New Canaan Country School

The intentional design of the language arts curriculum supports the development of all emerging literacy skills. Games played with language and song stretch the child’s listening skills. Sharing rich stories together embraces a love of reading and invites attention to content, story grammar and vocabulary. Beginners’ teachers conduct lessons with careful attention to language and its manipulation. Contextual experiences such as daily messages, notes between classrooms, and personal narratives enhance language development and the child’s understanding of sound-symbol relationships.

The Beginners mathematics curriculum explores numeration, sorting and classifying, one to one correspondence, attributes, patterning, shapes and geometry, graphing and measurement. Always mindful of the need for children to explore concepts in meaningful ways, emphasis is placed on contextual experiences and multiple problem solving perspectives. Teachers introduce skills and concepts in directed lessons; children reinforce the concepts through block play, games, cooking, and traditional math manipulatives such as Cuisenaire rods and Unifix cubes.

The science curriculum is rich with the foundational skills of good scientists. Beginners explore the changes brought by the seasons, the animal world and the everyday mysteries of their environment. Children observe, experiment, investigate, and document. What lights up the night? How will the chick get out of the egg? What makes a vacuum cleaner work? We nurture their innate curiosity and sense of wonder about the natural world.

Social and emotional growth takes root in every classroom in which a sense of community is paramount. Expectations of mutual respect, individual contribution, and collaborative endeavor are clear. Teachers use specific language to foster the child’s understanding of self and others. Children take ownership of community problems and work together with the teachers to suggest solutions. Children grow to rely on their role in the Beginners’ community as a critical dimension to its well-being.

Every child is an artist. Purposeful and aesthetic arrangement of material in the classroom engages each child. The goal of the arts curriculum is to invite children to express themselves with an unexpected array of textures and forms. Appreciation for color, line, light, and space are all explored as the child liberally pours glue, joyfully drags paint and intentionally layers tape. Problem solving is provoked as the child designer considers just the right material to complete her fabric and styrofoam fire engine. There are no prescribed notions about an art experience. It is the child’s excitement, discovery and imagination that drive his creative process.

Using a combination of Orff and Kodaly Methods, Beginners Music and Movement builds upon each child’s natural music ability. Beginners play with words, sounds and different ways to move. Song games with a part for each child give the students practice in basic rhythm skills and ear training. Listening skills are enhanced when the everyday sounds are the focus and voice, body percussion and percussion instruments are chosen to replicate those sounds. Concepts of sounds that are high/low, soft/loud, long/short are explored and practiced. Children sing, chant, play games, dance, and move to classical and folk music.  

Guided by teachers with specialized training, children use scooters, tunnels, yoga balls, climbing and balancing equipment to support the development of core strength. They practice motor planning, gain spatial awareness and enhance their understanding of sequencing and directional instruction.

Lunch is an optional informal program for families who wish their Beginners to stay at NCCS beyond their regular scheduled school day. It is available on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 12:00-2:50 p.m. Beginners may also participate in Extended Day after Lunch Bunch and on Wednesday afternoons.

The goal of Kindergarten mathematics instruction is to create engaging lessons in which the students deepen their understanding of relevant skills and concepts such as numeration and operations, geometry and measurement. The curriculum emphasizes problem solving, reasoning and higher order thinking. Manipulatives and games are an integral part of the curriculum, reinforcing topics introduced in directed lessons and activities.

Science is an integral part of the Kindergarten curriculum building on children’s natural interests in the world. The aim of the program is to encourage active inquiry and investigation. Familiar everyday phenomena provide a rich focus for our science study. Through direct experience with animals, plants and objects that surround them, children can begin thinking scientifically and drawing conclusions from first hand observations. Field work and record keeping in science journals deepen the child’s understanding of the world around them.

In Kindergarten Art children experience the creative process through the use of recycled and found materials with an emphasis on problem solving, resourcefulness and sustainability. Concepts of color, space, line, texture, and design are taught in a manner that encourages individual thinking and freedom of expression. Children work on their own and in small groups and the artistic experience takes advantage of the wide array of unique workspace environments and opportunities available on the campus.

Kindergarten children bring their creative, playful spirits to the music curriculum. They are ready for more sophisticated song games, both in the circle formation and in the long-ways set. Their creative ideas come to play in reenacting a piece of literature or in different ways to move to a piece of music. Songs are learned and vocabulary, rhythm and rhyme are explored. By the end of the Kindergarten year, students can identify the eighth, quarter and half notes as they match their step to the drum. They are familiar with which instruments have low and high characteristics. After much experience on the unpitched percussion instruments, they are ready for the pitched instruments: the xylophones, metalophones and glockenspiels.

Guided by teachers with specialized training, children use scooters, tunnels, yoga balls, climbing and balancing equipment to support development of core strength. They practice motor planning, gain spatial awareness and enhance their understanding of sequencing and directional instruction.

Games and physical activities build positive levels of confidence, fitness, strength, and coordination. In addition to the playground activities, Kindergartners have formal physical education twice a week, which includes ice skating in the winter.

Extended Day is an optional after-school program available to Kindergartners after their two short days (to 12:15 p.m.), after their two long days (to 2:50 p.m.), and on Wednesday afternoons. To learn more, visit the Extended Day Program page.