Curriculum
JK/SK CURRICULUM
Our students are exposed to both English and Mandarin, right from the beginning. They spend half of their day in an English-speaking environment and the other half in a fully-immersed Mandarin environment. Phys ed, art and music are incorporated throughout both language programs on a weekly basis.
At The Shire School, we encourage imagination and creativity while instilling strong values, manners and social skills.
Our rigorous curriculum promotes interaction between children that builds cooperation, collaboration and leadership skills. We have small class sizes, taught by caring staff in a stimulating, multicultural environment. The Shire School provides students with the time to explore and discover, as well as giving students solid foundational skills on which to build all future knowledge. All students are given the opportunity to learn and grow!
Children entering JK must be fully toilet trained before beginning school.
Children do not need to speak Mandarin or English fluently to attend The Shire School in JK or SK.
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JK/SK is an important time for a child to build a strong foundation in literacy. Our program concentrates on all the important elements that are essential in building solid English language skills. Our students are taught letter/sound association, phonics, common sight words, rhyming, letter formation, word formation, listening skills, story sequence, poetry, songs and drama. Students are introduced to a wide variety of reading genres that help create strong, confident readers who excel in fluency and confidence. Students develop their cursive writing skills with a focus on proper formation and neatness. Writing skills are nurtured as inventive spelling is added to the application of proper spelling, sentence formation and organization.
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Our Mandarin literacy program is equally as strong as its English counterpart, enabling our students to become highly conversant in this second language at an early age. We emphasize character recognition as well as an introduction to pin yin reading and writing skills along with an understanding of the proper use of the four tones. Careful attention is paid to the development of the eight basic foundational strokes and their proper order for balanced, precise character writing. Students learn basic greetings, nouns/actions and how to how to recite traditional songs and poems.
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Mathematics is taught in both languages at the JK/SK level. Our enriched program focuses on an in-depth understating of foundational math skills and has a strong emphasis on number sense. Students learn how to count from 1-100, how to match symbols to quantity and to understand the concept of zero. Concepts of addition and subtraction are introduced as well as sorting, patterning, measurement and geometry.
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Social studies and science are taught in both languages. We discuss our local community, introduce our students to the five senses and teach them all about time and the calendar. We focus on observation and investigation and perform sink and float experimentation. In addition, we teach our students about living and non-living and introduce them to Canadian and Chinese cultures.
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Technology is incorporated into a few areas of our curriculum where it can enhance the learning process. On occasion, JK/SK students use iPads, with apps designed for learning.
