Our Little Leaders – our JK-SK Program – is accepting registration for the 2020-21 school year.

Letter Practice

Riverbend Academy is happy to open our registration for Our Little Leaders – our Kindergarten program – for the 2020-2021 school year.

Our balanced curriculum of academic work, play, and social/emotional intelligence lays the foundation for children who are eager to learn and excited to come to school.

Academic Work

Transportation Project

Each day, Our Little Leaders start by “signing in” to the class at their desk. The pride in accomplishment starts immediately as each letter is learned and practiced. This is followed up with the calendar activities for the day including learning the days of the week, the months of the year, and looking at the current weather. Last, and by all means not least, comes the all important count up to the 100th day of school. Each day, a new number

Hibernation Project

is added to the Hundred Day Chart and students use this chart to learn to count by ones, twos, fives, and tens.

Throughout the week, the students experiment and learn a variety of topics including math, language (including phonics), science, social studies, french, music, drama, art, reading buddies, and computers.All our curriculum crosses over so students might be working on science and create a piece of artwork to demonstrate what they have learned. They might be learning about their neighbourhood in social studies and build their own neighbourhood with Lego and cardboard.

Why all this academic work? The simple reason is because they want to. Our Little Leaders are sponges, curious and eager to learn everything they can. They take joy in all the new information they

The Big Shoe

soak up. Whether it is learning to count, write their name, or tie their shoes (yes, we do teach them to tie their shoes), the students truly enjoy learning and then going into the older classes and telling the other students all about things like the Artic, the water cycle, or what letter comes after R!

Another reason for including desk work is to lessen the shock of moving up to Grade 1. By the time Our Little Leaders are ready for Grade 1, they have already developed the skills needed for a focused amount of time on a single task.

And every day, they get a period of physical education along with their regular recess and play time.

Play

Play

Speaking of play — yes, Our Little Leaders get their share of play time. They are still young, after all. Much of play time involves

reinforcing something that has been learned. How many blocks do you need to make that tower? What colours are the cars? Can you trace the big letters with your truck. Or

Letter Bingo

creative free time with the dress up trunk. Our program carefully blends play time with

learning time to make sure that students are capable of sustained focus but still do not become bored or tired of learning. Learning should be fun and enjoyable, whether you are at a desk, on the playground, or in the play area of the classroom.

Play is also important for the development of social skills.

Social Skills & Emotional Intelligence

Social Skills are an important part of school development and they take place both in the academic and play times at school. These skills include cooperation, sharing, and fair play. However, Our Little Leaders also begin their work with Emotional Intelligence by learning

Gym

about their emotions, both understanding and being able to label and discuss emotions. Along with this understanding comes a knowledge of the physical aspects of emotion and how their bodies react to different emotions both desirable and undesirable emotions. With this knowledge comes the ability to control the severity of undesirable emotions and the ability to bring out positive emotions. Meditation is also part of the Real Life Skills that Our Little Leaders begin to practice as well as positive visualization, particularly in concrete applications like Physical Education.

Happy Students

The goal, of course, are happy students, excited to come to school and eager learn for the rest of their lives.