At SIBS our kindergarten program accepts students ages 3 through 6. As children reach school age, our comprehensive kindergarten program helps young learners explore, communicate, and create in an all-nurturing, small class setting. Our kindergarten program is designed to allow students to develop the social skills and work on material while building study habits that will prepare them for a smooth transition to our elementary school. We utilize the American Common Core Curriculum and textbooks. We screen and train teachers whose teaching methods are diverse and focus on teaching our students the English and life skills they need to succeed at the next level.
K1-K2 Kindergarten is the initial bilingual stage:
A bilingual education carries concrete advantages and improves abilities for children who grow up speaking a second language. The SIBS bilingual program contains a fifty-fifty language split, where 50% of the day is taught by a foreign teacher in English and the other 50% is spent learning from a Chinese teacher in Chinese. K1 and K2 are years of highly visible progress in reading and language arts. We deliver our curriculum through many different ways such as reviewing phonics books, role-plays, stories, art, games and songs. Our program also provides lessons on proper behavior and life skills, which allow students to focus and cultivate good living habits. Moreover, we offer two healthy nutritional meals and snacks each day that include a variety meat, fruit and vegetables dishes. The K1 and K2 school schedule is from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
K3 - Kindergarten
Our K3 program is designed to allow students to develop the academic skills that provide for a proper and smooth transition to the first grade. K3 is a year of highly visible progress in reading and language arts. Each morning the K3 conducts a “Morning Meeting” where as a class the students greet each other in English and read and learn a new short story. Reading is an important life skill that the faculty focuses on at SIBS. Then it’s on to Math, Science and Social Studies. For our K3, 70% of the classes are taught in English by foreign teachers and 30% are taught in Chinese.
At SIBS our K3 Students can be found working on the following skills:
Reading and Language:
- Developing awareness of letters
- Recognizing that letters have specific sounds
- Awareness of the relationship of “letters to words” and “words to sentences”
- Developing a basic vocabulary set by listening and identifying unknown words in stories
- Recognizing basic sight words in text
Basic Math Operations:
- Count from 1 – 100
- Addition & Subtraction
- Simple geometry (pattern recognition and description)
- Learn about the concept of living and non-living things
- Learn about the environment
- Students learn about topics such as friendship, community, transportation and family
In all, our kindergarten learning goals are implemented using an American curriculum platform, which incorporates the use of Scott Foresman text books and Jolly Phonics. Jolly Phonics is used in American school programs to assist children in the development of literacy skills such as letter and sound recognition.
Our K3 students also have weekly music and P.E. classes. We have a professional music teacher who teaches basic music theory and dance to our children as well as singing and flute. Our K3 P.E. class allows students to perform physical fitness activities developing and improving their balance, locomotors skills and hand-eye coordination. In addition to music and P.E., we offer weekly swimming lessons and After School Activities such as arts & crafts, football, lego building, guitar, chess, clay making, cooking, choir and violin.
With a balanced curriculum and variety of classes or K3 outcomes are:
- The child will have a strong sense of identity
- The child will be connected with and contribute to his or her world
- The child will have a strong sense of wellbeing
- The child will be a confident and involved learner
- The child will be an effective communicator
The kindergarten offers a great variety of activities. Students are able to choosie what they like for extra-curriculum courses such as Arts and Crafts, Writing and illustration painting, Role play, Lego, Football, Violin, Piano, Paper-folding, Guitar, Chess, Basketball, Taekwondo, Play-dough, English reading, Choir etc. Most of the activities are free. And they can help train students’ brain and stimulate their potential.