Hilltop’s Kindergarten maintains a low student to teacher ratio, so that students of this critical age are given the necessary attention. Our Kindergarten children are encouraged to be self-aware, independent and self confident. Tha t allows our students to work at their own level of readiness. Hilltop is very pleased with the reading program we’ve been using for the past few years. The “Open Court” program, which is used in many public schools, includes letter recognition, the relationship between letters and sounds, vowels, putting sounds together to make words, listening for sounds in words, writing letters and words, stories and poems.
There is a workbook for the children to practice writing letters and matching pictures to letters and sounds, but since children all have different learning styles, there are other reading activities as well. We sing our sight words, make our own picture dictionary and play games to listen for sounds and letters. We have ABC animal character’s who each have a story and song to help us remember beginning sounds. There is a monkey puppet, Koko, who loves to blend sounds into words. The children are encouraged to write words during free time and to look for our sight words in the stories we read in the world around us. It is exciting to see the children’s faces as they realize they can put sounds together to read words!.
Our math program is taken from the Mac Millian Kindergarten math book. Topics include shapes, colors, sizes, numbers, more/less, greater than / less than, patterns, fractions, adding and subtracting, telling time, measurements and recognizing coins. We use workbooks pages, but again, because of different learning styles, we use many other “hands on” teaching methods as well.
We sing songs about the coins, use small plastic clocks to tell time, Lego blocks to make patterns and break snacks into equal parts to share with friends.
Our science and social studies program include plenty of fun activities to help the children learn about the world around them. We learn about the 5 senses, Holidays, American Indians, Community Helpers, Our Country, Insects, Birds, The seasons and a lot more!
During our dinosaur unit we measure out life sized T-rex footprints, on the 100th day of school we walk 100 steps to see how far we would be from our room. On Election Day we vote for the snack we would eat that day. We’ve planted seeds, watched caterpillars turn into butterflies, made butterflies, wrote our own stories, made a dinosaur museum and more!
We have music and art every day, as well as plenty of time for running, jumping and playing on the playground. At “Free Time,” the children can choose from a variety of activates such as puzzles, blocks, board games, kitchen center, play dough and more.
During all of this we encourage the children to work independently, ask questions and help each other.
In our small class, there is plenty of time for me to work individually with each child. It is easy for me to see where each child’s strengths and weakness are and no one gets “lost in the crowd.”
Our children are well prepared for First Grade, but still have plenty of time to experience fun early childhood activities in a safe and loving environment.
We would like for you to stop in and visit our class. Kindergarten students must turn 5 by October 1st.
