Pre-K Goals & Curriculum

Social/Emotional Development

Pre-K children should be able to:

• Gain increased self-confidence.

• Use increasingly complex words.

• Play inclusively.
• Initiate play or integrate into others’ play.
• Be flexible in role playing.
• Wait patiently while taking turns.
• Accept limits.
• Share.
• Show respect for people and property.
• Respect personal property.
• Resolve conflicts verbally.
• Make eye contact.
• Display curiosity.
• Take risks.
• Develop independence.
• Accept responsibility for own actions.
• Delay gratification.
• Tolerate frustration.
• Make transitions.
• Accept changes.

Cognitive

Pre-K children should be able to:

• Be curious.

• Follow directions.
• Master and complete tasks.
• Extend one’s attention span.
• Share their knowledge.
• Follow multi-step directions.
• Show interest in subject matter.
• Ask or answer questions on task.
• Appreciate discoveries.
• Remember events and information.
• Share knowledge.
• Express fears.
• Struggle with distinguishing between truth and fiction.

Fine Motor

Pre-K children should be able to:

• Manipulate small objects.
• Be independent eaters.
• Cut and snip with scissors.
• Easily manipulate puzzle pieces.
• Scribble.
• Correctly hold a pencil.
• Trace.
• Copy lines and shapes.
• Zipper clothes.
• Write name using capital and lower case letters.
• Form letters and numbers (through copying).

Gross Motor

Pre-K children should be able to:

• Sit on a chair without falling off.
• Walk up stairs alternating feet.
• Walk without using handrails.
• Begin to walk down stairs, alternating feet.
• Run easily.
• Kick a ball forward.
• Throw a ball.
• Catch a ball.
• Jump with both feet.
• Hop.
• Climb.
• Balance on one foot.
• Pedal a tricycle.
• Have awareness of body in space.
• Keep appropriate physical distance from others.

Jewish Life

Pre-K children should be able to:

• Develop a Jewish identity.

• Develop a sense of pride in being Jewish.
• Gain a love of Israel.
• Learn about the Jewish holidays and Shabbat.
• Gain an understanding and love of prayers.
• Learn about different minhagim (Jewish customs).
• Learn and recite Brachot before eating.
• Wash hands before eating bread.
• Recite birkat hamazon after eating (first paragraph, Nodeh, and Oseh Shalom).
• Wear kippot/hats (boys).
• Wear tzizit (boys).
• Learn the following tefillot: Modeh Ani, Reishit Chachma, bracha on Tzizit, Ma Tovu, Shma, Torah, Adon Olam.
• Light candles, say Kiddush, cut challah, and sing Shabbat songs at the Shabbat party.
• Learn parashah stories from Breishit to the beginning of Shemot (Yitziyat Mitzrayim).
• Participate in Rosh Chodesh sing-a-long.

Language

Pre-K children should be able to:

Receptive Language

• Understand and follow multi-step directions.
• Understand stories read aloud.
• Understand the plot of a story.
• Recognize common objects and pictures.

Expressive Language

• Create stories from imagination based on prior knowledge or experience.
• Use fuller, more complex sentences.
• Take turns in conversation.
• Verbally share experiences.
• Sing songs.
• Act out others' roles.
• Tell and retell stories.
• Discuss the plot of a story.
• Tell simple story events in sequence.
• Express ideas.
• Ask questions.

Hebrew

Continuing to build on what was learned in Nursery, Pre-K children will:

• Be able to understand the Hebrew spoken in the classroom (receptive).
• Be able to use repetitive patterns throughout the day (expressive).
• Know songs, stories, and dances that are appropriate and are integral to the curriculum.
• Be able to recognize all the pronouns and several verbs, and can say sentences in present tense with a pattern.
• Begin the next phase of Chalav u’Dvash.

Mathematical Concepts

Pre-K children should be able to:

• Count 1- 10 (in sequence) and attempt to count higher.

• Count objects by touching and naming one item at a time.
• Match one digit with each object.
• Have one-to-one correspondence.
• Be able to put 1-10 blocks in order from smallest to largest (seriation, magnitude).
• Understand size vocabulary to compare two items (big, small, bigger than smaller than, smallest, too big, too small).
• Understand and use positional vocabulary (comes next, next to, before, after, in between).
• Understand positional vocabulary with other manipulatives (inside, outside, on, under, in front of, behind, on top, over, under).
• Use ordinal position words (points to the first and last in a series).
• Identify the number that comes next in a number sequence of 1-20.
• Identify the numerical value of pattern boards 1-6 and 10.
• Respond to addition situations that require the joining of one more object to a predetermined set (with manipulatives).
• Respond to subtraction situations that require taking away one object from a predetermined set (with manipulatives).
• Understand that a whole can be divided into two smaller units.
• Use manipulatives to name combinations of two addends that are the same length as 10 and describe them (“two and eight make 10”).
• Be able to identify the name of a digit if a teacher points to numbers 1-5.
• Be able to separate disparate objects into organized groups according to one of the following attributes: color, shape, and size.
• Recognize and continue a pattern – begin with AB and grow to more complex patterns.
• Recognize simple shapes (square, circle, rectangle, diamond, oval, heart).
• Use language to compare objects (long, short, wide, tall, high).

Emergent Literacy

Pre-K children should be able to:

• Know that written symbols have meaning and lead to letter recognition and identification (i.e., knowing names).

• Recall beginning/middle/end of story (sequencing).
• Recall stories independently.
• Dictate a story.
• Retell a story in his or her own words.
• Recognize front, middle, and end of book.
• Recognize own name.
• Recognize classmate’s names.
• Recognize the upper case letters of the alphabet (both in and out of sequence).
• Begin to recognize lower case letters.
• Recognize signs in their environment.
• Recognize rhyming words.
• Begin to rhyme simple words.
• Recognize familiar words (e.g., the class schedule).
• Write first name.
• Begin to make a connection between letters and their sounds.
• Begin to recognize the beats in a word (syllables).
• Participate in the Sounds in Motion program.