Transitional Kindergarten

The Weekday Program offers Transitional Kindergarten, also referred to as TK, for children who will turn 5 prior to January 1st of the current school year.  Classes are offered as 5-day, 3-day, and 2-day options from 9 A.M. to 2 P.M.  Children who need before or after care will be with their prekindergarten peers before 9 and after 2. The class ratio for TK is 12 students to 1 teacher, which is much lower than a traditional kindergarten classroom.  The Transitional Kindergarten program is designed to be a bridge between preschool and kindergarten.  Our TK teacher partners with parents as they guide student’s learning by offering an intriguing classroom environment, fostering creativity, and promoting exploration through play.

Transitional Kindergarten differs from our Pre-K program in two main ways.  First, this “gift of an extra year” offers children who are not quite mature enough for kindergarten, to have an extra year to gain impulse control and to let their brains develop. Second, it is more academically rigorous than our Pre-K program and is mindful of the kindergarten TEKS.  Our teachers also began to implement the expectations of kindergarten as it pertains to self-help and social-emotional skills.  We have found that children with late spring and summer birthdays who have an extra year to mature are often the leaders in their class and qualify for talented and gifted programs, instead of being the ones who are trying to catch up to the rest of the class.  It is truly a gift to a child who can be confident to enter school one year later.

The Weekday Program uses the HighScope Curriculum to teach to all areas of development through eight main content areas (approaches to learning, social and emotional development, physical development and health, language, literacy and communication, mathematics, creative arts, science and technology and social studies).  While learning in these content areas prepares children for later schooling, HighScope uses a non-traditional process by applying methods that promote independence, curiosity, decision making, cooperation, persistence, creativity and problem solving.  Our curriculum is also differentiated according to developmental readiness of each child and class.