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The KIDS program is an incredible, unique opportunity in which kindergarten students begin exposure to SPANISH, MUSIC, ART, PAThS (our social-emotional curriculum, and TECHNOLOGY with one teacher. Students spend 45-60 minutes each day in the KIDS classroom where the various disciplines are inter-woven with literature to form a meaningful curriculum.  Mrs. Susie Walsh is our Kindergarten Interdisciplinary Studies Teacher.  If you would like to contact her, please email her at: walshs@avoca.37.org.  Please feel free to visit her BLOG at http://avoca37.org/walshs/ to keep up to date on the happenings in the KIDS room.  She posts weekly curriculum updates, classroom information, weekly photos, and student videos.

SPANISH

Kindergartners begin their first year of the foreign language program with an introduction to Spanish. Students are exposed to the Spanish language while participating in a variety of activities, which are often games-based and/or incorporate music, movement, and literature. The initial focus is on using strategies to learn Spanish, such as listening and watching for visual cues. Once students build their comprehension skills, vocabulary will develop. Eventually simple conversational skills will grow, such as answering questions about oneself with one or two words. Some topics of focus include colors, counting to 30, shapes, animals, and describing oneself.

MUSIC

Students participate in music through a variety of experiences that give them opportunities to listen to music, move to music, play percussion instruments, and sing. These goals are achieved through the playful study of classical and folk song literature. As many times as possible, concepts are presented as visual, oral, and kinetic experiences to address different learning styles. Creative movement and dance involve conscious awareness that stimulates the mind and facilitates learning while increasing self-awareness and self-confidence. Therefore, movement and dance are primary activities in the music classroom.

ART

Within each level of the program, students are encouraged to develop their own ideas for artwork, to refine them, and to use media expressively. Art activities are appropriate to students’ level of development. At every level, students explore a variety of media. The sequence of lessons has been carefully planned to accommodate the interests, skills and abilities of each student. They are varied to sustain curiosity, yet organized in units so that concepts and skills introduced in one lesson can be reinforced and expanded upon in other lessons. Major topics introduced in early grades are reinforced in later grades, but the topics are studied in greater depth or in new contexts and relationships.

TECH

The ITC is comprised of the computer lab and the school library.  In the computer lab, students work with a full range of curricular related software applications that provide enrichment in math, language arts, science, and social studies. Kindergarten computer lab activities also enable students to develop beginning keyboarding and computer graphic skills. In addition to the computer lab, the KIDS classroom is equipped with 8 computers.  All computers throughout the building are networked providing students and teachers with access to their saved documents, software applications, and the Internet, from any computer in the building.  To visit websites which Mrs. Walsh recommends, please click here.  Beginning in the 2009-2010 school year, students will be creating their own blogs.  Students will be publishing their own work to their blogs, as often as possible.  Please click here to visit the Kindergartners Blogs.

In addition to the KIDS program, students also visit Mrs. Geidner in the library each week.   On the library side, they engage in weekly, curricular related, early literacy activities including storytimes with fiction and nonfiction books, puppet shows, petry, oral storytelling, creative dramatics, crafts, and games. They are introduced to award winning books and vote for their choice for the Monarch Award, the state of Illinois book award for children K-3. They learn to select books, which they borrow from the library for a one week.

PAThS

PAThs is our Social-Emotional Curriculum.  PAThS represents Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies.  Mrs. Walsh visits all four classrooms for 30 minutes each week to discuss ways to deal with comfortable and uncomfortable feelings, strategies for calming down, ways to promote positive friendships, and many other social-emotional concepts that affect our Kindergartners on a daily basis.