Pre-K & Kindergarten

In the Beginning School, our math curriculum helps launch our lower school scope & sequence by using the Bridges in Mathematics curriculum. Students gather evidence, explain their results, and develop respect for others' opinions. Teachers encourage students to employ multiple strategies when solving problems. They foster student initiative by providing opportunities to work in pairs, discuss in small groups, or share with the whole class.  As a result, students develop positive math identities while building problem-solving skills, conceptual understanding, and procedural fluency.

Examples of other organic ways we use math in the Beginning School include counting the number of students absent, building with unit blocks of different geometrical shapes, and measuring ingredients for a cooking project. Beginning School students are immersed in the language of mathematics throughout the whole day and entire week. The Beginning School teacher takes every opportunity to extend students’ understanding of mathematical concepts and introduce number skills conversationally within daily classroom activities. Math instruction in the Beginning School focuses on developing children’s curiosity and interest in using numbers. 

From the moment students enter the Beginning School, PFS students are immersed in a print-rich environment. Words are everywhere, from the children’s names on their cubbies to the morning message greeting them each morning to calendars and daily schedules. Children are encouraged to be hands-on in our classroom library, choosing books they are interested in from a host of genres and text difficulties. Throughout the day, the Beginning School teacher guides students in the process of engaging with print – whether conducting a choral reading of the morning message, reading aloud to introduce early comprehension skills, or sitting down one-on-one with individuals to read together a beginning reader’s text to help develop their emerging literacy skills.

In the Beginning School, children are more formally introduced to letters and words in various ways. Using a wide assortment of diverse curricula, including Fundations and Handwriting Without Tears among other research-based materials, students work both as a group and one-on-one with their teacher on beginning phonics skills. Students are introduced to letter identification, consonant letter-sound associations, and short vowel letter-sound associations, and supported to expand their knowledge and understanding of these essential skills. Structured time is built into each day for children to work with different genres of text, such as poetry and folk tales for Storytelling, which is in line with our community's older-aged students and community events.

A sense of authorship is developed among our students starting in the Beginning School, where children are encouraged to write stories about illustrations they have drawn or to simply label their building-block creations. As the year progresses, the written word is more significantly developed through the writing of individual stories around themes of personal interest. Personal sentiments, from expressions of gratitude at Thanksgiving time to messages for parents on Mother’s and Father’s Day are also woven regularly into the Beginning School's activities. The year culminates with students crafting their own “Memory of the Year” to share with their peers to honor our school-wide tradition.

Each day, the objective is the same: students learn the foundations of literacy while also enjoying and establishing the lifelong love of reading and honoring their light & joy along the way.

Science in preK and kindergarten (the Beginning School) starts with classes that explore our own backyard and learning to appreciate and understand the web of life that surrounds us. The weekly Science class, taught by a dedicated lower school Science teacher, is organized around selected topics and themes that connect with the Central Study and provide for open-ended exploration. Scientific content is presented through creative projects, stories, games, group experiments, and hands-on activities. Thematic units include the study of the five senses, nutrition and systems of the human body, chemical changes, and weather. 

Princeton Friends School is committed to educating its students for global citizenship, and world language study is integral to that mission. Studying the language and culture of other countries gives PFS students a broad understanding, appreciation, and acceptance of the world and of the differences that exist between peoples and nations. Early exposure to world languages, combined with ongoing and explicit opportunities for students to experience the rich ethnic and cultural diversity of our immediate school community, encourages them to engage with the world in powerful ways. Since the early years of our school, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish have been the two languages offered, starting in pre-kindergarten.

Topics:
- Greetings and goodbyes
- Emotions and facial expressions.
- Numbers
- Calendars, days of the week, and months of the year: Language, culture, and traditions are always connected! 
- Seasons, colors, and animals
- Weather and clothing.
- My town, my neighbors

As the Beginning School students begin a new journey listening, observing, and using some new phrases in Spanish/Mandarin, please share with your child the same excitement at home. Listen to music, taste new food and find out where it grows, cook a meal from a different country, or play a new board game with some words and numbers in Spanish/Mandarin.

B-School's pre-K and kindergarten students have their gardening special once a week, which is held outdoors year-round. Students are invited to discover the wonders of nature by engaging in stories, imaginary games, individual exploration, and hands-on sensory experiences. We learn about soil, plants, and insects, cultivate seeds, and learn about the animals we share space with. Community is emphasized as we work together as stewards of our garden.

Music classes in the younger grades combine John Feierabend’s “First Steps in Music” curriculum with elements from Orff Schulwerk. In each class, students warm up their voices with pitch explorations; sing echo songs, call and response songs, and simple songs; improvise their own sung melodies; and move creatively and to the beat. Beginning in 1st and 2nd grade, students begin exploring Western music literacy by using simple songs to discover rhythm concepts and label them with syllables. They then learn how to read, write, and compose with them using iconic notation and Western music notation. Similarly, students begin learning melodic concepts by examining common intervals and patterns in these songs and labeling them with solfège syllables (do, re, mi, etc.). Throughout this process, students practice ensemble skills by performing rhythmic patterns using body percussion and on classroom instruments, including rhythm sticks, drums, xylophones, and handchimes. Additionally, students spend time in class engaging in creative movement through various songs and games and practice choreographed movement by learning age-appropriate folk dances. Finally, every class ends with a song from the PFS music binder, a collection of lyrics assembled carefully over the years to include a rich selection of folk and contemporary songs, ballads, rounds, and holiday music.

Deep engagement with the arts is a critically important aspect of the Princeton Friends School experience. Including studio art for all grades and a variety of arts elective classes offered for 3rd-8th grades, the PFS art program engages students’ natural curiosity and imagination, offering time, space, and resources for individual exploration. Freed from rigid expectations of outcome, students are supported in becoming comfortable with self-expression and being thoughtful yet playful, well-informed yet inventive.

Curriculum Highlights:
- Winter Arts and Storytelling Festival
- Arts in Motion: culminating outdoor art festival and gallery walk celebrating visual student work in relation to the central study theme
- 6-8th grade pottery wheel unit
- Place-based Art Making: creating art with natural materials found around the PFS campus. Past examples have included wild clay, natural dyes, basket weaving with invasive vines, natural watercolors, and papermaking with invasive plants.

At Princeton Friends School, we believe in play of all kinds. In The Beginning School, children get to try out and grow new Skills of Play: cognitive, social, communication, fine gross motor, and emotional. The type of games and activities we play range from classics like Duck, Duck, Goose, and Mr Fox mixed with imaginative adventures designed for our students.

From Beginning School through 5th grade, a positive connection with books and reading is nourished by once a week Library classes, during which students read books and learn to navigate the library, both to explore personal interests and to locate resources needed for academic pursuits. As students progress through the grades, they learn library skills and digital citizenship. For B school, classes begin with a read-aloud followed by a discussion and browsing time, with short lessons woven in when appropriate.