Kindergarten at Mirdif American School
Kindergarten at Mirdif American School
In kindergarten, your student will practice basic concepts of math, reading, writing, shapes, and time. As an American School, there are specific state standards that must be introduced and taught to students in Kindergarten. These standards are then developed and enhanced as your child’s academic journey progresses through elementary.
By the end of kindergarten, your child will recognize, name, and write all 26 letters of the alphabet (both uppercase and lowercase) through our weekly Jolly Phonics lessons. They’ll know the correct sound that each letter makes and use these sounds to read simple and complex words. Students will also apply their phonemic and phonological awareness when labelling pictures or writing short sentences.
Through our Guided Readers lessons, students will be provided an age/stage appropriate reader that will suit their levels. Teachers will work with students to develop a love for reading. Students will develop their sight word/high frequency word recognition, learn reading strategies to help them become independent and lifelong learners. Students will play a variety of games that will allow them to manipulate words and sounds! Technology is a key component in this lesson as games and activities can be linked to our online learning platform- Seesaw! By the end of kindergarten 2, students are expected to read at Level C.
Through our Engaging Reader sessions, students will develop their vocabulary, strengthen their language comprehension, develop their imagination and creativity through stories! Students will read a story each week and will be encouraged to share their opinions, make predictions, change the endings, create their own books and link parts of the story to their own real life! Students will create retell hats, use technology, create crafts and explore Social Studies, Science and Social and Emotional Learning topics that are also related to the story! We aim to make sure reading is a key element across all curriculums. In Kindergarten 1, our primary focus will be getting students to relay their understanding through illustrations and verbal cues. Towards the end of kindergarten, (2), students will be able to write detailed sentences and explain if their sentence is fiction or nonfiction. Students will also be able to edit their sentences by identifying capital letters, end punctuation, verbs and nouns.
Students will be exposed to a variety of teaching strategies such as Partner Talk, Think Pair Share, Whole Class Collaboration and Independent Practice. All lessons are developed with the overarching view that students are “flowers” and all “bloom at different stages”, children learn at their own pace, therefore all lessons provide a differentiated learning experience to suit the needs of each of our young learners.
Students will explore a variety of STEM/Science practices linked to the stories that they have read all week! Students will follow the Scientific Method as they question, hypothesis, experiment and record their findings! Students may be given a problem and need to plan, build and construct their own solution- students will need to test their final piece and make adaptations as they see fit! The most important concept of this is that it is student-led- the teacher is a facilitator and there to pose questions and improve the child’s critical thinking and problem-solving skills.