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"My Classroom: Kindergarten with Teacher Marietta"

HFS offers a full- day kindergarten program in which our curriculum and day-to-day activities are guided by Quaker values. We encourage each child to honor that of God in every person, and to use kindness and respect in their interactions with their peers and teachers, their environment, and all things in God’s creation. Children further learn how to resolve conflicts in a peaceful manner through cooperation, compromise, and an awareness of and empathy for the feelings of others. The practice of settling into silence is incorporated into our daily routine, and we attend Quaker Meeting for Worship on the first Wednesday of each month with the entire HFS school community.

Our kindergarten curriculum is rich in language arts experiences and emphasizes phonics, building a sight word vocabulary, and practicing word decoding skills. It uses a variety of literature and writing opportunities to encourage and develop strong reading and writing skills. Writing experiences are offered daily, and learning to read and write is accomplished, based on each child’s readiness, throughout the year in preparation for the first grade curriculum. Writing workshop is a free-time activity that is always “open” and available to the children.

Here they may express themselves through writing and illustrating stories and experiences, letters to friends, and journal writing. Each child has a writing journal where they record special events after working with the teachers to brainstorm various words that would apply and could be used in their stories. Teachers assist with sounding out letters, and children use the “magic line” approach to early writing, where they write the letters for the sounds they clearly hear, and use an underline for letters they cannot yet identify. As the year progresses, more and more letters appear where magic lines used to be!

Our math program covers a broad range of topics, and includes many hands-on lessons and the use of various manipulatives to help motivate students in learning and mastering mathematics concepts. The program also gives ample practice in these new skills and concepts that build confidence and success. Science, social studies, and literature units are taught in conjunction with art activities which allow for exploration of interesting topics through creative expression, and encourage the development of fine motor skills. An example of this is the early fall unit on the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly.

This study includes many wonderful art projects wherein the children create the various stages of the Monarch’s development, including large Monarch butterflies which “fly” from the classroom ceiling. A Monarch Migration Parade is the exciting and memorable culmination of this unit, and includes every child in the school. Of course, the kindergarten students are the “stars” of the day in their Monarch wings and antennae as they “migrate” through downtown Haddonfield to the smiles of every spectator! One of the pleasures of a full day schedule is that it also provides time for the children to experience several valuable enrichment programs. Special area teachers instruct the kindergarten children in physical education, music, library, and Spanish at various times during the week.

Additionally, all of our children benefit from time with our reading specialist, who individualizes lessons according to each child’s needs, either enrichment or remediation, and further reinforces the reading curriculum for all of the kindergarten students. Although our day is rich with academic activities and experiences, the teachers are ever mindful that young children of this age and developmental level still need ample time to play. Again, because of the time afforded by a full-day schedule, Kindergarten children are given the time to choose their own activities from the various books, writing activities, toys, games, and “make-believe” play that are available, and to simply play with friends.

These playtime activities not only create some necessary “down time” for the children, but serve to help develop good social skills and the ability to interact well with others in a less structured yet supervised setting. It is not unusual to hear kindergarten students talk about using “kindness and respect” in their playtime activities, and reminding one another that we are “all friends at a Friend’s school! All of these things combine to create a wonderful environment in which children can develop into interested, inquisitive, happy learners, good friends, and self-confident people who know how to respect themselves, others, and the world in which they live.

- Teacher Marietta Hanigan, Kindergarten

HFS: 47 N. Haddon Avenue; Haddonfield, NJ 08033-2476
Phone: (856) 429-6786; Fax: (856) 429-6376