Curriculum

Embry Hills UMC Kindergarten
Objectives Curriculum Calendar Contact Us

Curriculum
The primary purpose of our school is to provide a rich environment geared to the young child’s rhythm of development and designed to nourish his spiritual, intellectual, emotional, social and physical growth. We, therefore, incorporate into our program:

CURRICULUM: Our curriculum, “THE TOTAL PROGRAM FOR THE TOTAL CHILD,” is designed to give the child a variety of experiences in science, social studies, music, art, religion, health, safety, and physical education, as well as begin development on the basic skills in language arts and math concepts.

THE UNIT METHOD OF STUDY: All age groups – 2½ year through Kindergarten – utilize a unit method of study. This involves a study of various subjects from nursery rhymes to space. Books, finger plays, music and art activities are correlated with the subject.

FREE CHOICE TIME: Where the child moves freely from one interest center to another, exploring, experimenting, testing, asking questions, sharing information.

ART: Offers creative expression through finger-painting, easel painting, clay, pasting, and other media.

BLOCK CONSTRUCTION: Encourages creative problem-solving activities; helps the child achieve understanding of sizes, shapes, and numbers, balance precision, form; encourages language development as he works, shares, and talks with others.

FAMILY LIVING CENTER: Stimulates self-expressive activities, dramatic play, and thus a better understanding of who he is and what he can do.

MANIPULATIVE DEVICES: Includes puzzles, beads to string, devices designed to help build eye-hand coordination, number concepts, concepts of shapes and sizes. Wooden alphabets, lotto, group games, all aid in academic awareness.

LANGUAGE ARTS: Provides rich experiences in children’s literature, conversation, story telling, puppets, dramatization – all laying a good foundation for reading. The goals are to help develop listening abilities, enlarge vocabulary, and to grow in ability to use language for expressing ideas, thinking through problems and to be better able to communicate with others.

SOCIAL SCIENCE: The child is given the opportunity to explore the history, traditions and customs associated with special days and celebrations. We also spend time comparing and contrasting our families, our relationships and responsibilities with friends and families.

SPANISH: Our goal is to introduce children to the sounds of a second language through short lessons that will include songs, short stories, play and a lot of fun.

MUSIC/MOVEMENT: The Music/Movement Education Program will enrich and support the current curriculum. Your child will be given the opportunity to sing, dance, work with musical instruments and respond rhythmically the music. We want to encourage your child to love and understand one of God's greatest gifts... music!

OUTDOOR ACTIVITY: Geared to large muscle development and learning skills of balance and coordination. This gives the child the opportunity to exercise in fresh air, provides another area of development and social growth, and develops self-discipline for free movement in a group.

RELIGION: “Teach a child to choose the right path, and when he is older he will remain upon it.” (Proverbs 22:6) We provide a Christian atmosphere and Christian guidance for the transition of a child from home to school. The loving relationship we have for the child cannot be stressed enough. Once a week, we have a short children’s service in our sanctuary. The children look forward to this time and learn about God and his love. Through this teaching we hope to help children develop a habit of being thankful for things enjoyed in life, increase the child’s ability to make choices between right and wrong, and help children recognize behavior patterns desirable for all children.

READING READINESS (4 Year Program): Alpha Time is a comprehensive, multi-sensory pre-reading program designed to delight and instruct, providing a solid groundwork in the printed alphabet and letter sounds by using the child’s world of imagination, fun and fantasy. Children meet the LETTER PEOPLE in the form of inflatable HUGGABLES… make believe friends who form a mini-society with no social, ethnic, nor economic barriers to inhibit their free acceptance and who are the leading characters and the focus of most activities. The emphasis is on active participation in creating, discovering, exploring, and dramatizing in a child-centered environment.

No entry skills are presumed by Alpha Time. Basic language art skills are developed by listening and doing. Children learn to verbalize their ideas and feelings, an important prerequisite in learning to read. The program establishes specific behavioral objectives and directs the teachers’ efforts toward these goals. As they gain insights into their own feelings and learn to relate to their classmates, the children develop a positive self-image.

This innovative program is a happy combination of cognitive and affective learning presented through stories, pictures, games, songs and best of all, fun and laughter.

READING, MATHEMATICS, AND WRITING READINESS (4 Year Program): Children will develop fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, and problem-solving skills through the use of developmentally appropriate manipulatives that are colorful and interesting. They will learn to listen and follow directions as they develop skills and learn concepts necessary for the later success in reading, writing, and mathematics. This activity-oriented program is designed to ensure the individual success of pre-kindergarten children.

LITERATURE/PHONICS (5 Year Program): The Wright Group provides an overall literacy program which includes sequential phonics activities that help develop phonological and phonemic awareness, letter recognition and writing. The literature experience includes Shared Reading, Guided Reading, Decodable Readers, Read Aloud Books, Wordless or Read Alone Books, Journals, Read Along Story Tapes, Song Tapes, Games, Rhyming and Poetry.

MATHEMATICS (5 Year Program): As caring teachers begin to help young children develop a friendliness and proficiency with numbers, geometry, and measurement, they must examine their answer to the question, “How do children come to understand mathematics?” Our math curriculum Math Their Way offers complete instruction in every aspect of the problem-solving process to help teachers answer this question. Most mathematics educators believe that young children learn best if real materials as well as textbook pages are used, and if children talk to each other in their own language about what they are doing with the materials. Students are shown the theory and logic behind mathematical principles with the focus on understanding rather than memorization.