The art program in kindergarten provides an introduction to a variety of media through which children have the opportunity to explore materials and build skills, such as painting with a brush, cutting with scissors, and drawing with a variety of implements. The program also guides children to explore their creativity and take pride in their unique abilities. The subject matter is a combination of directed and open art exploration. Lessons are also integrated with the children’s other studies, in particular the Jewish calendar and literacy activities. Children are exposed to the work of a wide variety of artists through books, posters, and museum visits. Each class starts with the children looking at an art poster and talking about their observations.  The children explore in a variety of media including drawing, painting, collage and sculpture. 

In addition to the formal art curriculum, children are also engaged throughout the year in a variety of art activities that relate to other curriculum areas.

Hebrew is an integral part of the kindergarten day and is a language of communication in the classroom, from teacher to student, from student to teacher, and among students. Students enter kindergarten with a wide range of Hebrew skills; some are native Hebrew speakers others have never been exposed to Hebrew before.  Hebrew lessons are designed to meet the needs of all students. By the end of the year, students are able to participate in structured conversations about classroom routines, family, clothing, weather, shapes, numbers, fruits and vegetables, meal times, the seasons, and feelings.   

Parts of morning meeting are conducted in Hebrew, as are transitions and many games and activities, particularly in art, music, and t’filah (prayer). In addition, stories are read to the children in Hebrew as they act them out, and they learn an extensive repertoire of Hebrew songs.

One goal of the kindergarten year is for children to encounter written Hebrew so that, in first grade, they will be able to learn efficiently to read and write in Hebrew. Children are taught to recognize letters and their names, to associate letters with sounds, and to write the letters.  The daily schedule is written in Hebrew, and many classroom objects, including the pages on which they illustrate their daily prayers, are labeled in Hebrew. Students also learn many beginner vocabulary words that begin with each of the Hebrew letters. Fun activities are used to reinforce letter/sound recognition. Towards the end of the year, the children celebrate their mastery of the Hebrew alphabet at the aliyat hagan (kindergarten moving-up) celebration.

Children participate daily in t’filah (prayer). During this time, they not only learn to recite and sing excerpts of the Sh’ma and Amidah prayers correctly, but also discuss them, inquiring into the meaning of the prayer texts and relating them to their personal experience. Their understandings are recorded in picture and word on large Bristol board siddur (prayer book) pages; the class refers to these pages daily to help structure their prayer experience and remind themselves of the significance of each of the prayers they have already learned.

In the middle of the year, the children begin to assume leadership roles in t’filah by serving as chazanim(leaders). They also begin learning about the idea of an aliyah, and each have an opportunity to be “called up” to the Torah with their families present.

At other times of the day and week, as well, children are initiated into the rhythms, sights and sounds, and emotional tone of Jewish life. They look forward to a Kabbalat Shabbat celebration and parashat hashavua (weekly Torah portion) activities each week. They also learn the rudiments of kashrut and recite b’rachot (blessings) before and after eating.

Throughout the year, kindergartners experience the rhythm of the Jewish year through stories and experiences, art and drama activities, and a variety of inquiries and explorations that involve all five senses. They learn to associate the smell and taste of apples and honey and the sounds of the shofar with Rosh Hashanah, feelings of remorse and forgiveness with Yom Kippur; the chill of the air in the sukkah and the body language of lulav and etrog with Sukkot, lighting candles, spinning the dreidel, and eating latkes and jelly doughnuts with Chanukah, planting trees and tasting dried fruit with Tu Bish’vat, reading the megilah, giving and receiving gift baskets of food, and costume parades with Purim, hunting for chametz, making matzah, and celebrating the seder with Pesach, unfurling the Israeli flag, learning about Israel’s geography, and eating pita and other Israeli foods with Yom Ha’atzmaut, running relay races and eating a picnic in Central Park with Lag Ba’omer, and receiving the Torah and eating cheesecake with Shavuot.

In Gan, listening, speaking, reading and writing go hand in hand and support one another. As children learn the basic skills of reading and writing, they do so with an eye towards both understanding the alphabetic principle and making meaning.

Activities that support each child’s language development are infused into the curriculum throughout the day. Children are actively engaged in literature through both reading and listening. They have multiple opportunities to develop their oral language skills by sharing their ideas with classmates through play and storytelling. As each child is ready, they begin to express their ideas in both pictures and print.

The curriculum in Gan builds on each child’s existing knowledge and linguistic experiences and provides appropriate and individualized literacy instruction to allow each child to grow and develop a love of reading. Daily phonemic awareness activities help children understand and internalize the underlying structure of language with a focus on how sounds blend together to make words and how words can be segmented into sounds. As the year progresses, these activities increase in complexity and provide students with the building blocks for skilled reading and writing. Children are immersed in meaningful reading experiences in a variety of genres throughout the curriculum. They learn to share ideas about reading with their peers and think deeply about literature through guided discussions and small group interactions with teachers and peers.

Our literacy curriculum emphasizes the interconnectedness between reading and writing. Through daily writing experiences, children learn to understand and use writing as a way to communicate and express a variety of ideas. The children begin by discovering the many uses of writing in their everyday lives, such as making signs for their block building or creating lists for projects in which they are involved. Then,  they begin to write in a variety of genres such as personal narratives and factual texts (“all-about” books). They share their writing with one another and respond to their own writing and to each other’s. Students also participate in shared writing and interactive writing activities, such as writing class books and poems that become a part of the classroom library.

Gan students are also involved in word study on a regular basis. They learn a bank of sight words and study the alphabetic principle, mastering the sounds that letters and letter combinations make and appreciating patterns in language. The development of these skills supports language development both in reading and writing.

The math program in kindergarten cultivates both mathematical understanding and the development of basic mathematical skills. Using tangible objects to promote exploration and inquiry, children are encouraged to think about numbers and numerical relations, space and shapes, patterns, estimation, sorting and classifying, and measurement. Working in small groups, they gain hands-on practice in recognizing and forming numbers, adding and subtracting, solving story problems, and representing their data pictorially, verbally, and numerically. They also verbalize their solution strategies, explain their work, and respond to each other’s mathematical explanations.

An important goal of the kindergarten math program is for children to understand the role that math plays in the world. Therefore, math takes place throughout the school day. For example, children count, add, estimate, and record attendance during morning meeting. They count the number of school days; make graphs about themselves, their class, and their school; identify patterns wherever they see or hear them; use fractions and whole numbers when they cook; play many board games and card games that nurture mathematical thinking and skills; and identify and create two- and three-dimensional shapes.

Music permeates the kindergarten classrooms. Israeli music is often heard in the classroom, and the children learn traditional Israeli songs of childhood.  Students are also exposed to other genres of music. The primary means by which music is taught is through movement. The goal is for children to be able to feel the music in their bodies – they dance, they toss scarves, and they march. They become flowers, soldiers, and animals. In one notable lesson, the children respond through movement to Brahms’ Hungarian Dance #5.

The primary goals of physical education in kindergarten are for children to become more aware of their bodies,  to exercise more refined control, to develop physical fitness, and to learn how menschlichkeit applies to the realm of physical education.  The beginning of the year focuses on locomotor skills as well as interpersonal (“sportsmanlike”) relationships.  The focus then shifts to skills relating to movement and sports, such as jumping, kicking, tossing, and catching.  There is great emphasis on independent learning; students are encouraged to focus on their own growth and development rather than compare themselves to others.  Kindergarten is a crucial time to instill the “positive play” approach and celebrate the joys of moving.

Theme, or thematic studies, is the focal point of the integrated kindergarten curriculum. It incorporates science, social studies, writing, art, and Jewish Studies, and often spills over into reading, Hebrew, math, and drama. 

Theme is a source of great excitement in kindergarten, as children have the opportunity to help determine the direction and content of their learning. The process begins by asking children to think about what they already know about the topic and then to generate questions they have.  Teachers aim to design the unit around these questions. Students begin the year by learning and discussing the idea of community, and how it is essential both inside and outside our school. Other units have included Trees, Keeping Our Parks Clean, Animal Homes, Israel, and Wheat. Our lessons are hands-on, child-centered and often inquiry-based. 

Among the science skills that are developed in the process are observation, recording, measurement, graphing, data analysis, modeling, and simulation, as well as predicting and experimenting. Science concepts explored include animals, plants, seasons, and the five senses. The social studies concepts and skills that children learn include understanding themselves and others; the characteristics of community; the variety and diversity of their communities; working effectively in a community; making observations and comparisons; listening, asking, and responding; and voting and compromising. 

Students learn basic coding skills and engage in various STEAM projects.  They work collaboratively to identify a solution to a real-world problem that’s meaningful to them. In their weekly coding class, they learn foundational concepts such as sequencing commands and repetition of steps (loops). Students explore these concepts through a series of “unplugged” games and activities, as well as through iPad-based exercises. Students apply their understanding of coding by programming robots to navigate obstacles and follow simple commands.

The second grade art class starts in the classroom but quickly moves to the art room,  as students are ready to graduate to this advanced workspace. The focus of the second grade curriculum also moves from exploration of materials to exploration of art concepts. Children learn about design through projects in symmetry and asymmetry as well as other skills seen in the work of well known artists.  The whole class works on a couple of projects that require each student’s work to become part of a whole. For example, the artistic work of children’s author Eric Carle is the inspiration for a painted animal project where each child adds his/her part to create a whole animal. Other art skills are explored by imitating other classic children’s books.  The year culminates with work related to the classroom’s Creation Celebration unit–teams of students plan and execute projects based on an assigned day of creation.. 

In addition to the formal art curriculum, children in second grade are also engaged throughout the year in a variety of art activities related to other curricular areas. They also go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, focusing on the art exhibits of various cultures.

In second grade the Hebrew program shifts to a balanced emphasis between oral and written communication.

The structured speaking patterns that children use in their daily routines are expanded and extended, and children are also asked to take more risks in their speaking and initiate their own spoken sentences. They also practice speaking in Hebrew during games, skits, interviews, and art activities throughout the day.

In reading, as the children become more fluent readers and learn how to read without vowels, the focus remains on reading for meaning, using many of the skills already mastered in English reading – prediction, using picture clues, breaking down words and looking at their parts – as well as some strategies specific to Hebrew – using the shoresh (verb root), recognizing prefixes and suffixes, and learning new vocabulary and concepts prior to encountering them in context. Reading materials are drawn from a variety of sources and supplemented by teacher-produced materials that extend children’s understanding of the topic.

Writing is supported by a focus on learning language patterns that are reinforced through diagrams, movement, readings, exercises, and colorful and accessible reference charts. Group writing is also used to support phonics and reading skills. Opportunities for writing Hebrew often emerge out of children’s reading experiences, pictures and photographs that are used as writing prompts, and their work in Torah. Students learn to write in script, and they are increasingly asked to spell high-frequency words correctly. Students’ conventional spelling consequently improves significantly over the course of the year.

Language elements that children learn in second grade include agreement in gender and number, correct use of the present tense, and accurate use of possessives and prepositions.

Complementing their continued parashat hashavua (weekly Torah portion) activities, second graders begin studying the Torah narrative in a sustained way with Bereshit (Genesis) 1, 12, and 17. Using a shared text, children become increasingly independent in their ability to study the text and use it without having to translate it word-for-word into English. Our Bereshit 1 unit culminates in a multidisciplinary student showcase. The Creation Celebration includes music, dance, student divrei Torah and a STEAM tie-in.

Later in the year, to read the text for understanding, the children learn to work in chevruta (study pairs), where they are supported by vocabulary lists and comprehension questions that supply necessary information for each verse. In addition, the children learn elements of biblical grammar, such as shorashim (verb roots), vav hahipuch(the conversive vav), and compound words, to expand their repertoire of strategies to figure out unknown words. 

In addition to understanding the text, children respond to questions that require inference and sensitivity to the nuances of the text, as well as invitations to place themselves in the shoes of the biblical characters. In class discussion, they inquire into philosophical questions, relate the stories to their own lives, and use art, drama, and movement to enhance their learning.

In t’filah, second graders continue to expand their knowledge of the liturgy, returning to the Amidah, which they previously encountered in Gan and Kitah Aleph in abbreviated form. In studying the Amidah this time, they begin to learn the full text of the b’rachot, and in their discussion, they compare the understanding they gained based on the excerpt learned previously with their more comprehensive understanding based on the full text. In some cases, their commentary on each siddur page now incorporates both pictures and words.

The second graders’ insights into and knowledge of chagim (Jewish holidays) continues to deepen as they both revisit previous years’ experiences and introduce new elements: for Sukkot, they learn the liturgy of the holiday and lead a portion of the service. They also learn the concept of hadar (aesthetically pleasing, beautiful) as it applies to Sukkot, they analyze the nature of the miracle of Chanukah as it is presented in the Al Hanisim text, they chart the emotional landscape of the Purim story by graphing the changing mood of each of the main characters from scene to scene, they take a fresh look at the Four Questions, interpreting them as setting up a contrast between two opposing themes of slavery and freedom in their own hagadah on Pesach, and they explore the agricultural link between Pesach and Shavuot.

As in the early years, reading and writing are inextricably linked, and both are increasingly used to support children’s learning in theme. Routinely, children make connections between what they are reading and what they are writing.

The second grade reading program is extensive and varied. Children continue to build on the decoding strategies that they learned in previous years, using class-wide lists of high-frequency words and new knowledge gained from word study; in addition, they vastly expand their repertoire of comprehension strategies, including making inferences from the text structure and using visual representations, as well as predicting, summarizing, asking questions, and making connections. As the children gain more experience with factual texts, they learn to make use of text features such as: captions, headings, sidebars, index, table of contents, and glossary.

Elements of the reading program that support these goals may include independent reading, paired reading, reading from a script (“Reader’s Theater”), guided reading in groups, author studies, and exploring the nonfiction genre deeply by writing a nonfiction text.

By second grade, children are becoming more independent in their writing and able to use each other as resources comfortably. They appreciate that writing is a process and that finishing a first draft is only one step on the way to completing a piece of writing. Students practice writing personal narratives, poetry, factual pieces, and fictional narratives. Direct instruction in the elements of writing, writing workshop, and journal writing continue to be emphasized. Skills learned in previous years are reinforced: handwriting, planning, sequencing, editing, and revising. New skills are introduced, as well, such as knowing and using parts of speech, character development in fiction writing, and line breaks in poetry.

In word study, children learn to notice and think about words and their components, such as vowel patterns, prefixes, and suffixes. They also focus on other grammatical constructs, such as contractions and plural endings. These experiences enable children to become more skilled and independent spellers.

The dual emphasis on mathematical reasoning and skill development continues in second grade. Sharing and cooperation remain important learning skills, as children are regularly asked to share problem-solving methods with each other.

Key goals for the year include mastery of math facts for addition and subtraction, measurement skills, place value knowledge, and the study of money, time, and fractions. Second graders study the following concepts, skills, and strategies:

• Two and three-digit addition and subtraction
• Place value
• Regrouping
• Addition and subtraction word problems
• Money (identifying coins, counting, adding, and subtracting)
• Skip-counting
• Fractions (halves, thirds, fourths)
• Two- and three-dimensional geometric shapes and their characteristics
• Time – telling time, timelines, calculating the passage of time
• Measurement
• Collecting and representing data
• Understanding arrays as a precursor to multiplication

In second grade, the children continue to expand their repertoire of American and Israeli songs and are excited to participate in the school-wide monthly shirah b’tzibur (community sing). The second graders sing with a spirit that is all their own. In addition to singing songs, children learn elements of music theory. The can identify volume (soft and loud), pitch (high and low), and tempo (fast and slow). They can identify moods in music and begin to learn to identify motifs. They are introduced to the rhythmic organizing principle of bar or measure. They continue to be exposed to classic works of Western music, such as Haydn’s “The Creation” and Joplin’s “The Entertainer,” and interpret and express their musical ideas and moods through movement. 

An important part of the second grade curriculum is the Musical Explorers program run by Carnegie Hall.  Through this program, students learn about the music of different cultures and are introduced to musicians from the five boroughs who represent a range of musical backgrounds and traditions. Students have studied music from Africa, Asia and South America as well as jazz and salsa.

By the time children are in second grade, they have developed skills that allow them to play more organized team games, such as kickball and soccer, with greater skill confidence.   We begin to explore strategy in second grade. Students also begin to understand force and control, balance and agility, and well as more competitive play. Many discussions surround the ideas of “winning” and “losing,” how to be a “good” winner and a “good” loser.  Time is also spent on reflection and self-talk. This helps the students build a better bond with their classmates as well as a greater understanding for sport.

At the beginning of second grade, students focus on community as a theme, with a concentration on neighborhoods. While exploring the life and structures of community in their local neighborhood on the Upper West Side and others around New York City, students develop an understanding of what constitutes a community, why people come together, and how each community expresses the values and lifestyles of a group of people. Throughout the study, students look at the surrounding geography of each community and learn how that influences lifestyle and commerce. In addition, they develop mapping skills, including how to use a compass rose and how to read and use a map.

In science, students start the year doing a hands-on study of matter, and in the winter, complete a science unit focused on the water cycle. Through these different units, students make observations, develop hypotheses, collect and record data, and learn the basics of the scientific method and scientific thinking. Students combine their knowledge and skills learned during the community and water cycle units and learn about communities in Israel and how they developed ways to increase their water resources.  

Later in the year, students engage in a study of how things are produced; From Raw to Refined, focusing on the manufacturing journey of a product. The unit culminates in a project where students collaborate on a chosen product and research how it is transformed from a raw material to its final object. This project includes a written piece and a presentation. 

They also do a natural science unit on the beaver and investigate their habitat, adaptations and affect on their surrounding environment.  In all units, book research is supplemented by field trips, museum visits, scientific observations and experiments, interviews, and other means of science and social-science investigation.

Students have a weekly coding class where they explore structures of code such as sequencing, loops, and conditionals. Students explore these concepts through a series of “unplugged” games and activities, as well as through iPad-based exercises using block-based languages. Students apply their understanding of coding by programming robots to navigate obstacles and follow simple commands.