Kinder Kids International Preschool CANADA

Our Numeracy Curriculum uses a lot of concepts and teaching techniques from Singapore Math.

We teach content including numbers, calculations, measurement (including reading the time and calendars), patterns, sorting, chance and data, and spatial sense.

We have a structured Numeracy curriculum, but we also understand that learning arises constantly from events and happenings, play and routines that occur naturally within the early childhood learning environment.

We encourage teachers to take their lead from the children and their interests and to use the opportunities that arise in the context of their play to strengthen children's mathematical understandings.

We also recognize the importance of following up on children's responses to provoke mathematical thinking. For example asking children to describe and explain their thinking helps them to clarify their own ideas and gives us insight into their current understandings.

Numeracy work is always supplemented by visual aids, and by using concrete materials.We understand the importance of giving children a solid foundation in math, so we make sure each concept is clear and enjoyable by including a lot of games and activities to aid in the learning process.

Providing a literacy rich environment for children in their early years will create the foundation for the children's future reading and writing ability.

We take care to stock our schools with high quality picture books-both fiction and non-fiction. We provide a lending library of level readers for our older classes, and make sure that story time is part of our daily routine.

Our Literacy program has been developed by Kinder Kids professional teaching staff.
We believe that by introducing components of reading and writing through games and songs, that children can develop skills and confidence at an early age.

Our program is based on two key components, synthetic phonics and sight words.

We have an original phonics system, with cute, easy-to-remember characters for each phonetic sound making it easier for children to remember the sounds. This means that even very young children can learn the building blocks of phonics. From our Junior Kinder year, children begin reading level readers and find instant success due to their strong phonics base. This builds confidence and ensures enjoyment in the reading process.

Children also experience early success in spelling, with our structured introduction to sounds and words. This helps when they come to produce their own pieces of writing, as they are soon able to write easily decodable spellings and communicate through their writing.

• Busy Bee
• Juggling Jellyfish
• Laughing Leopard
• Dancing Dinosaur
• Mighty Moose

A sight word is a word that frequently occurs in literature and cannot necessarily be decoded using phonics skills alone. At Kinder Kids, we choose to teach children a set of words to read from memory. This increases their reading efficiency, and therefore their confidence.

Our Kinder Kids Sight Words list was compiled after a careful study of two existing lists: The Dolch List (which catalogues the most commonly occurring words in children's literature) and the Fry List (which referenced all branches of English literature). This research was then combined with our years of teaching experience to assemble the Kinder List. In our list, certain words have been coupled together, e.g. 'these' and 'those', 'when' and 'if' to help children to compare and contrast the spelling and meaning of these words.

In addition to the phonics and sight words elements, we also have a Handwriting program for practicing letter formation, which begins as early as Toddler, with manipulation of play dough, followed by tracing of lines and shapes, and continued through the older grades with focused writing practice.

Children learn to apply these phonics, sight word, handwriting and sentence building skills by writing sentences in their journals. We are very proud of the level that the children can achieve, and of their enjoyment of the writing process.

Social Skills are any skills that facilitate interaction and communication with others.

Life skills relate to those skills that are necessary for a child to be able to deal with the challenges in everyday life.

In the teaching of both sets of skills we use encouragement and positive reinforcement to help guide the children. Both social skills and life skills are an integral part of the educational experience.

Therefore, we take opportunities to refine these skills in real situations as they occur.

We also provide the children with a range of opportunities to apply their skills, including free play time, drama, role play, and team based games and activities.

Fine Motor Skills are the skills required to provide strength and control for the muscles in our hands.

We provide a wide range of fun activities to help children to further refine these skills.
As they practice Fine Motor Skills, children are learning to squeeze, rip, pinch, and manipulate various materials. Eventually, they will use these skills to become more adept at life skills such as dressing, undressing, eating with utensils, and using tools such as crayons, paintbrushes, scissors, and pencils.

At times, Fine Motor Skills activities will naturally tie in to our Numeracy curriculum to provoke and develop mathematical thinking. Manipulating materials such as play dough, buttons, and snaps help develop muscles in the children's hands and also build on their spatial sense.

During Fine Motor Skills we encourage teachers to take their lead from the children's interests and use the opportunities that arise in the context of play to strengthen children's mathematical understandings.

Gross Motor Skills are the skills required to move the large muscles of our bodies. This is the first step in muscle development and coordination for young children.

As they practice Gross Motor Skills through a variety of activities, they are gaining skills such as balance, spatial awareness, laterality (the difference between left and right), and awareness of their body's position and its movement capabilities.