Kindergarten

Our kindergarten team works hard to provide all students with an opportunity to learn and practice  the essential social, emotional, problem-solving, and study skills. Students learn the foundational English language arts skills that set them on the path to become lifelong readers, writers, and effective communicators.  Our math curriculum encourages students to grow in their mathematical thinking and practice. We strive to foster a positive social and emotional environment that is built on caring and responsive relationships.

Literacy

Green Woods uses American Reading Company (ARC) Core as our ELA curriculum resource. ARC Core is a framework that provides teachers with a structure to promote inquiry through apprenticeship. The resource provides a scope and sequence aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), high interest text for teacher modeling, and varying levels of text for student independent work. Along with the framework, ARC provides an Independent Reading Level Assessment that guides teachers through setting individual reading goals for students. Literacy

 

The ARC resources support students as developing readers by providing them with strategies they need to be able to read complex text on their own. Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking, and Language skills are embedded throughout each unit as students study themes connected to Science, Social Studies, and Literature.

There are 4 units of study throughout the school year.  In Kindergarten these units consist of Literacy Lab, Zoology, Ecology, and Entomology.

 

In conjunction with ARC, Green Woods also uses the Collins Writing Program. Collins Writing program is a 5 step approach to writing. Students will focus on different skills through each stage of writing, from your typical “rough draft” (Stage 1) all the way through editing and publishing (Stage 5). The framework used in Collins Writing gives clear expectations for students throughout the entire writing process. It incorporates specific focus areas that are mastered before moving forward. Since the method is used in all grades at GWCS, it allows for common language and skills to be developed from kindergarten through eighth grade.

Science

Students in kindergarten will use Bring Science Alive! Exploring Science Practices, to figure out the needs of plants, animals and humans and how they change the Earth; how to make objects move in different directions by pushes and pulls and the different types of weather and how to prepare for storms. They will use a variety of science and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts during their active investigations and discussions.