UKG Curriculum

The COVID-19 pandemic has almost faded away around the world. We have started the offline sessions with the help of our already robust UKG curriculum. One of the most significant strengths of Ekam is our ongoing commitment to ensuring our UKG curriculum reflects current educational trends. It is a huge task to ensure the UKG curriculum that we produce is of the highest standard and is based on the most current research and best practices in education. We have a team of educators working on curriculum development and enhancement who work determinedly to bring the best to the students and the community as a whole. There has been a lot of research done and finally after some changes we have been able to bring our interactive online classes. Our belief is that education is the strongest tool that can positively impact our future.

Ekam Educational Concepts

In today’s formal teaching the trend is to encourage a lot of creativity, supported with a balance between achievement and improvement. They are based on pedagogical patterns and futuristic approaches defining the best teaching methods. Ekam uses teaching methods, best practices, and materials that are age-appropriate, suitable, and competent with respect to the characteristic of the students and the type of learning they are supposed to get. The design and selection of teaching methods take into account the nature of the subject matter as well as how students learn.

We are pioneering a vibrant and child-friendly system of learning, creating a child-friendly & harmonious environment, focusing on the satisfaction of a child’s inquisitive mind and thorough concept clarity. Ekam preschool runs with a unique concept that focuses on playful learning and fun learning.

At Ekam, we believe in happy, balanced, and a stress-free environment. Working with the understanding that each child is unique and teaching on the concepts of multiple intelligence has helped us in creating a stress-free learning environment. There are usually three learning preferences of a child – visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. Taking these factors into consideration the curriculum is designed and developed to fit the requirements, interests, abilities, and learning styles of the child. The Ekam school program is designed to enhance the social, emotional, spiritual, physical, motor, and cognitive development of each child.

Ekam’s teaching strengths:

• Student Friendly Teachers
• Well-Researched Curriculum
• Ingenious Books
• Creative Learning Aids
• Digital Trends
• Home Classroom
• Interactive – daily interaction between student and teacher
• Planned Lessons
• Online resources to enhance student’s knowledge

Integrated Learning Environment

At Ekam, we feel that it is important for education to be effective, the learning environment needs to be conducive to learning, allowing the child the required space and time to interact with teachers. Ekam Kids team is dedicated to create and maintain a stimulating overall learning environment. We are working on the integrated learning environment including the environment at the school end and the environment at the home end. The students should find it seamless to actively participate, grow & learn in a natural way.

The school time is broadly divided into Academics, Montessori, and Loco-motor activities. In the lesson plan of each, we have age-appropriate activities basically focusing on developing reading writing, and communication skills. In the Junior Kindergarten years, the focus is also on developing three-finger co-ordination, hand and eye coordination, classification, sorting, size/visual discrimination, stacking, phonetics.

UKG or Senior Kindergarten curriculum under Academics broadly caters to Literacy or Language Skills (Mainly English), Numeracy or Math Skills, and General Awareness.

Literacy Skills: Here is a list of all of the language skills students learn in UKG! These skills are organized into categories and a lot of worksheets and learning material is provided to help them understand the concepts thoroughly.
Oral and Recognition.
Listening and Speaking with inculcating love for books through reading, library time, and story-time.
Pattern writing with dots.
A to Z picture reading.
A to Z tracing.
Text features – identify book parts and features, choose the sentence that is spaced correctly, choose the two words that are the same.
Alphabets – Capital and small, matching and tracing, identify frequently confused letters, put the letters in ABC order.
Missing letters.
After, before, between.
Consonants and vowels – find the vowel in the word.
Two-letter words.
Three-letter words.
Rhyming, blending, and segmenting.
Consonant sounds and letters.
Consonant blends and digraphs.
Short and long vowels.
Sight words.
Sentences.
Capitalization.
Word relationships – antonyms, synonyms – a brief.
Parts of speech and prepositions.
Word relationships.
a, e, i, o, u letter words.

Numeracy Skills: Here is a list of all of the math skills students learn in UKG! These skills are organized into categories and a lot of worksheets and learning material is provided to help them understand the concepts thoroughly.
Oral and recognition 1 to 100.
Number writing 1 to 50.
Number names.
Count and write.
Matching.
Shapes – name the shape – circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, rhombus, oval, hexagon, and pentagon – count and compare sides and corner.
Introduction to symmetry
Three-dimensional shapes – spheres, cubes, cones, cylinders.
After, before, between, and missing numbers.
Count forward and backward.
Skip counting.
Comparing by matching, comparing by counting and compare in a mixed group.
Positions – inside and outside, above and below, beside and next to, left and right, left, middle and right, top and Bottom, top, middle and bottom, location in a grid.
Order, classify and sort.
Odd one out.
Pattern write – color patterns, shape patterns, size patterns.
Size – long and short, tall and short, wide and narrow, light and heavy.
Puzzles.
Addition and Subtraction.
Number line.
Money – coin values, count 1-rupee coins, and more, handling money.

General Awareness: Here is a list of all of the EVS skills students learn in UKG! These skills are organized into categories and a lot of worksheets and learning material is provided to help them understand the concepts thoroughly.
Me and my family.
Body parts.
Food.
Routine – breakfast, lunch, dinner.
Fruits.
Parts of the tree.
Vegetables.
Transport.
Colors.
Shapes.
Animals – domestic and wild.
Birds.
Insects.
Water animals.
Flowers.
Community helpers.
Sports and games.
Seasons.
Weather
Places around us.
Airport.
Circus.
Beach.
Time.
Traffic signs.
How to cross the road.
Importance of safety.
Safe circle.
Balanced diet.
Cleanliness.
Festivals.
Clothes.
Park and nursery.
Living room.
Bedroom.
Dining room.
Kitchen.
Bathroom.
Balcony.
Magic words.
Greeting others.
Days of the week.
Months of the year.
Animal babies, animal homes and animal sounds.
Living things.
Non-living things.
National symbols.
Love for your nation.

In the UKG curriculum at the Montessori level we focus on sensorial (training of senses) which includes visual, tactile (touch), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), auditory (hearing), and sterognostic (tactile with movement), practical life which includes care of self, care of the environment, grace and courtesy, control of movement, the gain of concentration, personal independence, language arts which includes phonetics, word cards (vocabulary), grammar (mechanics), word study (usage), sentence analysis (structure) and composition, mathematics which includes counting (quantity and symbol), decimal system, memory work, concrete abstraction, arithmetic operations, geometry (shapes and planes), cultural studies which include geography, zoology, science, and botany.

At UKG the Montessori learning aids used are Balancing beam, Maze chase, Sensory activities, Spindle box, Beads spiral, Pink tower, Cylinder blocks, Soundbox, Abacus, Alphabet, and Numbers, etc. Rhyme time, Phonetics time, Prayer time, Library time, Storytime, Dance time are some of the activities that the kids enjoy and participate enthusiastically. Focus is on identification, matching, maze, thinking, searching, join the dot activities, etc.

In the UKG curriculum, the locomotor skill development helps the children to learn to follow instructions and get into a structured class. Typically in a locomotor skill class the kids do a little bit of running for warm-up after which stretching exercises and lastly they take up some with or without the ball activities. From this age group we also have football, basketball, tennis, karate sessions from time-to-time. Roughly in order of how children learn the locomotor skills are:

• Walking: Moving with one foot on the ground at all times.
• Running: Sometimes both feet are in the air while traveling.
• Hopping: Moving up and down on one foot.
• Jumping: Going up and down, with both feet in the air at once; can also mean jumping off a height or jumping forward.
• Galloping: Traveling with one foot always in the lead.
• Sliding: Galloping sideways.
• Leaping: Jumping forward or back with one leg outstretched; taking off on one foot and landing on the other.
• Skipping: Alternating steps and hops.

Celebrations are much awaited by the kids. May it be for anything like Red Day, Green Day, Orange Day… or World Earth Day, Teddy Day, Fairy Tale Day, Umbrella Day… or Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Friendship Day, Chef Day, Salad Day… or any of the festivals like Holi, Diwali, Christmas, Guru Parab, Halloween…. the kids show a lot of enthusiasm and zeal in participating in any of the events. It is fun to be with them and enjoy. These celebrations along with birthday celebrations are enjoyed by the kids. It gives them a good time to chill out in their peer groups and is great fun watching them. Celebrations actually boost their well-being — and this is true for major milestones and daily wins alike. One of the main reasons celebrating is so important is because it reflects an overall attitude of gratitude and enjoying what we have, instead of focusing on what we don’t have or only on what we want in the future. It brings out the joy of togetherness.

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