Dear Parents,

We are so pleased that you have chosen Colegio Maya as your child's school. We realize that this was a significant decision on your part and we will honor your trust by providing a quality, broad based, multiply intelligent education for your child. One means by which we can demonstrate our accountability is in providing you with these grade level curriculum books.

Each grade level booklet was produced through the efforts of our elementary teachers and is intended to give you an outline of what your child will learn this year. In addition we want you to understand our philosophy, so we have also included a belief and mission statement for each subject area. You will find a profile of the intellectual, physical and emotional make-up of a child at each grade level. Because we believe as Howard Gardner that all individuals have the capacity to demonstrate intelligence in a variety of ways, we have also provided you with a listing of Gardner's 8 Intelligences. You will find that your child will have the opportunity throughout the school year to experience learning and demonstrate knowledge through these intelligences.

We believe curriculum is a process as well as a product and as such is always changing. Each year as we revise curriculum, we post our most current information on our web site www.cm.edu.gt. Please check the website to see in greater detail what your child will learn in Social Studies. Spanish will be added soon and this year we will add Language Arts.

Colegio Maya Elementary is proud to be partners with you in the education of your child. We welcome your comments and questions regarding this booklet and hope that you will find it useful.

Sincerely,

Donna K. Lyne
Elementary Principal

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Linguistic intelligence	Musical intelligence
Linguistic intelligence consists of the ability to think in words and to use language to express and appreciate complex meanings. Authors' poets, journalists, speakers, and newscasters exhibit high degrees of linguistic intelligence.	Musical intelligence is evident in individuals who possess a sensitivity to pitch, melody, rhythm, and tone. Those demonstrating this intelligence include composers, conductors, musicians, critics, instrument makers, as well as sensitive listeners.
Logical-mathematical intelligence	Interpersonal intelligence
Logical-mathematical intelligence makes it possible to calculate, quantify, consider propositions and hypotheses, and carry out complex mathematical operations. Scientists, accountants, engineers, and computer programmers all demonstrate this intelligence.	Interpersonal intelligence is the capacity to understand and interact effectively with others. It is evident in successful teachers, social workers, actors, or politicians. Just as Western culture has recently begun to recognize the connection between mind and body, so too has it to come to value the importance of proficiency in inter- personal behavior.
Spatial intelligence	Intrapersonal intelligence
Spatial intelligence instills the capacity to think in three-dimensional ways as do sailors, pilots, sculptors, painters, and architects. It enables one to perceive external and internal imagery, to recreate, transform, or modify images, to navigate oneself and objects through space, and to produce or decode graphic information.	Intrapersonal intelligence refers to the ability to construct an accurate perception of oneself and to use such knowledge in planning and directing lif one se. Some individuals with strong intra- personal intelligence specialize as theologians, psychologists, and philosophers.
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence	Naturalist intelligence
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence enables one to manipulate objects and fine-tune physical skills. It is evident in athletes, dancers, surgeons, and craftspeople. In Western societies, physical skills are not as highly valued as cognitive ones, and yet elsewhere the ability to use one's body is a necessity for survival as well as an important feature of many prestigious roles.	Naturalist intelligence consists of observing patterns in nature, indentifying and classifying objects, and understanding natural and human-made systems. Skilled naturalists include farmers, botanists, hunters, ecologists, and landscapers.

The Mayan School of Guatemala intends to provide an excellent educational opportunity, based on a U.S. curriculum, primarily for the international community in Guatemala, regardless of race, nationality or creed. The Mayan School shall offer a program of studies to prepare for success in the U.S. university system. Recognizing the transient nature of the student body, the curriculum should enable students to transfer between the Mayan School and other U.S. international and Guatemalan schools, insofar as equivalency requirements do not conflict with U.S. curriculum standards. The Mayan School shall endeavor to provide a program that maintains, and benefits from the international diversity of the community. The Mayan School is committed to the development of the whole individual and is dedicated to fostering students' intellectual, social, emotional and physical growth to prepare them to become good citizens and productive members of society.

We at Colegio Maya Believe in educating lifelong learners by:

Fostering a safe, caring, and joyful environment;
Celebrating the diversity of our Colegio Maya family;
Creating responsible world citizens;
Encouraging a social and environmentally aware conscience;
Preparing for a changing technological world;
Stimulating curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking;
Affirming the students' right and responsibility to explore their potential.

The Colegio Maya Community Will:

1. Integrate and celebrate diversity within and beyond the campus.
2. Enhance information management skills and resources.
3. Create opportunities to improve communication and participation within the school community.

Every Child is an individual who grows and develops at his/her own rate. Children in the same grade may be expected to differ widely from others in their group. There are, however, general characteristics which, apply to most of the children at a certain age.

THE KINDERGARTEN CHILD MAY:

¨ Be curious and active.
¨ Be shy and reserved.
¨ Act anxiously about being separated from cares givers.
¨ Be impatient.
¨ Show independence.
¨ Enjoy interactions with other children and adults.

THE KINDERGARTEN CHILD NEEDS:

¨ To feel secure and loved.
¨ Routine.
¨ To feel accepted.
¨ A secure and safe environment.
¨ Choices, at both active and quiet times.
¨ Opportunities to exercise large and small muscles.
¨ To have toys and take turns while playing.
¨ To be read to DAILY.
¨ Good nutritional habits with ten or more hours of sleep each night.
¨ Opportunities to communicate and opportunities to be listened to.

PARENTS CAN HELP BY:

¨ Being interested in the child's activities.
¨ Providing good food, the opportunity for plenty of sleep, and a quiet time each day.
¨ Providing encouragement, regular study time, and a place with no distractions for school work.
¨ Understanding that children make errors in the process of learning.
¨ Inviting other children to the home (providing group play).
¨ Talking with your child about new experiences.
¨ Helping your child develop unselfish attitudes.
¨ Notifying the school of problems in the home that cause emotional stress for a child (i.e. divorce, death in family).
¨ Acknowledging good work and behavior.
¨ Monitoring your child's progress by having close contact with the teacher and knowing the school and classroom program.
¨ Discussing how medicines should be taken (only under the supervision of responsible adults and health care givers).
¨ Teaching the potential harmful effects of some medicines and substances on the body.
¨ Establishing limits that fit your child's age and following through with consequences and/or rewards.
¨ Limiting television viewing and encouraging active, creative play.

PK-12 Language Arts Philosophy

We believe language is the foundation for all other learning. We affirm that instruction in English must be a priority, and that the instruction our students receive must balance aesthetic values with practical applications. Instruction in Language Arts should build from basic skills to more advanced skills in a manner based on logical connections and developmental appropriateness. We believe that literacy is the integration of all forms of communication: reading, writing, speaking, listening, and critical thinking.

Language Arts Curriculum Goals

1. Our children will be readers and writers.
2. Our children will use language to understand themselves and others and to make sense of their world.
3. Our children will use language as a tool to accomplish goals.
4. Our children will leave our classrooms as individuals who know how to listen, speak, read, and write effectively.
5. Our children will recognize when language is being used to manipulate, persuade or control them.
6. Our children will become language theorists.
7. Our children will appreciate and respect the languages and cultures of others.

Colegio Maya the American International School's Language Arts Curriculum has eight standards, based on the International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English standards for the English Language Arts and it also provides grade level benchmarks to assist teachers in planning, assessment, and instruction.

Standards for the English Language Arts

1. Demonstrates competence in listening and speaking as tools for learning
2. Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the reading process
3. Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts
4. Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of informational texts
5. Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the writing process
6. Demonstrates competence in the stylistic and rhetorical techniques in writing
7. Uses grammatical and mechanical conventions in written compositions
8. Gathers and uses information for research purposes

YOUR CHILD IS LEARNING TO:

¨ Listen and respond appropriately in a classroom situation to oral instruction.
¨ Wait his/her turn and respond appropriately.
¨ Verbalize ideas from personal and / or literary experiences in complete sentences.
¨ Demonstrate knowledge of rhymes, poems, songs, and finger plays.
¨ Properly care for and handle books - (identify: top/bottom, front/back, left/right, word by word matching, book title, title page, cover, author's name, illustrator, and page numbers).
¨ Recognize patterns in print through the use of pattern books such as "Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"
¨ Recognize the difference between letters and words.
¨ Recognize and write his/her first name with correct capital and lower case letters.
¨ Recognize and write simple high frequency words such as: "to", "the", "go", "and".
¨ Use pictures, context, structural, and phonetic clues to determine unknown words.
¨ Write through use of scribbling, drawing pictures, using letters to represent words, or copying words from his/her surroundings.
¨ Dictate stories.
¨ Use appropriate beginning, middle, and ending sounds in writing independently or with guidance.
¨ Use the appropriate orientation of writing (left/right, top/bottom) and word spacing.

PARENTS CAN HELP BY:

¨ Reading to your child daily.
¨ Creating awareness, while reading, that written words tell something.
¨ Setting an example by reading.
¨ Talking with your child daily about what he/she did at school.
¨ Providing supplies (pencil, crayons, scissors, glue, and paper) to practice writing and drawing stories together.
¨ Saying, reading, and singing nursery rhymes or songs.
¨ Taking your child to the library, getting a library card, and using it weekly.
¨ Discussing the books being read at school.
¨ Reading and talking about other books read at home.

The goal of mathematics education is mathematical power for all students. The development of mathematical power requires work that is challenging and engaging for every student and which accommodates the full range of diversity within a classroom. Students learn and use skills and concepts within larger mathematical units. Thinking mathematically, using understanding of important mathematical ideas, using tools and techniques, collaborating with other students, and communicating results are all involved in assessment as well as instructional activities.

YOUR CHILD IS LEARNING TO:

¨ Count, read, write, order, and compare numbers.
¨ Count out sets as named by the teacher.
¨ Explore, create, and perform number operations with manipulative. (Some children may record these number operations.)
¨ Estimate while working with quantities, measurement, and problem solving.
¨ Identify, match, and name shapes.
¨ Copy, describe, extend, and generate patterns.
¨ Identify the quantities of more/less, and same/different.
¨ Sort by single attribute and describe criterion.
¨ Create and interpret graphs.
¨ Use computers.
¨ Measure with non-standard units such as hands, feet, paper clips, or beans.
¨ Apply math to everyday situations.

PARENTS CAN HELP BY:

¨ Practicing, counting, reading, and writing numbers with your child.
¨ Sorting clothing, dishes, silverware, and other things at home and naming how they can be sorted.
¨ Clapping patterns with your child.
¨ Using silverware to make sequence patterns.
¨ Playing dominoes and card games with your child.

Science gives children opportunities to explore how things work through activities and experiences. Science activities stimulate them to wonder, predict, and offer explanations. Kindergarten through second grade; students learn to use the scientific process skills of observing, communicating, comparing, ordering, and categorizing. This helps them construct their own knowledge of scientific principles and concepts, making these a part of the way they see the world and influencing the decisions they make about their lives.

YOUR CHILD IS LIKELY TO INVESTIGATE THESE COM\NCEPTS:

PHYSICAL SCIENCE

¨ Matter can be grouped according to its various properties.
¨ Most matter can be classified as solid, liquid, or gas, all of which take up space.
¨ Things move left, right, up, down, around, near, far, above, and below.
¨ Objects move when there is a push or a pull.
¨ Magnets can move some objects.
¨ A magnet can pull a metal object toward itself.

EARTH SCIENCE

¨ People use land and water to live on, to grow things, to take them places, to work with, and to have fun.
¨ Careful use of land and water is by keeping them clean.
¨ Many places on earth have four seasons.
¨ Rain and wind are different kinds of weather.
¨ You can see stars in the sky.
¨ The stars shine with their own light, like the sun. The stars are very big, and very far away.

LIFE SCIENCE

¨ Identify animals of the Tundra.
¨ Identify plants of the Tundra.
¨ Many plants grow from seeds.
¨ Plants need air, water, light and soil to grow.
¨ Plants are alike in that they have similar parts.
¨ People change as they mature, physically, mentally, and socially.
¨ Growth and change from infancy to adulthood can be affected by personal health-care practices.
¨ Health care practices that promote good health.
¨ Can identify with safe practices with fire and water safety.

PARENTS CAN HELP BY:

¨ Donating consumable items requested by the classrooms teacher.
¨ Extending school lessons at home.
¨ Helping coordinate and find guest speakers for the classroom.
¨ Reading science-based literature at home.
¨ Planting a garden or a window box at home. Observing changes.
¨ Doing simple experiments with ice; melting ice in sun and shade, then timing the differences and repeating a number of times.
¨ Visiting a park and observing rocks, soil, plants and animals.
¨ Pointing out solids, liquids, and gases in the environment.
¨ Discussing daily weather.
Watching nature programs on TV.

Description

In Kindergarten we study family, community (including a look at community service), compare ourselves to the people of the country we study for the world's fair (usually an Arctic country), how we celebrate our countries and holidays.

Topic 1: Understanding Family Life and Work Together
Standard 1: How Families Live?
Standard 2: What do we find in a family?
Standard 3: How families are alike and different?

Content:
Standard 1: Student should know how families live
v From data gathered through family artifacts and photos and a family interview, draw possible conclusions about roles, jobs, and other aspects of family life.
v Reading books and discussing our families.
v Identify what we find in a family.
v Compare and contrast different families among students.

Assessment:
v Create illustrations of how their own family plays and works together
v Express through illustrations and dictations how their family celebrates holidays and brithdays.

Standard 2: Students should understand who makes up a family
v Understand that there are many different people in a family.
v Compare and contrast how each family is unique and special.

Assessment:
v Create their families using different art mediums.
v Compare and contrast the different people in the student's family with other students' families.
v Explore literature with different kinds of family - single families, extended families, foster homes, guardians raising children.
v Create a family book, using illustrations, photos, and dictations.

Standard 3: Students will compare and contrast how families are different.
v Compare and contrast how families are different.
v Compare and contrast how families are alike.
v Understand how each family gives love and support.

Assessment:
v Illustrate or create stories of how their own family is like their friends' families.
v Illustrate or create stories of how their family is different from a cousin or friend.
v Reenact or role play families together - how they work and play.

Topic 2: People of Many Cultures Around the World
Standard 4: Students will understand selected attributes and holidays of a selected country (Arctic region)
Standard 5: Students will compare and contrast their own lives with that of those people in the selected country.

Assessments:
v Draw upon books and illustrations to compare our world to their world.
v Create art projects, projects, and books to demonstrate the selected attributes and holidays.
v Create charts, Venn diagrams comparing and contrasting similarities and differences of the selected country and our own.

Topic 3: Celebrations

Standard 6: Students should understand and participate in U.S. and Guatemalan holiday celebrations that fall within the school calendar.
Standard 7: Students will be able to describe the celebrations, including how and why we celebrate.

Assessment:
v Reenact, dance, and create activities that are associated with a certain holiday.
v Illustrate, write, and dictate books and stories about how people celebrate a certain holiday.

Topic 4: Life in the Arctic
Standard 8: Students should demonstrate and understanding of what life is like in the Arctic.
Standard 9: Investigate the land and climate of the Arctic.

Assessment:
v Draw upon books and illustrations both fiction and non-fiction to understand what life is like in the Arctic.
v Illustrate books, comic strips, and word bubbles of how people live in the Arctic.
v Design books, diaramas, posters, and murals to illustrate and describe the Arctic terrain.

From the early year, students learn about themselves and their world by drawing and painting, sculpting, singing, playing musical instruments, dancing, and performing dramatic exercises and presentations. Each of the arts provides students with increased perceptions that awakens their senses and helps them better understand and interpret the world around them. In a well-planned arts program, students gain the skills necessary to creatively express their ideas, feelings, and imagination as they produce works in the arts.

YOUR CHILD IS LEARNING TO:

¨ Develop an awareness and appreciation of music.
¨ Develop musical skills by participation in singing, listening to music, moving to musical rhythms, dancing, marching, moving creatively, playing simple games and dances, and repeating musical patterns.
¨ Develop fine motor skills in coloring, tracing, cutting, folder gluing, lacing, and weaving.
¨ Follow directions and organize materials.
¨ Develop responsibility for the care and use of materials.
¨ Express feelings and ideas through art experiences.
¨ Experience using a variety of art mediums in painting, collage, sculpture, printing, and drawing.
¨ Appreciate art through exposure to illustrations in books, pictures, paintings, and/or other art forms.

PARENTS CAN HELP BY:

¨ Practicing cutting out pictures with your child.
¨ Singing silly or traditional songs as a family.
¨ Providing a variety of materials to encourage creative art activities.
¨ Visiting museums and galleries.
¨ Watching TV presentations that encourage children to sing-along.
¨ Listening to tapes of favorite songs and instruments.
¨ Providing beginning music or dance training.

A Physical Education Program meets a student's need to develop physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially by providing physical activity and the instruction of skills that enable him/her to participate in activities throughout life. A physical education fitness program for primary children should be based upon learning the fundamentals of movement and building a foundation for physical fitness.

YOUR CHILD IS LEARNING TO:

¨ Develop body coordination through motor skills: walk, run, hop, gallop, jump, and skip.
¨ Develop body coordination through body awareness: balance, posture, body image, and creative movement.
¨ Develop body coordination through rhythms: walk, run, slide, jump, hop, gallop, and skip in rhythm with a musical beat.
¨ Develop body coordination through activities: animal walks, jump rope, and simple movements.
¨ Develop body coordination through game skills: catching a ball, hitting a target, passing objects, bouncing a ball, and kicking a ball.
¨ Develop responsibility by taking turns, plying with others cooperatively, following directions, and taking care of equipment.
¨ Develop a positive attitude toward the value of physical activity and cardiovascular system development.
¨ Develop safe and proper use of playground equipment.

PARENTS CAN HELP BY:

¨ Practicing skipping with your child.
¨ Jumping rope (group and individual) with your child.
¨ Playing with a ball or beanbag with your child.
¨ Practicing throwing, catching, hitting, and kicking a ball.

Classroom Sets and Novels

¨ A Busy Year
¨ School Days
¨ This Is The Way You Go To School
¨ All About You
¨ Hungry Bear
¨ Today Is Monday
¨ Sunshine Series (Wright Group)
¨ The Story Box (Wright Group)
¨ New Way Books