PreK & Kindergarten

Students are given daily directed and free expressive opportunities to explore and create using paints, stampers, scissors, paper, glue, and more. A well-decorated classroom is one covered in our students' masterpieces! Students also get plenty of performance opportunities. They put on an annual Christmas play, host school-wide assemblies, and perform special songs at two beloved parent events.

Students enrolled in our full-day program receive weekly dance lessons with the dance instructor for the Middle and Upper School in the Mary Johnson Dance Studio.

Students are given daily opportunities to dress up in costumes, put on puppet shows, and play make-believe games such as working in a restaurant or selling food at a market. Students also enjoy engineering with our large and small building blocks.

Students select their own activity for one period a day, which creates a sense of ownership and excitement around learning.

Our students know that learning is not limited to the classroom. Throughout the year we take a variety of trips to introduce the children to new concepts, places, and people. We visit a pumpkin patch in the fall, explore the stars at the Hartnell College planetarium, meet animals at the SPCA, and sing Christmas carols at local assisted living facilities.

Our phonics program is a thoughtful combination of a multi-sensory approach to phonetic concepts, based on the Orton-Gillingham method, and a guided reading program where the children apply the strategies they have learned to decode text. Students continue explicit instruction of this program as they move throughout the Lower School.

Using the Handwriting Without Tears program, students learn concepts of print and beginning letter formation through multi-sensory experiences, such as sand, Play-Doh, songs, whole body movements, and chalk.

Leadership learning is built into the classroom culture. In addition to having assigned classroom jobs (from feeding the pet frogs to reporting on the weather), students also participate in small, guided reading groups, with a different child acting as leader each day.

We begin laying the foundation for math using Dimensions Math, a Singapore Math program. Concepts taught include counting, sorting and classifying, patterning and graphing, as well as an introduction to addition, subtraction, and place value.

Music is based on the ​Orff-Schulwerk method, a completely integrated approach as it relates to the developmental age of children. Non-pitched and pitched percussion instruments, as well as Orff instruments, are introduced for use with age-appropriate songs and movement. Students are introduced and exposed to the concepts of sound/symbol relationships (such as musical notation), pitch, rhythm, and meter throughout the year. Songs and singing are part and parcel of all the learning that takes place!

Students enjoy recess daily in an enclosed yard where they can climb, slide, ride bikes, run, jump rope, dig, and play imaginative games. Students also have opportunities to explore the larger campus that Santa Catalina has to offer, like walks to lessons in the school garden and visits to the Performing Arts Center to enjoy special assemblies, concerts, and theatre productions.

Students attend physical education classes in our school gymnasium. They work with a P.E. specialist to skip, catch, throw, run, and spin, all the while building motor skills and developing a sense of teamwork.

Our religion curriculum focuses on the creation of the world, gratitude and mindfulness, friendships, feelings, and religious holidays. Daily morning prayers are led by the teacher, and children are encouraged to add their prayers to the group prayer. Students attend monthly Mass with the rest of the school, in addition to weekly lessons in the Rosary Chapel.

Our science curriculum invites students to explore the world around them. Science concepts are taught using FOSS (Full Option Science System), a hands-on, experiential program, as well as integrated and thematic teacher-designed units.