Frog Street Pre-K - Criterion 1.1
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Criterion 1.1: Responsive Practices
Curriculum materials are designed to facilitate positive relationships by being responsive to diverse identities and backgrounds.
Indicator 1.1a
Curriculum materials are designed to support positive relationships and interactions with adults.
Frog Street Pre-K materials meet expectations for supporting positive relationships and interactions (1.1a).
The materials intentionally embed supports for adult–child interaction throughout daily routines, instructional activities, and play-based experiences. These supports are grounded in research on relationship-based learning and are reinforced across all nine Teaching Guides.
Consistent relationship-building routines are embedded across all themes, with the Connect component integrated throughout all nine Teaching Guides to provide repeated, intentional opportunities for adult–child interaction across the year. The daily Greeting Circle routine (Unite, Connect, Calm, Commit) establishes predictable structures that support trust, emotional safety, and relationship development.
This approach is grounded in research-based guidance, as the Welcome Guide explicitly cites research on how responsive, nurturing adult interactions support children’s social-emotional development and learning. "Conscious Discipline" principles are integrated throughout the curriculum to guide adult modeling of empathy, respect, and emotional regulation.
Opportunities for reciprocal interaction are embedded across settings, with adult–child interactions reinforced during Practice Centers, STEAM lessons, small-group instruction, and vocabulary development activities (e.g., vocabulary Cards, pp. 56–57). Teachers are prompted to ask open-ended questions, scaffold play, and engage in shared problem-solving during cooperative activities.
Modeling and guided practice support positive interactions, as teachers model social behaviors such as eye contact, respectful communication, and emotional regulation during Brain Smart Start and Greeting Circle activities. Children practice interaction skills through structured routines and cooperative play, with adult support and feedback. Some modeled scenarios and guided practice occur through role-play and scenario-based opportunities during Greeting Circle and select lessons.
Overall, Frog Street Pre-K provides robust, research-aligned supports to foster positive adult–child relationships through consistent routines, adult modeling, cooperative play, and embedded interaction opportunities throughout the instructional day. Relationship-building practices are reinforced throughout all Teaching Guides and across multiple learning contexts, demonstrating intentional design and sustained implementation.
Indicator 1.1b
Curriculum materials support collaborative partnerships with families by fostering communication and coordinating home-school learning.
Frog Street Pre-K materials meet expectations for supporting collaborative partnerships with families (1.1b).
The materials include tools for sharing information with families, such as newsletters, assessment checklists, and suggested home connections. Every week, each theme offers a family newsletter in English and Spanish, with additional languages available (15 in Family Connections). The newsletter tells families which theme and week they are on in the curriculum, the title, a word of the week, calming strategies they are working on and how they work, what children are working on and learning, and what’s coming up next week. Some include an additional page for the family to complete and return to school, which supports shared decision-making. Theme 1, Week 1 (p. 3) includes a Getting To Know Your Child survey in which the family provides more information about the child, their favorite things, and their family. Each theme includes a weekly family email, available in both English and Spanish. The email explains what children are learning, encourages families to discuss related topics at home (such as daily routines), and provides suggested questions to support those conversations. There is a link in the email to family connection activities, which takes families to the newsletter. It also includes a weekly storybook with a link so families can read it at home, is used in class, and offers audio and non-audio options. Teacher Guides prompt teachers to invite families to contribute photographs, home language vocabulary, family stories, food traditions, and name origins in connection with classroom learning.
The Welcome Guide provides some guidance on the importance of two-way communication and on strategies for creating a learning team (Welcome Guide, pp. 110-111). Weekly Family Connections establishes a clear and recurring cadence for ongoing communication with families (Welcome Guide, p. 16). In addition, the Welcome Guide identifies portfolios and the Pre-Kindergarten Skills Assessment Summary as tools for communicating children’s development with families during conferences and directs teachers to organize documentation into structured intervals to show growth over time (Welcome Guide, pp. 90-91). Materials do not indicate that information about student progress is shared in families' preferred language.
The materials offer suggestions on family communication and engagement through a variety of information-sharing tools. Weekly family newsletters provide an overview of instructional focus and suggested home activities (e.g., Theme 2, Teacher Guide, pp. 34–35). Observation Checklists and Assessment Data Collection Checklists support documentation of children’s progress and may inform family conversations (Theme 1, Teacher Guide, p. 28).
Family engagement is further supported through Family Connections and at-home activities. Weekly Family Connections suggest ways families can extend learning at home (e.g., planting seeds, identifying community helpers during car rides, baking for community workers).
The materials address and acknowledge cultural differences and family traditions. For example, respecting varied participation in the Pledge of Allegiance (Theme 1, Teacher Guide, p. 13), highlighting differences in Western and Indigenous perspectives (Theme 4, Teacher Guide, p. 18), encouraging children to share foods their families enjoy (Theme 8, Teacher Guide, p. 44), and noting varied ways families celebrate birthdays (Theme 9, Teacher Guide, p. 95). Additional supports include meeting the needs of diverse classrooms (Welcome Guide, pp. 94-95), meeting the needs of dual English language learners (Welcome Guide, pp. 96-98), and supporting students with special needs (Welcome Guide, pp. 99-109). Language access and opportunities for family input are also included. The Welcome Guide (pg. 59, 94-98) highlights translanguaging and multilingual supports that reinforce home language connection within instruction and family communication.
Overall, Frog Street Pre-K materials provide consistent and structured opportunities to support collaborative partnerships with families by fostering communication and coordinating home–school learning. The curriculum includes multiple tools for sharing information, such as weekly family newsletters, emails, assessment checklists, and suggested home connection activities. These resources establish a regular cadence for communication and provide families with information on instructional focus, classroom strategies, and ways to extend learning at home. The materials also include guidance for building relationships with families and encouraging family contributions, such as sharing cultural traditions, home language vocabulary, and family experiences.
Indicator 1.1c
Curriculum materials are culturally and linguistically responsive, reflecting and valuing learners’ diverse backgrounds and languages.
Frog Street Pre-K materials partially meet expectations for cultural and linguistic responsiveness (1.1c).
The Welcome Guide provides some cultural responsiveness guidance grounded in the "windows and mirrors" framework, which exposes children to people and experiences outside their familiarity and allows them to see themselves and their families reflected in the classroom.
The materials include some culturally relevant texts that help children explore identity, family, and difference. For example, A Chair for My Mother explores different jobs and family roles (Theme 2, p. 19), Quinito’s Neighborhood highlights similarities and differences in families and neighborhoods (Theme 3, pp. 18–19), The Waiting Game encourages discussion about how children received their names (Theme 9, p. 19), and Your Fabulous Skin supports discussion of physical differences such as skin and eye color (Theme 1, p. 44).
The materials also include some supports for multilingualism and cultural awareness. Teachers are prompted to translate weekly vocabulary into children’s home languages (Theme 2, p. 90), and guidance is provided to offer flexibility during the Pledge of Allegiance, including moments of silence or opting out (Theme 1, p. 13).
There are also opportunities for children to share cultural practices with peers and make connections between home and school. Teachers are prompted to invite families to share food or family photos (Theme 2, p. 17), children discuss name origins with family input (Theme 4, p. 17), and children share how birthdays and celebrations are observed at home (Theme 9, p. 95).
Representation is also visible across curriculum materials. Vocabulary cards include racially diverse children (Theme 3, Curriculum Resources), and several read-alouds depict children from different cultural backgrounds, such as Here Are My Hands (Theme 1, p. 42).
The materials also provide some guidance for culturally responsive teaching. Cultural awareness callouts appear 2–4 times per theme in the Teacher Guides, the Welcome Guide discusses anti-bias education and “windows and mirrors” (pp. 94–95), and teachers are encouraged to display culturally diverse materials and images in the classroom (Welcome Guide; Implementation Support: Eight Classroom Strategies to Optimize Pre-K Learning, p. 7).
Overall, Frog Street Pre-K provides a moderate range of culturally relevant examples and instructional supports, offering opportunities for children to see themselves represented and to learn about others. The materials include some culturally responsive texts across themes, activities, and teacher prompts embedded throughout, along with opportunities for children to share their own cultural practices and references that support awareness of diverse abilities. Supports for culturally responsive teaching are presented through callouts and embedded prompts that guide implementation within instruction. The materials can be strengthened by providing this guidance with greater detail and consistency throughout.
Indicator 1.1d
Curriculum materials are respectful of differences and designed to challenge prejudice, promote fairness, and foster compassion.
Frog Street Pre-K materials partially meet expectations for being respectful of differences, challenging prejudice, promoting fairness, and fostering compassion (1.1d).
The materials include some developmentally appropriate activities, routines, and teacher guidance that foster empathy, respect, and cultural awareness throughout the school day. The Welcome Guide provides some guidance for diverse classrooms, including anti-bias and cultural responsiveness sections that support honoring differences, fostering inclusive practices, and adapting instruction for multilingual learners and children with special needs (Welcome Guide, pp. 94-110).
Fairness, empathy, and compassion are reinforced through classroom structures such as the Absent Child Ritual, the We Care Basket, the Ways to Be Helpful poster, and the Kindness Tree. The Absent Child Ritual (Welcome Guide, p. 42, and Teacher Guides, pp. 13, 39, 65, 91) provides a daily routine in which children pause to wish absent classmates well, fostering empathy and a sense of community. The Kindness Tree (Welcome Guide, p. 46) provides a structure for recognizing acts of kindness observed in the classroom. The We Care Basket and Ways to Be Helpful poster (Welcome Guide, pg. 48 support compassion, helping behavior, and classroom responsibility. The curriculum models inclusive and respectful language, including the use of the term “multilingual learners” rather than outdated terminology (Theme 2, p. 34). Read-alouds and discussions invite children to explore similarities and differences in names, traditions, and customs (Themes 2 and 3, pp. 16–17 and 4–5). Additional examples of fairness, empathy, inclusion, and respect appear across Themes 1, 2, 3, 6, and 9.
The materials provide teacher guidance and cultural awareness supports intended to help address diverse learner needs. For example, the Welcome Guide section, “ Meeting the Needs of Diverse Classrooms” (pp. 95–99), offers general guidance and suggestions for supporting a range of learners. In addition, Teacher Guides include color-coded call-outs embedded throughout lessons, including blue call-outs for Cultural Awareness reminders, pink call-outs for strategies for Dual Language Learners (DLLs) and English Language Learners (ELLs), and purple call-outs for adaptations for children with special needs (for example, Theme 2, Teacher Guide, p. 17). Cultural awareness call-outs appear 2–4 times per unit and are connected to specific lessons or moments in the instructional day.
The materials also include guidance for creating a learning environment that reflects and celebrates diversity. For instance, the Welcome Guide provides suggestions for setting up classrooms with culturally responsive materials such as posters, pictures, and books (Welcome Guide, p. 85). In addition, Eight Classroom Strategies to Optimize Pre-K Learning encourages celebrating children’s cultures and backgrounds through daily experiences (p. 7).
Overall, Frog Street Pre-K includes some frameworks that encourage adaptation to student needs, a moderate range of activities that promote empathy, respect, and appreciation for cultural differences, and guidance for setting up the classroom to reflect and celebrate diversity. The materials also include opportunities to address fairness, prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes; however, these strategies are not yet robust, and supports for addressing the full range of cultural and linguistic needs is varied in depth. The materials could be strengthened by providing more explicit, systematic guidance to help teachers reflect on, evaluate, and adjust instruction to align with the cultural and linguistic diversity in the classroom and by providing more explicit guidance to help children recognize unfairness.