29 Oct Honors & Kindergarten Program
Honors & Kindergarten Program
Honors & Kindergarten Program
(Early Kindergarten admission is available for students turning 5 by 12/31 with the successful completion of an evaluation)
In our Honors & Kindergarten program, each child further develops focus, motivation, persistence, and discipline through their work. In this framework of order, the child grows at their own pace and rhythm. At the same time, they find the joys of learning and developing social and intellectual discipline. Our Honors & Kindergarten program sets children up for success in the elementary grades and beyond. This is done by drawing on their concrete base to developing conceptual thinking.
- Practical Life: Complex activities with a higher degree of independence and working outside of the classroom.
- Sensorial: Activities that engage a mix of senses, understanding of three dimensional geometric forms.
- Geography/Culture: Hands-on study of science (including experimentation), recording observations, and the study of maps. Also includes cultural studies. For instance, appreciation of art, flags, music, and other cultural traditions.
- Language: Learning phonograms, putting words together to create sentences, learning to read independently, introduction to grammar.
- Mathematics: Numeric symbols, mathematical operations, understanding quantities, units of measurement, geometry, fractions and decimals.
Honors & Kindergarten Program Available At:
Enrichment Programs
Spanish/Chinese
Lessons develop vocabulary and word phrases. Also develops an appreciation for the culture of the countries where the language is spoken.
Music
Lessons combine singing and movement with music fundamentals
Yoga
Lessons provide fine and gross motor development combined with traditional and modified yoga poses
Library
Reinforces classroom learning through literature enrichment, exposure to multiple authors and writing styles
Enrichment Activities
The Honors & Kindergarten partakes in 2-3 fields trips and 3-5 outreach programs each year.
The purpose of these programs are to enrich and teach our students about culture, hygiene, science, our physical environment, etc.
Outreach programs that we have welcomed in the past include The Maryland Zoo, Maryland Science Center, Young Audiences, Howard County Recycling, Pickering Creek Wildlife Reserve, various dental offices, and Mr. Science.
Past trips have included Pump It Up, Toby’s Dinner Theatre, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Clarks Farm, The Maryland Zoo, and Port Discovery in Baltimore.
Daily Schedule
9:00 – 9:30 am – Circle Time
- Opening greeting, pledge and songs
- Calendar, weather, and/or current events discussion
- Circle time activities involve group/individual participation, teacher demonstration/presentation of Montessori learning activities that the student may later choose during individual work time
- Various activities requiring child/group participation, reinforce/review
- Phonetic sounds and math concepts
- Stories, songs, poems, creative movement, finger plays, and group games
9:30 am – 12:00 pm – Individual Work
- Floor work choices involve the use of a mat to define the student’s work area
- There are “hands on” manipulation of the Montessori learning equipment and other supplemental activities, of which, most are self-correcting by design
- Table work choices involve the use of trays to define the student’s work areas and work focuses on practicing small muscle skills by cutting, pasting, sorting, pouring, punching outlines, grating and water activities
- Both floor work and table work activities encompass the five basic areas of learning:
Practical Life
Students learn to care for the environment, learn self development skills such as buttoning, zipping, pouring liquids, etc. Students also begin to use social development through grace and courtesy
Sensorial
Heightens the child’s sense of sight, touch, sound, taste and smell; hands-on manipulative materials allow the child to distinguish, categorize and compare the concrete elements of height and order
Language
Phonics-based curriculum provides every child with“sounds” necessary to link letters to make words, the words to make sentences. Using simple alphabet cut-outs and sandpaper letters students are able to effortlessly link sounds, symbols, their shapes, and their written formation
Mathematics
Understanding of the basic mathematical operation of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division through the use of manipulative materials such as rods, beads, sandpaper numerals, cubes, cards, and counters allows the students to visualize the abstraction of numbers
Cultural Studies
(Geography, History, Science, Art, Foreign Language and Music): Children learn about people, their countries and the world through holiday celebrations, cultural observations, maps, flags, food, music, and pictures. Science activities and topics include differentiation between living and non-living things as well as between animals and plants (botany, zoology, ecology, etc.)
- Integrated half-hour of recess
12:00 – 1:00 pm – Lunch
1:00 – 2:45 pm – Quiet Time/Individual Work/Silent Reading
*Integrated half-hour of recess
2:45 – 5:45 pm – Enrichment in half-hour blocks
- Music & Movement
- Recess
- Gross Motor Games
- Makerspace
- Arts & Crafts