Musical Arts Schoolhouse Academics for Preschool & Kindergarten in Frisco, Texas

Musical Arts Schoolhouse Academics are at the core of all classes. But each day, each student will go through Academic specific lessons as outline below in both our preschool and kindergarten programs. The best was to experience the Academics at the Musical Arts Schoolhouse is to schedule a Discovery Day at the school where your child can immerse themselves first hand in our academic programs for free for the day. Signup and schedule online here: https://musicalartsschoolhouse.com/discovery-day/

Academics in our Preschool & Pre-Kindergarten Program

Each day, each class period begins with circle time to increase child attention span. We take this time to take role, greet one another and begin with positive engagement.

Daily calendar time to reinforce math skills:

• Days of the week,
• Months of the year and
• What is happening in our classroom that day.

In the preschool curriculum, we use an ABC rotation schedule. Here is a breakdown of what each day might look like.

Language Arts/Literacy:

Listening Skills: Literacy story that goes along with the weekly theme. Things we are looking for in the group activity….

1. Show interest and enjoyment during listening activities by responding with appropriate body language, eye contact, and facial expressions.
2. Listen to and respond to a question, repeat part of the story, participate in conversation about what happened in the story (characters, setting, conflict, resolution, beginning, middle, end).

Speaking Skills: Sharing time is a huge part of the curriculum. We give students a chance to retell the story or participate in an activity they can share with their peers. One of our weekly activities is Journaling.

Journaling encourages your child to grow while discovering open-ended conversations. Not only can it be enjoyable, but is has multiple benefits related to literacy and social growth.

Sometimes children find it easier to express themselves through drawing/writing versus oral communication. Developing written communication skills will be an asset as your child moves forward.

We get the opportunity to do many group activities that engage children in singing, chanting, rhyming, retelling and inventing stories.

Pre-Reading skills: This is the ability to understand spoken language and speak clearly to communicate with others. All students will learn letter knowledge, phonological and print awareness.

Emergent Reading Skills: Early emergent readers are beginning to learn sound/symbol relationships, starting with consonants and short vowels, and are able to read CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, as well as a number of high-frequency words.

Writing Skills: Preschoolers develop writings skill each day through many subjects and activities.
Students learn to develop……

• *** How to hold a pencil correctly
• Form capitals, lowercase letters and numbers
• Write simple words and sentence
• Develop top-to-bottom, left-to-right orientation for reading/writing

For handwriting we use 2 books and many hands-on materials from the curriculum called: Handwriting without Tears

Materials that come with this curriculum: Readiness Materials:

1. Get Set for School Sing Along CD
2. Rock, Rap, Tap and Learn CD
3. Wood Pieces Set
4. Match, Stamp and See Screen.
5. Writing Materials: Get Set For School (pre-school)
6. Letters and Numbers for Me workbook (pre-kindergarten)

Mathematics

In preschool, math is an everyday experience for children. Preschool math helps them make sense of the world around them and teaches how to reason and problem-solve. The concepts that we focus on are….

• Recognition and recite numbers 0-20
• Recognition of colors and shapes
• Understanding of matching, sorting, and classifying
• Understanding of mathematics vocabulary: heavy, light, big, small in addition to positioning words (up, down, below, under…..).
• Explore measuring

Materials we use in pre-school math is….

1. Number, shape, color flashcards
2. CD: Finger plays and Fun
3. CD: Music and Movement Songs with Jack Hartman, and many, many more!!
4. Spectrum Numbers and Counting Pre-K (carsondellosa.com/spectrum). This workbook focuses on…
5. Writing numbers 0-20
6. Comparing numbers of objects
7. Counting to 100 and much more.

Journals and Character Behavior Concept

Each week we have a social awareness concept that we study. For example: Sharing. We read a literacy story that helps students understand the concept. We discuss in detail how we can share, and what are good sharing behaviors.

Then each student draws in their journals of what they learned. As the year progresses we begin to write simple sentences to go along with our drawing.

Science and Technology

Creating amazing science experiences in early childhood education will inspire children to want to learn more and explore on their own. Science helps children develop vital life-skills such as problem solving, communication and research. Students observe, classify, communicate, measure, predict and infer before, during and after a science experiment.

Materials and websites used for science is:

1. The Mailbox Seasonal Science (www.themailbox.com)
2. Super Science Experiments (www.mileskelly.net or www.factsforprojects.com)
3. 365 science activities Usborne Activities (www.edcpub.com or www.usbornebooksandmore.com)

Individual Learning Huddle with Teacher 1-on-1 & Learning stations

Individual Learning Huddle is one-on-one time with the teacher to assess each students’ academic level and to focus on giving additional activities to challenge each students to their full potential. This is individual time with the teacher, with direct assistance face-to-face, to help each student with specifics on their current daily assignments (other schools do not have the opportunity to follow through with this due to class size and daily schedules).

Our classroom area is set up in learning stations, each containing a collection of activities or materials designed to teach, reinforce, or extend a particular skill or concept.

Kindergarten Musical Arts Schoolhouse Academics

It is important to establish a daily routine in Kindergarten. Each Day begins with arrival, put away take-home folder, and setting lunches in designated area.

Students get started right away with their daily See-and-Do and Journal activity. See-and-Do is a simple morning activity that changes each day, and students know they look to see what their assignment is each morning at arrival. Example:

Journal: In the beginning of the school year children read and copy a simple word, but as the students develop reading and writing skills they will begin to develop their own sentences using adjective, nouns and pronouns.

Language Arts/Reading

We follow the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Journeys Kindergarten Curriculum.

Journeys is a fabulous curriculum that helps build confidence, gives flexibility and individualized study.

Journeys features complex anchor texts that challenge students, smart lesson plans that let teachers target the needs of all students, and assessments and digital tools that help track classroom progress. After each unit is taught and reviewed the student is given a unit test to track their progress. This gives us the opportunity to see who has grasped the concept and who needs additional help. We have 4 unit tests.

Journeys Curriculum comes with:

1. Volume 1 and 2 workbooks for students
2. Take – Home Decodable Readers
3. Teacher Tools: Interactive Instructional Flip Chart t, Literacy Stories to go along with each lesson.
4. Sight words, and Grab and Go Resources for each lesson.

Each lesson has a Focus Wall….

This includes: (Examples are in Italic)

• Literacy Story: The Best of Friend
• Poems: About Friends
• Big Idea: Change is all around us
• Essential Question: How do Character change in a story?
• Comprehension:
• Target Skill: Understanding Characters
• Target Strategy: Infer/Predict
• Phonics: Letter Sounds: Oo Ozzie Octopus Blending words
• Vocabulary Strategies: Multiple – Meaning Words
• Fluency: Read with Expression
• Words to Know: make, play
• Phonemic Awareness: Blend and Segment Phonemes
• Grammar : Pronouns: he, she, we

In addition to the Journeys curriculum we use:

1. Spectrum Dolch Sight word activities
2. A to Z reading

Kindergarten Math Workbooks: Spectrum Math and Spectrum Critical Thinking for Math
with concepts taught that include:

• Counting and writing numbers up to 100
• Adding and Subtracting through 10
• Place value foundations
• 2-D and 3-D shapes
• Coins – penny, nickel, dime, quarter
• Telling time
• Measurement and data
• Comparing numbers (greater than. less than. equal too)

Kindergarten Science Program

Just like the preschool science curriculum but we do go into a little more detail and focus on these skills:

1. Scientific method:
2. Uses senses to gather scientific data
3. Records scientific data using graphs
4. Charts and tables
5. Demonstrates use of age appropriate laboratory instruments
6. Applies safety practices when using science equipment
7. Life Science:
8. Distinguishes between living and non-living thing
9. Recognizes the difference between plants and animal
10. Indicates the needs of living things
11. Illustrates the requirements for the growth of green plants
12. Illustrates the main parts of a plant
13. Measures. Compares and records plant growth from seeds or bulbs
14. Explains how seeds travel
15. Compares animals born alive to those that are hatched
16. Compares and contrasts adult animals and their young
17. Identifies ways animals protect themselves
18. Human Body:
19. Identifies and lists the functions of the five senses
20. Identifies sounds and discriminates loud from soft sounds
21. Summarizes safety rules for sound
22. Identifies the major parts of the body
23. Recognizes major organs of the body
24. Measures patterns of growth in humans
25. Weather:
26. Describes various weather conditions
27. Matches activities and clothing to the four seasons
28. Identifies ways that weather affects people
29. Charts and records weather conditions
30. Relates safety rules to be observed during tornadoes, hurricanes and thunderstorms
31. Space
32. Compares the sun, moon and the earth by sizes and properties
33. Recognizes and measures shadows produced by the sun

Social Studies in Kindergarten Program

Study of:

• People
• Community Helpers
• Presidents
• Maps
• City
• Town
• Holidays and much more.

Seasonal learning at age-appropriate levels with individual and group activities related to each topic.

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