Sierra Canyon School: Kindergarten

Kindergarten—the next step in learning forward

In the magical year of Kindergarten, children strengthen their intellectual, emotional, and creative foundation— paving a path to lifelong success Our learning forward philosophy means that our expert teachers meet children where they are today and give them the tools and encouragement to push to the next level. In this nurturing and challenging environment, your child develops greater autonomy and self-awareness, while growing ever more empathetic, imaginative, and socially responsible.

Through our experiential, thought-provoking curriculum, our Kindergartners explore the wider world and begin to determine their own role in shaping it. Visiting the local fire station and TreePeople, using math to unravel a mystery, speaking and performing for different audiences, and collaborating on projects with older Lower and Upper School students, they see themselves as thinkers, scientists, artists, community members, and agents of change.

On our secure, sunlit, and beautiful Lower Campus, your child’s love of learning blossoms.

“Kindergarten at Sierra Canyon has been an incredible experience.

My son flourished in reading and math, and the year was filled with hands-on experiences, like hatching butterflies and learning about rainforest creatures.

The entire year emphasized kindness. We are ready for the challenges of first grade, and for more love of learning.” – SC Parent

Favorite Kindergarten experiences • Discovering that kids can be authors, too, during Writers Workshop • Learning about place value and counting to 100 in order to figure out when Zero the Hero is coming—and meeting him • Enjoying on-campus scavenger hunts • Performing in the amphitheater • Becoming better mathematicians by celebrating special theme days— Pumpkin Day, Teddy Bear Day, Potato Day, Penguin Day, and more—in order to reinforce graphing, sorting, pattern, and computation skills

An exceptionally secure campus At Sierra Canyon, your child’s safety is our top priority. Every car entering campus stops at a locked gate, where a security guard verifies visitor information and runs a background check using the visitor’s driver’s license.

Our school perimeter is gated and enhanced by video monitoring, and during drop-off and dismissal, we help your child in and out of the car. Pre-K and Kindergarten students play on a dedicated, secure playground and all faculty and staff have undergone emergency training.

You can know your child is safe with us all day long and focused on learning, growing, and having fun.

Partners in your child’s education As your child learns and grows throughout the year, you’ll probably notice a growing independence—and that’s an intentional outcome of our Kindergarten program. Still, at this stage, education remains a team effort involving teachers, students, administrators—and you.

We encourage you to participate in class activities, like serving as a Room Parent or Mystery Guest Reader, helping with art projects, and volunteering for events. We also communicate frequently with you through email, phone calls, a Friday take-home folder, a weekly newsletter, and one-on-one conferences, so you can stay fully informed about your child’s progress.

We welcome you to stop in and say hello when you drop off your child. You can visit with other parents, talk with your child’s teacher, and take in the peaceful yet vibrant atmosphere of this one-of-a-kind learning haven.

Academics and character go hand-in-hand

Learning specialists

Our comprehensive, developmentally calibrated program combines academic rigor with the social and emotional skills essential for successful learning—and a happy, productive life.

We balance independent exploration with structured lessons, sparking your child’s curiosity and fueling their expertise.

Every day, students work in small groups and one-on-one with their teachers, learning to provide and receive feedback that improves their comprehension, creativity, and resilience.

At Sierra Canyon, your child doesn’t stay in the same room or with just one teacher.

Your child will leave their homeroom and meet with specialists for Spanish, music, technology, library, art, and PE on a weekly basis. Studying with expert teachers who only teach that subject, your child grows accustomed to interacting with multiple faculty members and gains confidence in moving from class to class. Equally important, children discover the joy and excitement of diving deeply into a single subject.

At the same time, our signature character education program infuses everything your child does with a larger purpose. From the beginning, our students know that education isn’t only for their benefit. They understand how and why their actions affect others, and we help transform their natural compassion into meaningful action.

Our Kindergarten program strengthens the academic and personal skills your child needs to succeed throughout their Sierra Canyon journey. We integrate intellectual, social, and emotional development into our comprehensive curriculum of Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, Science, Health/Safety, Music, Performing and Visual Arts, Technology, Spanish, Character Education, Creative Movement, and Library.

SOCIAL SKILLS

THINKING/COMPREHENSION

WRITING SKILLS

Building on the foundations learned in preschool, your child develops more advanced skills for engaging with others, including:

Your child’s abilities to understand and interact with the world grow in these areas:

In Writers’ Workshop, your child experiences the delight and power of writing—and learns skills that help in school and life:

• being responsible • being respectful, kind and friendly to everyone • sharing and taking turns • coping with disappointment • following directions • cooperating/working with others EXPRESSIVE AND RECEPTIVE L ANGUAGE SKILLS Through expanded phonetics and vocabulary lessons in small groups, your child expands verbal capabilities, such as: • following multi-step oral directions

• logical thinking • forming opinions • predicting outcomes • visualizing • metacognition • asking questions

• making choices and taking initiative • following passions • imagination and design

MATH SKILLS

• development of voice

Your child uses hands-on manipulatives and real-world applications to develop:

READING READINESS

• sorting/classifying/comparing skills • conceptual understanding of mathematical operations • number sense • number recognition • composing and decomposing numbers

• increasing academic stamina and attention span

• addition and subtraction skills

• vocabulary development

• independence

• collaboration

• speaking comfortably in front of a group

• using descriptive language

• self-awareness and self-reflective behavior

• critical thinking and problem solving • introduction to measurement, time, money, and geometric figures

Our teachers differentiate reading instruction to meet children where they are and help them develop improved: • accuracy and fluency • stamina and independence • phonological awareness (letter sounds, rhyming, onsets and rimes, sound blending) • understanding of story elements (characters, plot, setting) • comprehension skills that include: –recalling details –making inferences –predicting

Go to sierracanyonschool.org for more details. And please do visit us in person, if you haven’t done so already. We’d be honored and delighted to share this special place with you.

– making connections from text to self, other texts, and the world –retelling stories