For parents who are not familiar with the term "Works" in our Junior Kingdom, Ashley Glaze explains how this part of our program trains students in new skills and good habits.

Junior Kindergarten students rotate through different learning centers each day. As part of this rotation, they are given the opportunity to learn and grow through our hands-on approach to learning called Works. Students choose their Works and the order in which they complete them. 

Our Works are thematic and change each month. They are divided into three categories:  Practical Life, Academic, and Just-for-Fun/Alternate Works.

Our Practical Life Works help children build confidence, learn life skills, develop fine motor skills, grow in developing order, concentration, coordination, and independence. Examples of these Works include grasping, tweezing, using chopsticks, pouring, sweeping, tying, mopping, learning to use tools, stringing beads, using magnets, zipping, buckling, and easel painting.

Our Academic Works focus on pre-reading and math skills. For example, students are not just learning letter recognition and how to write them, but how to also form them with manipulatives such as wooden blocks, Play-Doh, wiki sticks, or dot markers. We also practice matching upper- and lower-case letters and identifying pictures that begin with particular letters. They are also introduced to listening to and narrating stories. In mathematics, students are not just learning number recognition and counting, but matching numbers to objects, sequencing a variety of items, making patterns, sorting different objects, using weights and scales, and so on. 

Our Just-for-Fun/Alternate Works focus further on fine motor development and creativity.