Release Date: 08.22.2016

What’s Been Changed?

• We’ve removed activities from the sequence that research shows are not developmentally appropriate for four-year-olds, such as ecosystems, seasons, physics, and earth and space science lessons.
• We’ve added more robust lessons in areas like music, visual arts, and health.
• Many activities, like the nursery rhymes Jack and Jill and Mary Has a Little Lamb, have been updated with improved animations and new interactivity.
• Some activities, like the daily chicken observations, have been moved to different places in the sequence in order to keep children engaged throughout the year.

What This Means

• Classes that have already started SmartStart PreK will be reset and start over at the beginning of the sequence. Some children may notice that they are no longer seeing the daily chicken activities right away, but teachers can assure them that those activities will come up again later in the year. Starting over and replaying some activities will not have any negative effect on pre-K students. In fact, research shows that pre-K learners thrive with repetition.
• Playlists will not be affected. Though some activities were removed from the sequence, they are still available in Classroom Advantage. All activities that were in the previous version will be in the new version.
• Reports will not be affected. The names of the learning strands have not changed, so reports will have the same color-coded strands as the previous version.