Junior Kindergarten Program

On the heels of a challenging, shortened school year, you have questions about the fall. Is your child not feeling quite ready for kindergarten? Was their Pre-K year interrupted or negatively impacted?

We have a solution: Junior Kindergarten. This all-day program offers kindergarten curricula that has been adapted to meet the needs of younger learners and ensure their successful transition to kindergarten. This is an extra year of developing critical elementary school skills:

• Following multi-step instructions
• Finding multiple solutions to problems
• Organization
• Controlling impulses and sustaining attention

This learning environment, modeled after a kindergarten classroom, features six distinct centers for focused skill development. 

• Science & Math Center: Children employ their natural investigative skills to experiment with new science and math concepts. Through this discovery process, children build critical-thinking skills.
• Fine Arts Center: By engaging with different art techniques and color concepts, children can explore their creative side and different problem-solving and self-expression skills. 
• Dramatic Play Center: Through dramatic and pretend play, children try on different costumes and roles to develop social-emotional skills and make sense of their world. 
• Block Center: By using various materials to build inventive creations, children learn how things work and how they fit together.
• Writing & Language Center: Letter and word recognition and formation, along with segmenting words into sounds, and putting new sounds together to make words, allow children to succeed at written communication.
• Library Center: In this cozy area full of books, children can develop key literacy skills like story reasoning, print awareness, and word recognition.

Comprehensive Curriculum and Knowledge Areas

Junior Kindergarten offers children the opportunity to have an additional year of preparation, to enhance their academic and social-emotional skills, so that they succeed in kindergarten. With a robust, comprehensive curriculum, students increase their knowledge in these subject areas: 

• Language & Literacy: Naming letters in the alphabet (both upper- and lowercase), placing sounds in the correct order, writing and reading short words, are just a few of the skills developed, alongside other early writing, reading, communication, and vocabulary experiences.
• Math: Children are introduced to math concepts (such as numbers, sorting, ordering, and patterns) that they will gain deeper knowledge of in kindergarten. Math instruction is featured in large and small group settings, while children can work independently at math workstations.
• Nature & Science: This subject features hands-on learning experiences for children to explore, discover, and investigate themes including Animals, Health and Feelings; Weather/Seasons; and Plant Life Cycles.
• Social Studies: This subject includes experiences to learn about you, your family, your neighborhood and community, and the rest of the world. 
• Physical & Developmental Health: Children will learn important lessons in health and nutrition, as they work to develop both fine and gross motor skills, through a thorough exploration of their environment.
• Creative Arts: Children develop self-expression through visual arts, drama, and music and movement.
• Critical Learning Skills: This area is focused on the six Critical Learning Skills needed for ongoing academic (and life) success: self-regulation; following routines; sustaining attention; taking different perspectives; following complex directions; and communicating effectively.