Nursery Class Curriculum

By now the children have acquired many skills and are ready for formal studies like reading, writing alphabets and numbers. The academic year starts from Mid-June. The first fifteen days the month could be utilised for settling and revising the previously learned material. Once they have settled down, the teachers can start with the new curriculum. Teachers must have a lesson plan along with the time-table.

Importance of the lesson plans:

Teachers are given the curriculum for the full academic year, which is further divided into monthly plans. This monthly syllabus is planned into weekly schedules. The plans for the next month should be ready by the last week of the previous month. This plan is further broken down into weekly plans which is again followed with daily plans. The academic curriculum and the co-curricular activities are taken into consideration while deciding the time table.

Teachers must prepare and keep all the materials required ready. If the teacher is unprepared with the material, it would distract the children leading them into munching their snacks, talking and playing around aimlessly. Hence, a lot of time would be wasted by the teacher to quieten the class and re-settle the children. But, if the lesson plan book is ready on her table along with the material required for that particular day, automatically a good discipline would be observed in the class. This would ensure that the day scheduled would move forward smoothly. Therefore, planning the lessons is very important. If you already know the topics for each subject then one could prepare apt teaching aids, as the visual aids play a big role in helping the younger children learn better. So, the teachers can be ready with charts, flash cards, models, books from the library and instruments for experiments from the Science Laboratory.

Time Table:

In Nursery, there cannot be a fixed time table, as they need plenty of time for the activities. But, the teacher could prepare a flexible time table for the day and plan the activities, prepare the materials and the teaching aids accordingly. An example of a time table is below.

Period	Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
I	9am to 9.30am	Free Play	Free Play	Free Play	Free Play	Free Play
II	9.30am to 10am	Oral Work	Oral Work	Environmental Science (EVS)	Picture Talk	Story/Poem Recitation
III	10am to 10.30am	B	R	E	A	K
IV	10.30am to 11am	Physical Exercise	Yoga	Craft	Singing/ Music	Dancing

The teacher must arrange the free play before the children the start coming into the class. The first thirty minutes could be the free play, after which once the children have settled down on the floor the teacher could take the attendance and start with the oral work like recitation of poems, counting numbers, alphabets or introduce concepts. This could be followed by Environmental studies and some related activity such as the clay work. For example, red clay could be used to make an apple for demonstrating the use of the alphabet "A". Coloring, paper tearing, sticking, teaching a song could some other activities to consider. The children could then have a break and during this the teacher must teach them hygiene and discipline such as walking in a line, washing their hands before eating. Nursery children take more time, so encourage them for some physical activity related to music or dance. The nursery session could last upto two hours.

This is about the time-table and planning for the Nursery classes. However, the same information would not be applicable for the Junior and Senior Kindergarten. Following post would highlight the necessary information regarding the Junior and Senior KG time-table.

Here is wishing all my readers A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR in advance! May the year 2014 be rewarding and prosperous!

 

Sorry for the break due to unavoidable reasons.

CURRICULUM -

As I mentioned earlier that pre-primary section is not recognized by any board, there are no prescribed study material and guideline.
Each school decides on their own, so the curriculum depends on the creative mind of the head of the pre-primary section. The curriculum should be age appropriate and child friendly. It must have activities which are skill oriented.

NURSERY CURRICULUM-

Nursery is a preparatory year and all the activities are developmentally oriented, vocabulary, finger control, eye' hand coordination recognition of the environment, reading readiness, writing readiness, and physical development.

VOCABULARY-
3 year old child has limited vocabulary and to introduce new words, stories and poems are the most effective way. Also, oral communication and picture talk on different topics is also a good way to introduce new words.

FINER MOTOR CONTROL-
Children's fingers are yet not ready for writing, so for strengthening their finger control and eye-hand coordination as  well as readiness. Activities like crayon work, colouring within the line, play work, puzzles, paper tearing and sticking, recognition of capital and small letters and numbers 1 to 10.

RECOGNITION AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE ENVIRONMENT-
For a child his home and his family is his world, so we must start with Myself and My Family, the names of family members and their relationship as an activity they can make an album of family members with the help of photographs . With nursery children the topic should be such that they can understand, Eg- beach, mall, park etc. While teaching animals start with pet and domestic animals. For such topics taught, teacher must give a follow-up activity like worksheet, colouring, cotton sticking. One day you can ask the children to bring their pet if they have.

PHYSICAL MOVEMNT-
Singing and Dancing must be a part of the curriculum. The steps along with beats not only give them physical movement but a sense of rhythm. Outdoor play for this age group is a little dangerous as each child needs individual attention. Most of the schools have indoor gym of foam blocks of different shapes. And this is used for climbing, walking , balancing etc. Running in circle , hopping on one leg, go to the shapes, colour square, alphabets and numbers. My,"You can Do Activity" series is graded according to the age- Book A is for 3yrs, Book B for 4yrs and Book C is for 5 yrs. Schools are using this set and parents can also use thees at home.

For inquiry and order you can contact me on-
Email : jjdesai90@gmail.com