Discovery School
Creating a World of Discovery
Programs
Transitional Kindergarten
Our Transitional Kindergarten program is designed for children who turn 5 years old by December 31st. These children typically miss the cutoff date for Kindergarten or could simply benefit from the gift of time in regards to social maturation and skill development.
Academic Overview
The goal of the TK academic program is to ensure that our children are more than prepared for Kindergarten. The core curriculum consists of language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, art and Spanish. We spend a great deal of time learning through a combination of methods, like songs, poems and performances, and some more traditional methods like workbooks, book reports and sight words. We strive to make learning fun by following the interests of the class. For instance, if our children are engrossed by stories, we work on creating elaborate books as a class and delve deeper into the components of storytelling. Other years, the children have wanted to extend their math skills to quite advanced levels, so we worked on triple digit addition. We know that when we tap into the interests of our students, they approach learning with an enthusiastic attitude and retain information more readily.
Language Arts
Children in TK spend a great deal of time honing their reading and writing skills. Reading together and working on reading independently are large components of the program. Children work on these skills through our phonics lessons, memorizing sight words, songs, and other hands-on activities. Children work on journaling each week, and by the end of the year, our students are writing simple sentences. Our weekly language arts homework - Book It! - combines reading, writing and presentation skills, as children are tasked with simple book reports that they are so proud to share with the class each week.
Mathematics
We combine mathematics into all areas of our curriculum - subtracting and adding objects, comparing weights and measurements, working with various shapes, etc. Students also have formal math workbooks that they work on each week during class time. By the end of the year, TK children will be counting by 2's, 5's and 10's, understanding number value, recognizing larger numbers, beginning simple addition and subtraction and beginning to learn concepts of time and money.
Social & Emotional Learning
The core goal of our TK program is to foster a sense of confidence and self-worth in our students. We want to send them off to Kindergarten feeling empowered and proud of their skills! We foster this growth in our students through a variety of methods including social studies discussions, leadership opportunities throughout the school, individualized attention, and class discussions regarding key values and problem solving skills.
