Kindergarten

CSF kindergarten teacher and children
Full-day kindergarten is designed to give a child a stronger start in school and in life – by providing three, four, and five-year-old students with an engaging inquiry and play based learning program during the regular school day.Children are involved in a variety of learning opportunities to help them investigate, problem solve and collaborate, under the guidance of an educator team that includes a teacher and an educational assistant for classes of a certain number of hours.

The focus will be on literacy and numeracy.  The teaching will not be delivered in a traditional lecture style but rather through play or inquiry-based learning.  The focus on the program will be readiness for grade 1. We will follow the world-renowned Reggio-Emilia philosophy.  It is important to view Pre-K-JK-SK as a three-year program for readiness for Grade One.

While the focus will be on numeracy and literacy, it will be done through using the following four frameworks:

  • Thinking about belonging and contributing;
  • Thinking about self-regulation and well-being;
  • Thinking about literacy and mathematics behaviours;
  • Thinking about problem solving and innovating.

We will use the world-famous Jolly Phonics approach to teaching literacy through synthetic phonics.

We know that through play-based learning and a culture of inquiry, children develop a strong foundation for learning in all areas. This includes:

  • Problem solving and creative thinking
  • Thinking critically about ideas and information in literacy and math
  • Learning to think for themselves, understanding their feelings and those around them, recognizing and respecting differences in others, and assessing the consequences of their actions
  • Understanding their connections, contributions and relationships with others as part of a group, a community, and the natural world.
  • Developing socially and emotionally through their relationships with other children and the educators who guide them.
  • Developing as a citizen, through a sense of personal connectedness to various communities, like their class, their grade and their school.