Junior Kindergarten Program

Where Young 5-Year-Olds Achieve Success

Junior Kindergarten offers your child the opportunity to discover what kindergarten is really like. While achieving critical skills for elementary school, they get accustomed to the structure and format of a kindergarten school day. With award-winning and nationally recognized early childhood programs and curricula, reading, writing, and math lessons are at a kindergarten level.

This program for young 5-year-olds and older 4-year-olds helps them focus on:

Following multi-step instructions
Finding multiple ways to solve problems
Organizing work
Controlling impulses and sustaining attention

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Junior Kindergarten Classroom

Classroom

The Junior Kindergarten classroom resembles a kindergarten classroom environment and features six centers for focused skill development.

Junior Kindergarten Classroom

Dramatic Play Center

Children use dramatic and pretend play as they try on different costumes and roles, and use social-emotional skills to make sense of the world.

Junior Kindergarten Classroom

Block Center

Children learn how things work and fit together, by using different materials to construct their own creations.

Junior Kindergarten Classroom

Fine Arts Center

Children get to explore their creative side, while developing problem-solving and self-expression skills, through different art techniques and color concepts.

Junior Kindergarten Classroom

Science & Math Center

Children use their investigative skills to experiment with different science and math concepts. This exploration helps develop critical-thinking skills.

Junior Kindergarten Classroom

Writing & Language Center

Letter and word recognition and formation, using sounds to segment words, and putting sounds together to make words are all ways that children work to develop effective written communication abilities.

Junior Kindergarten Classroom

Library Center

Surrounded by books, children develop key literacy skills such as story reasoning, print awareness, and word recognition in this center.

Curriculum and Developmental Benchmarks

In Junior Kindergarten, children prepare for school with kindergarten-level learning experiences in science, social studies, the arts, literacy and math. Award-winning, nationally recognized, research-based curricula is offered:

Literacy by Design^™: Balancing experiences for the whole class and small groups, as well as independent learning activities, this curriculum creates a strong connection between reading and writing. The tools are provided to encourage and inspire students with the art of active literacy, while meeting all appropriate state standards.

My Math: This program uses research-based strategies and engages children through a focus on real-world applications, to challenge and inspire children toward confidence in their own mathematical skills. Children develop conceptual understanding, procedural skill, and fluency, enabling them to steadily grow their math confidence.

Handwriting Without Tears^®: By learning to properly form letters, handwriting becomes a simple, automatic skill for students. This unique program was designed by occupational therapists and has been shown to produce improvements in letter size, spacing, and overall legibility for students.

In this classroom, children work to develop kindergarten-level skills, without the expectation of mastery. Their progress is tracked across five developmental scales:

Language & Literacy

The ability to name letters in the alphabet, upper- and lowercase, the ability to assemble sounds in order to read and write short words, the ability to engage in early reading, writing, vocabulary, and communication.

Sample Activity: Paper Bag Skit!

Desired Outcome: Listening and Responding to Stories: Retells a story from beginning, to middle, to end, without assistance.

Sample Activity

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Math

The ability to understand numbers, patterns, sorting and ordering, and geometry, as well as the ability to use numbers to add, subtract, measure, and graph.