Full Day Kindergarten

Overview

SS. Peter & Paul Catholic School offers a full day Kindergarten program, with the option of a half-day for those students whose parents think it is more suitable for their child; decisions are on a per quarter basis. SSPP recognizes that Kindergarten is a time for children to experience the world around them, build communication skills, and develop appropriate attitudes for group interaction. Five-year olds are active and need to move around a lot. They learn from their senses and creative desire to discover and explore. A full day program offers more flexibility in grouping children at their different development levels and includes added time for rest, creative drama, art, music, storytelling, and physical education.

Curriculum

Religious education is an integral part of the kindergarten curriculum. Although time is set aside for religious instruction, our goal is to create a total atmosphere of caring and love for each child and his/her individual needs by helping them develop a positive self-image and faith in their accomplishments. The children explore their world and their lives while learning to appreciate the many signs of God's love and celebrate in wonder and praise. The curriculum includes:

• Development of the child's visual motor skills using geoboards, pattern blocks, pegboards, and other material requiring visual discrimination.
• Development of their auditory motor skills, including phonetic analysis and sequential organization, encouraging the child to discriminate and analyze sounds. Children enhance their ability to visually identify letter and number symbols, name these symbols orally, and print them. As they advance they will be able to identify letter sounds and be encouraged to do "kindergarten writing".
• Build their sorting and classifying skills, increase their logical thinking capacity and problem solving skills with pattern blocks, and develop their counting and number concept abilities through use of unifix cubes and other manipulatives.
• Development of general motor skills using games and activities involving basic motor movements, balance, and movement exploration, as well as games which encourage group interaction and the development of good sportsmanship.

Enrichment

The kindergarten at SSPP also includes areas of enrichment. Children have story time daily and check out books from their classroom and school library. They receive computer instruction, music, and physical education as well as art, science, STEM, and social studies. They also attend the many cultural arts programs brought to the school by Peter, Paul and Parents as well as participate in scheduled field trips.

Our full day program allows us the opportunity to add all of those rich, time-consuming activities that we know are invaluable learning experiences for five and six year olds. Children are able to develop independence and responsibility and engage in real decision-making activities. They have time to practice curriculum skills as they work cooperatively with each other. They may work at their own pace, but also learn how to plan and use time wisely. Pre-Reading and math concepts can be developed, and more importantly, children can learn that they are important people with important things to say.

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