Kindergarten - Gateway 1

The instructional materials reviewed for Kindergarten do not meet the expectations for this indicator. The review team found that the instructional materials assess grade level content beyond Kindergarten.

• An example of this is the Classy Cars STEM Project, which asks students to time speeds, and measure in centimeters, meters and inches.
• In addition, while Kindergarten has five assessments embedded within the teacher edition, two of those assessments are not fully aligned with the scope of the standards: K.CC.B.4a on pages 107-108 is actually assessing K.CC.B.5 and K.G.B.5 on pages 438-439 does not fully address the standard as students taking this assessment do not engage in modeling.

*Evidence updated 10/27/15

The Kindergarten instructional materials do not meet requirements for majority of time spent on major clusters of the grade. A total of 56 activities/lessons are provided, and some may be repeated or take additional class periods. However, of the 56, only 35 of the lessons are aligned to major work at the grade. This would mean that if the 35 lessons were fully aligned then 62.5% of the time is spent on the major work. If you look more closely, the percent of time spent on major work would be below 62.5% considering there are lessons that are labeled as aligned to major work of the grade, but the activities in the lessons do not actually align. Below are a few examples of misalignment:

• STEM "Helicopter Rescue" is labeled as aligning with standard K.NBT.A.1, but the student work does not require students to record composition or decomposition by drawings or equations.
• STEM "Float Your Boat" is labeled as aligning with standards K.OA.A.2 and K.OA.A.3, but there is no student work that requires students to decompose numbers into pairs using objects or drawings, and no student work that requires students to record decomposition using equations. Student work requires counting pennies, writing number of pennies on a chart and circling letters that represent a cap or cup with pennies that together equal amounts of four pennies, six pennies and eight pennies.
• ART page 52 is labeled as aligning with standard K.OA.A.2, but does not clearly make a connection between student work and the standard requirement of solving addition and subtraction word problems.

These are examples of work beyond the grade level:

• Teacher edition page 281 addresses the written words for numbers. K.NBT is a major domain and cluster in Kindergarten, but between the three resources there are only three lessons/activities that align with the standards here, and the activities do not reach the depth of the standard or the time needed to develop beginning understanding of place value. Because of these misalignments, the actual time spent on major work would be less than 62.5%.

The instructional materials for Kindergarten do not meet criteria for supporting content enhancing mathematical focus. Each supporting cluster and additional cluster is taken out and given its own lessons. They are not clearly placed together with major clusters to create coherence. The standards that are placed together in lessons are major cluster standards, additional clusters or supporting clusters. For example:

• The first nine lessons have K.CC.A.1, K.CC.B.2 and K.CC.C.3 grouped together for the lessons but do not link to supporting clusters.
• Between the seven lessons/activities labeled as K.MD there is some connection to focus standards, but not to the point where it enhances major work. If one problem/question asks about more/less, that is not enough of a connection to K.OA and K.CC.C. If one problem has students counting, that is not enough of a connection to K.CC.

The instructional materials for Kindergarten do not meet expectations for viability of content coverage for one school year. According to the teacher edition there are 32 lessons, 23 arts lessons and 4 STEM lessons. It is difficult to calculate the number of days needed for instruction using Creative Core Curriculum.

• According to the introduction year planning section, "There is no prescribed way to teach all of the strands of the mathematics standards and this ought to be personalized according to the needs of the school" ... "Teachers are free to use the lesson plans in the order that they feel matches their needs best. Remember that many of the lessons will require repetition for mastery." The note to teachers also addresses the author's intent for teachers to repeat lessons: "It will be necessary to repeat this lesson, and work through all the written exercises depending on the response of the class. It is important to make sure that these early concepts are fully understood before moving on." Examples of suggested repetition are on pages 5, 13, 227 and 253. The review team felt that this practice allows for too much teacher discretion, disjointed pacing and a program that fits a smaller scope of days.
• While lessons could each be repeated multiple times, the amount of content for instruction is limited and would not fulfill a typical instruction for a normal school year. This is also evident when examining one major cluster, for example the K.NBT domain, which should allot for approximately 25% of the lessons aligned for that cluster. The resources reviewed spent approximately 5% of time on K.NBT.

The instructional materials for Kindergarten do not meet the expectation for consistency with the progressions. Examples include:

• The description of shapes in geometry is not developed according to the progressions in STEM "Castle Design" and K.G.4 teacher edition page 370.
• The use of the ten frame as a tool is evident in two lessons, teacher edition, page 270, and teacher edition, page 282. The progressions would call for more student-centered time grounding in 10, K.OA.
• The Kindergarten traditional text follows the progressions in using objects, drawings and equations to explore teen numbers. It does not give special treatment, as the progressions recommend, for numbers 11,12, 13 and 19. The decomposition of numbers (like with number bonds) is not used.

In addition, the materials do not give students extensive work with grade-level problems. The four problem situations developed in Kindergarten are not extensively taught or developed in the materials. The four lessons that are labeled K.OA.5 either do not fully address fluency or do not address it at all. This is not adequate for essential fluency development in Kindergarten.

Connections with prior grades is not relevant for Kindergarten materials. There is no evidence of notes or suggestions for what knowledge students bring when they enter into Kindergarten learning of counting, for example. Additionally, the connections between concepts are not clearly articulated for teachers and are not explicitly named for students.

The instructional materials for Kindergarten for coherence at a single grade do not meet expectations. When considering coherence within the grade, the review team found learning objectives that either address learning at the individual standard level, such as ART pages 33 and 69 and teacher edition page 427. Or the team found objectives that simply restate the cluster, such as STEM "Castle Design" and ART page 80.

Each lesson is taught in isolation, as a standard or a cluster of standards within the same domain. No evidence of lessons/activities where standards connect across domains are made, except in STEM "Helicopter Rescue" and the connection falls short. In addition K.CC.A.2 and K.CC.A.3 are not really covered in the activity but are labeled. When labeled in the teacher edition, standards K.CC.A1, K.CC.A.2 and K.CC.A.3 were placed together in the first nine lessons of the Kindergarten edition. This cluster is major grade level work. This cluster attempted to have natural progression in these lessons by beginning with zero, one and two in the first lesson and continuing to work with using a hundred square and number line up to 100 in the last two lessons, however the work is rushed and does not connect in later lessons.