Junior Preschool Curriculum

ENGLISH - Focus

Reading Readiness

Read-aloud classes; children who enjoy books will want to learn to read
Positive, fun, and playful experiences with books and stories foster a desire to read and encourage your child to keep trying to read.

Phonological Awareness

Being able to hear the smaller sounds in words helps children sound out written words

Building and Expanding Vocabulary

Hearing and understanding many words helps children sound them out when they are learning to read

Printing Awareness

Being familiar with printed language helps children feel comfortable with books and reading

LETTERLAND

The key component of our English program is Letterland.

The Letterland teaching methodology has been the same since its inception 25 years ago; namely, that learning to read and spell is a process that works best when all aspects of a child’s intelligence are involved.

What is Letterland?

“When most people look inside a book, all they see are plain, black letters. That’s because they haven’t been to Letterland and they don’t know that every letter is really one of our Letterland friends. Letterland is the secret place where all the letters live together. The friendly letter people and animals who live there are called the “Letterlanders”. Every Letterlander has a special sound, and they love it when we make their sound just right. Did you know that they have made up a special trick just to help you learn all their letter sounds? They also have all sorts of other tricks to help everyone learn to read and write.”

Letterland teaching addresses each of these key areas, which we will learn:

Verbal/linguistic: developing phonemic awareness, building and expanding vocabulary, storytelling, reading books, sharing little stories, Show and Tell, memorizing games, riddles, and finger plays.
Logical/analytical: letter recognition, reading by analogy, rhyming words, recognizing opposites, and matching games.
Visual/spatial: systematic work with high-frequency sight words, name printing, printing words, and picture-coding letters.
Bodily/kinesthetic: acting out stories, creative movement, playing games.
Musical/rhythmical: singing Alphabet songs from the Letterland soundtrack.
Interpersonal/intrapersonal: developing student-student and student-teacher relationships, setting up the classroom environment, and developing a sense of self-evaluation by providing assessments.

MATHEMATICS - Outline

TERM 1: SEPTEMBER – DECEMBER

Number Sense and Numeration

Rote counting to 20
Number recognition 0 to 10
Writing numerals 0-10
Basic Addition Facts
Classification into sets
Identifying simple patterns
Reproducing simple patterns
Comparing two familiar objects
Using grids, such as a calendar or bingo
Recognition of regular 2D shapes
Drawing 2D shapes
Sorting shapes according to attributes (colour, size)

TERM2: JANUARY-JUNE
Number Sense and Numeration

Rote counting 0-30
Number recognition 0-30 (and beyond)
Writing numerals 11-20
Classifying numbers into sets (more/fewer/same)
Basic Addition and Subtraction Facts
Spatial relations
Recognition of regular 3D shapes
Introduction to measurement terms
Introductions to non-standard and standard measuring devices
Sequencing of events
Reading the clock

NATURE

TERM 1 SEPTEMBER – DECEMBER

Seasons
Living and nonliving things
Fruits and vegetables
Farm animals, wild animals, and their habitats
Birds and insects
Professions

TERM 2 JANUARY – JUNE

Huan
Fishes
Flowers
Home and its parts
Dishes, clothes, shoes
How to behave on the street, in school, and at home

During the morning breaks, we also conduct (in playful format):

Logopedic exercises
Finger exercises
Learning simple poetry
Song singing
Riddles
Reading stories and fairy tales
Introducing the paintings of the Russian masers

MUSIC

The essence of musical education for preschoolers is to guide the child in comprehending music; to show them how to interact with music, thereby preparing them for future musical activities. Our lessons will enhance the hearing and sense of rhythm development, and the child’s ability to intone properly. We will also work on developing children’s creativity and their sense of play. During our Music classes, the students will be introduced to the basics of musical literacy.

During our lessons, we combine different strategies to help children develop their creativity
Our program includes an introduction to the masterpieces of great Russian and foreign classical composers – Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Prokofiev, Beethoven, Mozart, Gaiden, Bach, etc.
Singing:
Songs from favourite cartoons
Songs about friendship
Songs related to important calendar dates
Musical Literacy:
Symphonic orchestra
Instruments used in the orchestra
Opera, Symphony, Suita, Ballet

ART

Students will learn the following in each category:

Materials and Methods

How to use art materials and equipment in a safe and appropriate manner
To increase fine manual motor skills through the use of materials and equipment
To create two and three-dimensional artworks exploring a variety of media, techniques, and processes

Color

To recognize “cold” and “warm” colors
How to mix primary colors to make a secondary color
To paint a simplified color wheel using the above

Content

To communicate about visual elements in works of art
To describe general subjects and categories such as landscape, still life, and portrait
To add personal touches to artwork

Art History

To recognize that the visual arts have a history
To be exposed to some particular artists

PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND DANCE

Dance class is held one class per week

During dancing class we learn basic dancing skills, some elements from gymnastics for developing flexibility, strength, and agility with different kinds of apparatus such as ribbon, ball, hoop etc. We put all the elements into a short routine with music, to develop the ability to remember all the moves with music and feel the general rhythm of the dance routine.

Sport (Gym) is held one hour per week

In Sports class, students perform a variety of warm-up exercises (stretching, balancing, skipping)
Demonstrate the ability to move and stop safely and in control, with an awareness of people and equipment around them;
Perform a variety of locomotor movements, travelling in different directions and using different body parts (e.g., jump over lines; walk carefully backward along a line, while looking over their shoulder; move forward with different body parts touching the ground; move arms in different ways while walking, or skipping; take giant steps while moving sideways etc.)
Playing different kinds of games for developing agility, speed, attentivity, and reaction (“cops and robbers”. “tag line game”, “freeze tag game”, “octopus game” etc.)
Students will learn basic movements with a ball and a soccer ball, demonstrating an understanding of the components of the game and their role in this game. (Walk towards a target, then dodge it without the ball and with a soccer ball; Run towards a target, then dodge the target; Obstacles will be set around the gym, avoid others and the obstacles; students will learn how to bounce and catch the ball (small tennis ball and soccer rubber ball); throw and catch the ball; juggle with 2 or 1 hand with juggling ball).

Established 2003 (BSID # 668410)