Jr. Kindergarten

	Sharokeena Lazar teaches Jr. Kindergarten in room 121. She has worked for Bethel Preschool since 2000. She holds her 12 ECE Units for the State of California and is currently completing the PreKindergarten "Best Of Series". Her favorite thing to do is reading the Bible and Janiman Iranian Dance.
	Blenda Betouseb has been with Bethel Preschool since 2006 and has taught Sunday School for 9 years. She has been married to Noeil for 17 years and has 3 kids. Blenda is currently working on her education at West Valley College to earn her ECE units and her favorite thing to do is to spend time with her family.

Jr. Kindergarten Readiness Checklist
California Department of Education

• Recognize print in the environment
• Distinguish separate words
• Recognize rhyming words
• Know some letter names and shapes, including the letters in the child's name
• Begin to demonstrate reading-like behaviors, such as pretending to read and write
• Begin to demonstrate understanding of picture books and simple stories
• Retell stories, make predictions, and connect stories to background experiences in a teacher-guided group format

Overview of Academics Our program involves a non-denominational Biblical teaching and prayer. A Beka text books are used for language, math, reading, writing, social studies, science, poetry, music, and art.

Language Arts: Phonics and Reading
Children begin by learning the sounds of the vowels and consonants and progress to reading blends and words.

Learn to recognize the vowels and their sounds Learn to recognize the consonants and their sounds Learn to blend two letters together Learn to sound one-vowel words Learn to sound two-vowel words Reading circles that include Little Books and Little Owl Books

Language Arts: Writing
Children learn to write each of the small letters of the alphabet first. Later, most of the major capital letters are introduced and students are able to write sentences.

• Children will learn good writing position: to include sitting, correctly, using a slant guide, slanting paper correctly, and holding the pencil correctly
• Writing letters, blends, words, and sentences
• Proper sentence structure to include recognition of sentences by capital letters and periods
• Preparation for cursive

Language Development
Interesting material about animals, people, and places make this a very enjoyable time for the children.

• Poetry – the purpose of poetry time is to acquaint the children with a wide variety of good poetry through classroom recitation and memorization
• Finger plays – simple rhymes coupled with finger actions

Numbers
The recognition and understanding of the concepts of numbers.

• Counting from 1 –100
• Recognizing 1-20
• Distinguishing before and after numbers
• Simple combinations

Activity Time
This time involves activities such as Show and Tell, telling time, music, poetry, finger plays, drama, nursery rhymes, and art.

Bible
Association of Christian Schools International: The focus is on familiar children's stories of the Bible. From the stories of Creation, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Jesus and many others, students will appreciate the lives of famous heroes, who by example provide a foundation for living. The student text provides colorful, creative teaching pages and reinforcement activities for every lesson. Missions Mike travels to various parts of the world to report on the people and their customs as he encourages students to have hearts for the world.

Classroom Habits
An introduction of Character Development and Health and Safety.

Daily Schedule

8:30-9:00 Opening Prayer, Pledges, Devotion, Calendar, Days of the Week 9:00-9:35 Readiness Skills / Character Development 9:35-9:55 Recess 9:55-10:40 Language Arts / Phonics / Writing 10:40-11:10 Reading Groups / Independent Centers 11:10-11:30 Clean Up 11:30-12:30 Lunch / Recess 12:30-1:30 Rest Time / Literature 1:30-2:00 Math / Number Writing 2:00-2:30 Bible 2:30-3:00 Activity Time (Social Studies / Science / Art / Music)