Lake View Primary’s kindergarten classes began the new school year with a new look, a new layout and a new mission: to create students who are curious, academically brave and love learning. The tool to bring that mission to fruition is a teaching method for early learners called the Kindergarten Experience.

Research that shows that 5-year-olds don’t learn in the same manner as older children, and the Kindergarten Experience uses methods better suited for the ways a 5-year-old learns. 

One of the most noticeable differences with the Kindergarten Experience is the classrooms are no longer arranged with desks in rows facing the teacher. Rather, it’s arranged into several different learning centers, each one dedicated to different skill sets for young learners. The learning areas are dedicated to science, literacy and reading, math, dramatic play, art, manipulatives, and tinkering. Each area has a table with chairs, and the materials dedicated to that space’s purpose stored next to it.

The kindergarten students still engage in direct instruction, which occurs with them sitting on the big rug in front of the projector with the teacher or seated at a table in the learning stations facing the teacher.

Some of the creativity centers help develop a child’s motor skills, some encourage creativity and others foster student-to-student cooperation, all of which are skills that will benefit them as they move into the higher grades.

Most of the activities and projects kids do at the learning station are designed to accomplish multiple things at once. For instance, a student in the Manipulatives learning center might be developing his or her fine motor skills while learning to use scissors, trace, color or draw.

“If the student is learning about the number two that week, the teachers will have them cut out the letter two,” Lake View Principal Brian Henderson said. “It’s a great way to reinforce the things they are being taught that week.”

Lake View’s move to the Kindergarten Experience started last school year when Superintendent Bryce Anderson approached Henderson wanting to look at ways of revamping kindergarten.

“He wanted some more hands-on, more developmentally appropriate for this age group. Something dynamic and progressive,” Henderson said. “I got some initial ideas from Penni Case (PUSD’s exceptional student services director), and she recommend we do the Kindergarten Experience program.” 

Pre-COVID, the Arizona Department of Education had funded the Kindergarten Experience for numerous kindergartens throughout the state, including Lake View Primary. But the program dissolved during the pandemic and returned to traditional teaching methods. Henderson contacted the organization last year and received from them information about how to restart the program. Lake View kindergarten teachers had a two-day training in April, followed by a second two-day training in July with the idea of having full implementation for the 2023-24 school year.

Lake View kindergarten teachers Colbi Couts, Sara Watson and Christina Knapp had been involved with the program when it was first introduced several years ago, and they were enthusiastic to bring it back.

One of the big goals of the Kindergarten Experience is to teach the kids how to be good students and give them the tools to do that, Couts said.

“The heart of the Kindergarten Experience isn’t standards or test data,” Couts said.

“Instead, it’s teaching and growing the whole child. If we build strong relationships with our students and help nurture healthy peer-to-peer connections, we can create a strong learning environment where students feel comfortable taking risks and learning from failure.

“Our classrooms have been designed to offer rich hands-on learning experiences that will be more meaningful, relevant and memorable than traditional methods, such as worksheets. These experiences will prepare our students emotionally and academically for their traditional journeys ahead.”

Part of The Kindergarten Experience is encouraging students that they can be in charge of their success, Knapp said.

“The Kindergarten Experience gives them more ownership over the whole classroom space,” Knapp said.

“Our job as early education teachers is to make sure we foster a love of learning, and also a desire to learn. If we can exit our kids [to first grade] as confident learners – and not just confident learners but also as questioning leaners – we have done our jobs. The Kindergarten Experience gives the teachers and the students all the tools to be able to leave kindergarten as those types of leaners. A confident learner is confident in their own knowledge, a questioning learner is someone who want to go forward. They realize they don’t know the answer but they’re confident enough to ask the questions.”

Lake View's Kindergarten teachers are Colbi Couts, Jentri Lund, Jade Benigra, Catherine Rasmussen, Rena O'Neal, Christina Knapp and Sara Watson.