WCS Curriculum

Students participate in worship and praise of Jesus in creative ways.  Short object lessons are presented which encourage students to apply Biblical truths. Attributes such as love, friendship, sharing, peace, keeping promises, truthfulness, trust, self-control, orderliness, and doing our work well are continually encouraged.

At WCS, phonics are fundamental. PreK students learn to identify capital and lower case alphabet letters and produce the sounds they make. Games, activities, crafts, and stories help them identify each letter as a beginning sound. Students learn that letters are put together to make words. Consonants and vowels are introduced as the two kinds of letters in the alphabet.

Using the principles of phonics, kindergarten students learn to recognize all the letters and sounds, consonant and vowels sounds, short words with both consonants and vowels, followed by longer words as they progress.

Teachers read many stories in the classroom.  PreK students learn that reading is an important way to gather information to help them learn.  As students hear stories, poems and nursery rhymes, they discover the pleasure that comes through reading.  Reading readiness skills are taught including positional words, rhyming, identifying likenesses and differences in pictures and letters, and sequencing pictures and thoughts.  In addition, students are taught how to care for books and are given the opportunity to choose and check-out library materials.

Kindergarten students learn reading readiness skills such as top/bottom, tracking from left to right, rhymes, similarities and differences which will help with reading success. Students learn to identify vowels, consonants and their sounds.  Students learn to blend beginning consonants with vowels and to add the ending sounds to make short vowel words.  Students make progress toward long vowel words.

PreK students use pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, and paints to develop and strengthen the small muscles in their hands.  Students are introduced to the correct way to hold writing instruments and scissors as well as printing posture at the tables.  They practice coloring within the lines, cutting on straight and curved lines, forming numbers and letters and printing their name.

Kindergarten students learn how to trace and draw objects on paper. The students are introduced to the correct printing position and how to properly hold a pencil.  They are introduced to the alphabet letters, where they are positioned on the lines and how to correctly print the letters. They learn to correctly print their names, first and last, short words, color and number words, sight words, poems, Bible verses and short stories.

PreK students are given the opportunity to reason and problem-solve using a variety of manipulative games. They learn to recognize shapes and to extend simple patterns as well as make new ones of their own.  Students learn to recognize and order the numbers 1-20. They are given practice in counting out objects, sorting, comparing, and measuring.

Kindergarten students learn shapes, days of the week, months of the year, patterning, and the concrete and pictorial stages of numbers 1-100.  The students sort, classify, and count objects.  They learn the symbolic stages of numbers 1-100.  They learn about place value up to the hundreds place, add and subtract numbers, estimate, measure and problem solve through mental math exercises and story problems. They also begin to learn to tell time and the value of coins. They learn the concepts of before, between, after, bigger/smaller and greater than/less than.

PreK-K Social Studies and Science lessons are integrated into the other areas of the curriculum.  Students learn, for example, about an animal that goes along with letter recognition. Color is taught while learning how to separate colors in ink.  Weather and the change of seasons are taught while learning about numbers and calendars.  Lessons on friends, family, pets, transportation, planting, harvesting, and holidays as well as important people and events in our country’s history are taught seasonally.

Kindergarten students in science explore shapes and symbolic relationships, positional words and motion, alike and different, whole numbers as well as sorting. Farms and harvest as well as weather, changing seasons, and the five senses are also introduced. Kindergartners will begin to classify living and non-living items, along with seasonally related concepts such as hibernation and winter animals including bears penguins and birds/bird feeders.  Nutrition and food groups are introduced, and the basic organs of the human body are also explored.

In Social Studies kindergartners begin to explore personal responsibility and good manners in the classroom, bathroom, hall, recess, and lunchroom. They learn the Pledge of Allegiance and some of the history and meaning of the American flag and symbols of our nation.  Farms, Christopher Columbus, pilgrims, Native Americans and maps.  They learn about seasonal holidays through lessons and crafts.

Student creativity and imagination is encouraged through the use of a variety of materials and art tools such as paints, paper, crayons, glue, and scissors.  Process, experience, and enjoyment is more important than the final product at this age.

Kindergarten students will begin to identify and draw differences in lines and shapes, and will identify colors as primary and secondary.  They will recognize the different art media and use them to begin to appreciate God’s gift of the visual arts.  The students will learn to communicate ideas that are personally important and talk about their own art and the art of others. They will learn to be good stewards by taking care of equipment and tools.

Students are introduced to music through singing, creative movement, instrument playing, and listening.  Interactive music activities teach the students about beat, tempo, and dynamics. They will also grow in music appreciation by listening to and responding to selections of music in varied styles, and begin to understand how the Creator has given man the ability to make music to describe our world.  A variety of styles of music such as traditional, folk, and seasonal songs are used to enhance early learning and development.

PreK students are given the opportunity to exercise their bodies in individual and group, activities incorporating walking, running, hopping, tiptoeing, jumping and games.  Students participate in activities that strengthen their large motor skills.  These activities include the use of balls, hula hoops, jump ropes, cones, bean bags, stuffed animals, mats, and other objects.

Kindergarten students will learn that God has specially created their body to move in many different ways.  They will learn basic loco motor and non-loco motor movement and balance skills, as well as how to move, secure, and strike an object. The students will learn to give their best effort and cooperate with others in games and class activities.

Students are guided through lessons that help them develop critical thinking skills.  Using games, group activities, listening stations, and hands-on materials students learn to problem solve, reason, strategize and express their thoughts verbally.  They are taught to consider all the possibilities when playing games, comparing, classifying, sequencing, patterning, and planning.

Young children are open and willing to see the world in so many ways.  Students are encouraged to express their creativity as they learn their daily lessons.