KINDERGARTEN • DISCOVER & MASTER
The World Is Interesting
Kindergarten should establish a child’s first durable association with school: learning helps me understand an interesting world.
What children experience
- Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, animal stories, songs, poems, and picture books
- Letters, sounds, blending, names, and simple words
- Counting, quantity, shapes, and simple operations with objects
- Plants, weather, seasons, materials, maps, movement, art, and building
Example experiences
- Plant a seed and record changes with drawings.
- Build the tallest stable block tower possible.
- Sort objects by shape, size, material, and color.
- Retell a favorite story with pictures.
TECHNICAL STANDARDS
Representative benchmarks
- K.1.1.1 Recognize letters and produce common sounds.
- K.1.1.2 Blend sounds to decode simple words.
- K.1.2.1 Retell the beginning, middle, and end of a familiar story.
- K.1.2.2 Answer who, what, where, and why questions about a story or experience.
- K.2.1.1 Count objects accurately and connect written numerals to quantities.
- K.2.1.2 Compare quantities using more, less, and equal.
- K.3.1.1 Observe an object or event and describe what is directly observable.
- K.7.3.1 Build and improve a simple structure using age-appropriate materials.
Policy relationship: MLP-POL-02, MLP-POL-03, and MLP-POL-04.
Mastery check
Students should recognize common letter-sound relationships, decode simple words, speak in complete thoughts, count accurately, compare quantities, identify basic shapes, describe observations, follow short instructions, and approach books and investigation with confidence.
The Minnesota Learning Project 