HILLTOP ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

KINDERGARTEN TEAM

WELCOME TO KINDERGARTEN AT HILLTOP SCHOOL!

Kindergarten is a unique and special year. It is when a child’s social, physical, and emotional growth is as important as his/her academic success.

The Hilltop kindergarten curriculum is planned keeping in mind the ways young children learn best. These are natural ways for children to use their capacities, grow and learn many skills. The kindergarten program captures this natural process through planned opportunities in these areas:

Morning Meeting: Kindergarteners begin each day by gathering together for a greeting, group share, and activity. This allows everyone to develop a sense of community while working on important interpersonal skills such as speaking and listening. We close our meeting with a message that includes what will take place that day.

EL Education

Skills Block
EL Education Skills block is a comprehensive 1-hour block that uses a structured phonics approach to understand the behaviors related to the types of letter-sound connections students are able to make as they learn to read and write. It includes 4 Modules that start with learning letter names, sounds, and sight words. It builds on letter sounds, by exploring consonant-vowel-consonant words, blending sounds, phonemic awareness, and many other skills needed when decoding words.

Module Block

EL Education also has a 1-hour block that includes 4 Modules. These Modules focus on vocabulary, comprehension, deep thinking skills, and grammar. The first module is Toys and Play where students build their literacy and citizenship skills as they engage in a study of toys and play. Module 2 Is called Weather Wonders students. Students build their literacy and science skills as they engage in a study of the weather and how it affects their behaviors. Modules 3 and 4 provide a close discovery of trees called Trees are Alive and Enjoying and Appreciating Trees. Students explore the big ideas that all living things in the natural world have needs in order to survive and grow and that, through observation, we can discern patterns in the ways that living things meet their needs. Through a close study of trees and the living things that depend on them, students take on the roles of a researcher and scientist to make observations of the natural world. From those observations, they determine patterns that explain how living things live and grow. by exploring the importance of trees to people and their communities. Students learn how different people, both real and imaginary, enjoy and appreciate trees, and they consider how real people and characters have used trees to fill a need in their community.

Math: In Kindergarten, our Eureka math program is divided into 6 Modules. These Modules include; Numbers 1-10, Two Dimensional and Three Dimensional Shapes, Comparison of Length, Weight, Capacity, and Numbers, Number Pairs- Addition and Subtraction to 10, Numbers 10-20 and counting to 100, and Analyzing, Comparing, and Composing Shapes. , Kindergarten students start their learning by classifying and categorizing objects, leading to making one group. They practice number sense and learn the way each number from 0 to 10 relates to five using fingers, cubes, drawings, and 5 groups. Students then move on to describing and identifying squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, hexagons, cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres. Students learn to compare objects and amounts, leading to addition and subtraction. Students represent add-to, take-away, and put-together stories with blocks, drawings, and equations. Finally, after an extended experience of addition and subtraction with totals up to 10, students progress to investigating numbers 10–20.

Social Studies: Kindergarten uses Social Studies Alive! Me and My World to engage students in learning about History, Civics, Geography, and Economics. Students learn about the past and how to be good citizens in the present. They explore the world by looking at maps and deciding what they need to live vs. what they want.

Science: Students are taught using the FOSS Curriculum which is a hands-on program using the scientific method. Units of study include:

Trees and Weather in the fall
Material and Motion in the winter
Animals Two by Two in the spring

Social/ Emotional:

Learning is a fundamental part of the concept of self. No learning occurs that does not involve feelings, and what is learned affects a child’s concept of self. It is the role of the teacher to provide a climate in which democratic living is practiced, and one that is happy, realistic, interesting, and friendly.

Health:

Students in grades kindergarten through four will be participating in health education this year as prescribed in the 2020 New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Comprehensive Health and Education as adopted by the New Jersey Board of Education on June 3, 2020. Lessons will be taught by our health/physical education teacher, our school nurse, and/or our school counselor. (Some lessons will be co-taught.) A list of descriptions of each lesson can be FOUND HERE, while more detailed information can be found on our website under 2020 NJSLS Health Lessons. CLICK HERE to access our site.

KINDERGARTEN MISSION STATEMENT