The students explore a variety of two and three-dimensional media. In drawing and painting, the focus is on composing imagery using lines and shapes. In printmaking and ceramics, the student investigates how texture is created. In sculpture and collage, they learn paper folding and cutting techniques. The students are encouraged to take risks and make new discoveries. 

Our library program instills a love of reading, to inspire critical thinking, and to help the students become effective users of ideas and information. Students have one library class per week where stories are read aloud, books are selected, and research skills are taught in conjunction with the classroom curriculum. 

Our literacy curriculum is scaffolded carefully with appropriate skills for each learner and is infused with wonderful literature and purposeful activities. The boys prepare for reading and writing readiness in a variety of ways. Our phonics program begins with Phonemic awareness (the ability to play with and manipulate sounds in words) and then moves into phonics, which involves matching sounds with letters and creating word families. The Sounds in Motion program supports skill acquisition. Reading workshop is a time for the boys to choose books, practice their skills, and to confer with teachers. Small language arts groups meet regularly so the boys can receive targeted instruction in word work, fluency, and comprehension. The boys learn to communicate through writing by following the writing workshop process. Our genre studies include an all about me piece, family writing projects, three little pigs storytelling, and Donald Crews inspired books.

Students engage in mathematical thinking through experimentation, investigation, questioning, and problem solving. Math manipulatives provide concrete and visual reinforcement of math concepts. The students become active problem solvers and use multiple strategies to arrive at solutions. The math activities foster increasing competence in one-to-one correspondence, counting, number sense, simple computation, patterns, measurement, graphs, and geometry. 

The boys develop a foundation for music making and appreciation. Through the use of Kodaly, Orff, and Dalcroze pedagogies, the boys engage in a variety of games, activities, and songs that are experiential in nature. They also learn basic xylophone and percussion techniques. The boys become familiar with solfège hand signs, major and minor tonalities, and the instruments of the orchestra. Music from around the world is introduced through sound-stories.

The physical education program provides students with activities that are challenging, imaginative, and age-appropriate. Tapping into the boys’ high energy level, the students are introduced to basic movement patterns. They learn about the relationship among body movement activities, body parts, and the manipulation of objects. Much of the class structure is characterized by problem solving techniques, exploration, choice, and creativity.  

Our respect and responsibility program guides our boys with activities and discussions that help them to develop emotionally and socially and become positive members of a group. 

Students also participate in diversity, equity, and belonging education through which they explore their own identities, and learn to appreciate and value diversity.  Related to this work is a gender and sexuality curriculum. Topics explored in the kindergarten classrooms include: human beings have many different qualities, there is no right or wrong way to be a boy or a girl, each family is unique and there are many different family structures.

The boys engage in hands-on, inquiry based science activities which encourage them to view the world scientifically as they make observations, pose questions, collect data, form conclusions, and communicate their findings. The topics investigated include the human body, design and construction, plants, the chicken hatching project, and transportation.

Cultural essentials form the backbone of the kindergarten thematic social studies curriculum. The boys investigate the importance of family, shelter, clothing, and transportation to all people. Field trips, guest speakers, neighborhood walks, nonfiction books, literature, primary sources, technology, technology, and weekly classroom projects are among the many resources we use to teach the boys about their world and themselves.

Technology in kindergarten is used thoughtfully and purposefully. The students experience a selection of iPad apps that support and reinforce the classroom curriculum. During the second half of the year, the students are introduced to coding in a technology class. They program robots to navigate mazes and maps while learning foundational coding language.