K4

Age Requirement: Students must be four on or before September 1 in order to enroll in this program. FBCS offers two options for all day K4. One option is 3-day K4, meeting M,W,F (8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.) and the other option is daily K4, meeting M-F (8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.)

Four-year-old kindergarten (K4) exists to prepare children for kindergarten and in some cases give children a jump-start on learning and adjusting to school. Our goal is to provide children with a school experience that will challenge and stimulate their spiritual, mental, physical, and social development and growth. Parents are the child’s first and best teachers; therefore, it is our desire to maintain a healthy, working relationship between the home and the classroom. We pray that we can provide each child with a safe, positive, and Christian environment in which to grow, develop, and learn.

It is our desire to provide an age-appropriate, academic program for your four-year old in a positive and rewarding environment. In K4, we seek to provide a variety of exciting learning experiences that will benefit all types of learners. Skills, concepts, and processes are taught and reinforced in many ways to encourage and challenge each student. The loving, stable, and routine environment of K4 also helps children transition from the home to the school setting.

Bible/Scriptural Principles: Your four-year-old will learn to think, to grow, to know, and to live the way God desires. Bible lessons, stories, character traits, singing, Bible memory verses, chapel, activities, and everyday lessons will help teach your child valuable life-principles that he/she can apply to his/her young life. Character traits, as seen in the Scriptures, are the foundation to good behavior; therefore, we emphasize the practical application of those traits to everyday life as a four-year-old.

Academic Skills: The academic concepts taught in K4 include introducing alphabetical recognition, letter sounds, short vowel sounds, three-letter words, letter writing, number recognition, one-to-one correspondence with numbers and objects, counting skills, correct pencil hold, and handwriting skills. With an emphasis on phonics, K4 students learn the name of each upper and lower case letter, the sound of each letter, and a word or picture that begins with that letter. We learn the short vowel sounds, and many children can read short-vowel words during K4.

Activities are designed to help develop thinking and processing skills for each child. Children must develop certain mental processing and reasoning skills in order to learn to read. We strive to provide children with the instruction, activities, and support needed to enhance these skills. This approach gives meaning to what the child has learned and helps them organize new information that they are learning. Students apply their reading and writing skills as each new letter is learned. Often students learn practical science and social studies concepts through thematic and seasonal units of study.

Motor Development: This area addresses the physical development of each child. Gross motor development involves the large muscles in the body, like arm-eye and body coordination. Fine motor development involves the small muscles in the body, like eye-hand coordination. Many fine motor skills are prerequisites for reading and writing skills. Activities in the classroom as well as the gym specifically aim for developing these skills

Social Development: This area is a large part of the four-year-olds developmental picture. Children develop these skills through interaction with others during play and class room instruction. The basis for our social development and adjustment is character training. Students learn Scriptural principles and life lessons that apply directly to them in the K4 classroom and at home.

Each of these components and much more add up to a uniquely integrated, Bible-based, no-pressure, academic program for four-year-old kindergarten students.

Special Features of our Week: Students have Library Class and Music Class one time a week. One day a week, chapel services challenge the children spiritually. Children complete seasonal and skill-building art projects. Animal puppets introduce and reinforce our character trait lessons. Individual lockers for belongings and “puzzle squares” in the carpet area for sitting provide each child with a special sense of belonging. Children have Gym Class and Nap Time each day. Favorite parts of our day involve stories, songs, and poems. Books take us on adventures and teach us the beginning concepts of reading and writing. Teaching toys make learning centers a meaningful part of the learning process. With two or three days a week, we have a lot to accomplish each day!