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Developing social skills is an integral part of the kindergarten curriculum and the school strives to find an appropriate balance between academic and social time. Children are encouraged to develop their ability to make appropriate choices as they continue on their way to becoming responsible and independent learners. Throughout the year, children focus on such skills as engaging with a group of children in play in appropriate ways, being a good friend, and conflict resolution skills such as mediating, negotiating and compromising. At the end of the year each gan class collectively writes (by dictation) and illustrates a book telling the incoming gansters what life will be like in the gan. To see one such book authored by the gan click here.
 Language Arts
In language arts, key elements of the kindergarten literacy program are developing phonemic awareness (the understanding that words are made up of sounds) and phonetic awareness (associating letters and sounds). The children recognize upper case and lower case letters and associate them with their sounds, recognize rhyming words, clap out syllables, begin developing a sight word vocabulary, develop skills for decoding words, learn strategies to comprehend a text -- such as using picture and contextual cues -- and discuss basic punctuation. Throughout the day, the children participate in shared, guided and independent reading experiences and also listen to a variety of quality literature read aloud to them.
Children in the Gan view themselves as authors and understand that writing is a way of expressing themselves. Children use a combination of invented and conventional spelling. As their confidence and skills increase, their writing becomes more and more independent and their attention to conventions begins to unfold. The children also build on composition skills by dictating stories to an adult that are "published" and added to our class library. To see a Gan composition (by dictation), click here. When composing stories, children are encouraged to consider such elements as setting, character, plot, and dialogue.
Mathematics
In mathematics, the class goal is for the children to have an intuitive understanding of concepts, not just the ability to perform tasks. Encouraging the children to verbally express their mathematical thinking and strategies for solving problems helps develop this intuitive understanding. Children learn to understand and compare the value of numbers, sort and classify objects, create patterns, skip count by 5's and 10's to 110, skip count by 2's to 20, use manipulatives to perform addition and subtraction problems and write these with a number sentence, and create and interpret a bar graph. The children are also introduced to coins and their value, place value, measuring in inches, estimation, basic geometry, and odd and even numbers.
Social Studies
Kindergartners are entering into a classroom community and learn about their roles and responsibilities as members of a community. Kindergarteners discuss geographical features. They learn basic map skills and how to identify the United States and Michigan on a map. The children also learn about climates and geography as the class mascot Karli the penguin travels the globe, sending back frequent updates on her location. Kindergartners spend time studying geographical features on the map of Israel. History is addressed in the context of secular and Jewish holiday celebrations and through personal timelines.
 Science
Kindergartners have the opportunity to become scientists and engage in numerous experiments. Within the class themes, teachers cover topics in the areas of life, physical and biological sciences. The class focuses on the skills of asking questions, predicting, observing, designing experiments to answer specific questions, and documenting results. The major science themes are: bees, frogs, penguins, color, and human body. To see a Gan project on color (a chromatography experiment) click here. To see the Gan Teacher’s explanation to parents of the chromatography experiment, contained in a weekly newsletter sent home, click here.
See gan curriculum map.
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