South Lyon Community Schools offers a Junior Kindergarten program at select elementary schools in the district. This program is ideal for students whose fifth birthday falls between September 2 and December 1. If space allows, students whose fifth birthday falls between June 1 and September 1 are also eligible to enroll in Junior Kindergarten.


What is Junior Kindergarten?

Junior Kindergarten is a bridge year to traditional kindergarten and does not replace the kindergarten year. Junior Kindergarten exposes students to all the aspects of school. Students attend a full day of school, daily curriculum, lunch and recess, and experience PE, art, music, and library. Junior Kindergarten is capped at 22 students and each classroom has a classroom teacher and a paraprofessional.


What is the curriculum in Junior Kindergarten?

The curriculum in Junior Kindergarten places an emphasis on the building blocks of literacy and social emotional development as well as math and writing skills. Students are exposed to and explicitly taught letters and letter sounds. Students explore nursery rhymes weekly and are able to apply literacy skills to the rhymes, such as concepts about print and story elements. Students have a daily math workshop focusing on numbers, counting, shapes, position words, patterns and comparing. Students also participate in interactive writing, where they focus on handwriting, building sentences and noticing patterns in words. Students also engage in purposeful play workshops throughout the day, where they learn through play more often than a traditional kindergarten year. Through play the teacher and paraprofessional coach students through working as a team, being a friend and problem-solving skills.


What do the parents say about Junior Kindergarten?

“JK allowed my daughter extra time to develop her social skills before jumping right into kindergarten. The extra play-based curriculum and attention on social emotional skills has truly benefited her in K. She is much more confident and is excelling with the kindergarten curriculum. I would highly recommend JK to anyone with a young 5 child.” - Kent Lake Parent

“We have had the best experience with our son in the JK class. He has grown so much in his learning, especially with letters and numbers. But the biggest benefit to him (and to us) is how much more interested he is in learning. The JK program has so much more structure, content, and better mimics the kindergarten setting than repeating 4-year-old preschool again. We could not ask for anything more from this school year and are so glad we made this choice!” - Dolsen Parent


Want to enroll? There may still be spots available for the 2024-25 school year! Check our website for more information.