical concepts. The elementary mathematics curriculum builds on students' math understanding, skills, and proficiency at each grade level, as appropriate, by integrating concepts such as number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. Students also engage in problem solving, reasoning, and communicating ideas while making connections to the world around them.

Resources
Scott Foresman/Addison Wesley Mathematics
Investigations in Number, Data, and Space - Dale Seymour Publishers

Topics
NUMBERS AND OPERATIONS - Understanding of and proficiency with counting, numbers and arithmetic, as well as an understanding of number systems and their structures

• Sense of numbers
• Basic counting techniques
• Size of numbers
• Number relationships
• Place value
• Addition and subtraction
• Computational fluency

ALGEBRA - Relationships among quantities, including ways of representing mathematical relationships and expression of relationships by using symbolic notation

• Classification, patterns and relations
• Operations with whole numbers
• Use of step-by-step processes

GEOMETRY - Geometric shapes and structures, and how to analyze their characteristics and relationships

• Explore, investigate and discuss shapes and structures in the classroom
• Become proficient in describing and representing shapes in their environment
• Learn to represent two- and three-dimensional shapes
• Recognize and create shapes that have symmetry

MEASUREMENT - The assignment of a numerical value to an attribute of an object; understanding what a measurable attribute is, becoming familiar with the units and processes used in measuring attributes

• Attributes of length, volume, weight and time
• How to measure using standard and nonstandard units
• Select appropriate unit and tool for attribute being measured
• Use repetition of a single unit to measure something larger than the unit

DATA ANALYSIS AND PROBABILITY - How to collect, organize and display data in graphs and charts that will be useful in answering questions; methods of analyzing data, and of making inferences and conclusions from data

• Pose questions to investigate
• Organize responses
• Create representations of data
• Sort and classify objects according to their attributes
• Organize and display data through graphical displays using counts, tallies, pictures and graphs
• Analyze and describe data

PROBLEM SOLVING - Engaging in a task for which the solution method is not known in advance

• Develop and broaden range of problem-solving strategies
• Pose or formulate challenging problems
• Monitor and reflect on their own problem-solving ideas
• Solve problems from a variety of contexts, from daily routines to mathematical situations in stories

The music program focuses on making music, and listening to and responding to music others have produced. Students sing, play instruments, move and create music.

Topics

• The singing voice through clear, light singing
• Vocal flexibility and expression
• Easy use of speaking, singing, whispering and calling voice qualities
• Moving to a steady beat while singing or listening to musical instruments

The science curriculum provides opportunities for students to learn science concepts through hands-on activities. Students learn to observe, compare, collect data, organize and analyze information, and communicate what they have learned. The investigations focus on physical and life science concepts.

Resources
Full Option Science System (FOSS) kits

Topics
Paper, Wood or Fabric (physical science)

• How the material interacts with water
• The properties that make the material easy or difficult to cut
• Different ways to join the material
• Comparing the properties of the material to determine its best use

Trees (life science)

• Similarities and differences
• Seasonal changes
• Size, shape, texture and color of tree leaves
• Observations

Animals Two by Two (life science)

• Observe and describe the structures of a variety of common animals
• Compare structures and behaviors of animals
• Observe interactions of animals in their surroundings
• Communicate observations and comparisons

The social studies curriculum provides the opportunity for each student to acquire knowledge and develop skills necessary for social, political and economic participation in a diverse, interdependent and changing world.

Resources
District-created units of study
Variety of district selected books

Topics
A Healthy Self in a Healthy World (understanding self and others in social settings)

• Emotions
• Community environment and the people who occupy it
• Similarities and differences between cultures
• Classroom environment and others within that environment
• School environment