All About Kindergarten
curriculum explanation for grown-ups
Welcome to Kindergarten!
Phonics (letters and sounds)
- Phonemic approach to teaching reading and writing.
- Students identify letters and corresponding sounds.
- Teaches individual sounds in isolation.
- Also teaches proper formation of both uppercase and lowercase letters.
Heggerty
-wonderful new phonemic awareness program to help develop pre-reading skills
We hope kids start the year knowing about half of the uppercase letters. By the end of the year, we expect they know all upper and lower-case letters as well as the sounds.
Social and Emotional Learning
Before students are ready to learn, we must build a classroom community full of trust and kindness. We have spent weeks building up to this!
We use multiple programs to address to developing social emotional needs of our kindergarten students.
school-readiness skills
emotions
problem solving
Zones of Regulation
monthly character traits
Reading & Writing Workshops
Workshop Model (Lucy Calkins)
Teacher led “mini-lesson”
Guided Practice (shared reading or writing)
Independent Practice with books (and conferences or small groups)
Share
Centers
reinforcing the mini-lesson
all pre-reading and simple handwriting skills
Reading Expectations Now: Can hold a book correctly, use pictures to talk about a book, retell a familiar story.
By the end of the year: Read sentences, comprehend stories and enjoy reading!
Writing Expectations Now: Write their name, draw simple people, begin to trace lines and letters
By the end of the year: Write simple sentences, label pictures, spell phonetically (how it sounds)
Book Bags
Book Bags
Your child has their own bag
Raz Kids- has books at your child’s level
Will start bringing books home nightly in November
Book bags should be read daily/nightly
with parents, sibling, or to stuffed animals.
Math Workshop
Eureka Math curriculum based off the Common Core.
What students are expected to do:
-Count by 1s and 10s to 100.
-Recognize and create simple 2D and 3D shapes (square, circle, triangle, rectangle, cube, cone, sphere, cylinder)
-Fluently add within 5 and know addends between 0-10 to make 10.
-Compare 2 numbers between 1 and ten (larger, smaller)
-Compose and decompose teen numbers within 20. (19 is 1 ten and 9 ones)
- Use math tools to help show thinking (manipulatives, ten frames, Rekenrek’s, and number bonds to represent numbers)
Positive Behavior Expectations
Consistently acknowledge and reward positive behavior with PAWs
Expectations are based off of our school mission statement and core values:
“Hemenway is a community of learners who are here to learn, grow, and become positive members to society”
“Hemenway tigers respect themselves, Hemenway tigers respect others, Hemenway tigers respect our school, and Hemenway tigers persevere.”