Junior Kindergarten
Meet The Teachers
Robin Ellef
Yasmid Montalvo
Maria Etienne-Modeste
Drea Blenman
Program
Families can choose a half-day or full-day program.
Outdoor playtime occurs twice each day.
A full program of specialist classes is provided including Spanish, Music, Library, and Physical Education. An Art Integrationist meets with teachers regularly to incorporate art into classroom themes.
Morning Drop-Off is from 7:45 - 8:30 a.m.
Afternoon Dismissal is 12:30 or 3:00 p.m
Access to a Beginning School playground, campus pond, and hiking trails provides plentiful outdoor opportunities.
Theme-based curriculum includes Metamorphosis, Hibernation/Migration, Community Workers, and a Pond Study. STEM/project-based designing and making is built into the curriculum.
Healthy snacks are served each morning.
Students strengthen their language and understanding around similarities and differences: eye color, hair color/texture, skin color, and family structure.
Students are greeted by an interactive morning message that often inspires the discussion at the daily Morning Meeting as part of our Responsive Classroom approach.
Benchmarks
Year-end benchmark goals reflect ambitious aspirations for our Junior Kindergarten students. We acknowledge that some students have capabilities to grow well beyond these basic expectations. In keeping with high expectations and differentiation, we can strive to meet the range of all abilities and needs.
A Day in Junior Kindergarten
Free Play
During this time, students engage in activities of their theme-related centers, build with different materials, do puzzles, engage in the science center, and look at books strengthening fine motor skills, letter recognition, vocabulary, and counting with one-to-one correspondence.
Morning Meeting
Students learn to circle up, review the day’s schedule, describe the weather, and discuss their responses to the morning message.
Specials Class
Library, Physical Education, Spanish, or Music
Snack
Students choose from fresh fruit and a nut-free snack. They learn to wait patiently, say please and thank you, and clean up after themselves.
Story
Teachers read to students several times each day. Books are chosen in partnership with our librarian to build students' background knowledge around themes and incorporate “windows” into different experiences and “mirrors” for students to see themselves reflected in the classroom.
Choices
Chosen by teachers, these activities are geared towards helping students identify capital letters, practice their handwriting, build background knowledge, develop number sense, and strengthen their fine motor skills.
Outdoor Play
This is an essential time where students have the opportunity to strengthen their gross motor skills, design and initiate games, and negotiate peer interaction with teacher guidance.
Lunch
Families pack lunch and students eat in the classroom with teachers where they practice good manners. They strengthen fine motor skills opening and closing sustainable containers, and they engage in interactive conversations with their peers.
Rest
Junior Kindergarten students rest from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. While students are not required to sleep quietly, they are expected to rest quietly. Students are allowed to read, draw, and work in their journals.
Theme-Related Activity
How Are We the Same/How are We Different, Life Cycle of the Monarch Butterfly, Hibernation and Migration, Pond Study
Outdoor Play
Each grade also has an outdoor classroom with a mud kitchen and outdoor tools. Here, students use their imaginations to turn natural objects into things like campfires or a meal, or spontaneously use them to count and sort.
Dismissal
Students wait with their teachers outside while caregivers drive through the car loop and teachers place students into their cars. Many children continue their day at After Care.