Kindergarten: Achieving our Goals

Written By: Ms. Kat Waltz and Ms. Erika Finanger, Kindergarten Teachers

A kindergartener’s day at MELA is full of learning and growth. This year of schooling focuses on giving students the tools and foundational skills to be successful in their following academic years.  Students learn what it means to be a scholar and how to be a positive contributor to the community.


​Social/ Emotional
At MELA, we recognize and follow the expectations of being mindful, empathetic, leaders, and accountable.  Here are a few of the ways we address and celebrate social emotional learning:

**Calm Connect our mindfulness program, is a patented system used around the world that contains dozens of short digital sequences designed to quickly and effectively calm the nervous system and build a bridge to the social world.

**Celebrate Student of the Month and Most Improved every month.  The Student of the Month and Most Improved students get to sit at a special table in the lunchroom to celebrate!
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**Students can earn MELA Tickets by showing mindfulness, empathy, leadership, or accountability.  One MELA ticket winner each month gets an ice cream treat and celebrates with the class!

​Literacy/ Phonics
Students acquire a wide range of phonics skills in the Groves Literacy Framework through explicit phonemic awareness, letter sound, and formation instruction. This curriculum was developed at Groves Academy, uses an Orton-Gillingham based curriculum and is rooted in decades of literacy and brain research. Most importantly, our instruction is culturally-relevant; students can see themselves in the stories we read and the activities we do.

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​Bridges in Mathematics
Students gain a deep understanding of concepts, proficiency with key skills, and the ability to solve complex problems. The curriculum is composed of three distinct but integrated components: Problems & Investigations, Workplaces, and Number Corner. Students practice the skills they learn in math lessons during the math workplace games that they play during centers.

​Writing
Using the knowledge they acquire from our Literacy Instruction, kindergarteners plan and write complete sentences.  Then, they draw a picture and add details to match the sentence.  In kindergarten, we explore fiction, nonfiction and opinion writing.

Smithsonian Science Curriculum
Inquiry-based learning where students get to observe and experiment with materials that deepen their learning through lesson-by-lesson progressions.  Students also engage in hands-on science activities and STEM bins to deepen their thinking skills.

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​Personalized Learning
Individual student goal setting and rigorous differentiated small group instruction with the teacher for literacy and math allows each student to make the necessary growth to set them up for a positive future.  Students celebrate their accomplishments in class when they reach their learning goal set during literacy and math small groups.  These goals empower students and give them autonomy in their learning.  Academic goals are highly motivating for the kindergarteners.