|
Class schedule
Markham Elementary Kindergarten’s day is divided as follows:
1. Opening -- Morning/Afternoon Message
2. Calendar Math
3. Phonemic Awareness
4. Literature Lesson / Library
5. Learning Center Activities
6. Clean-Up
7. Recess / Gym
8. Music
9. Writers’ Workshop
10. Dismissal
The order of each activity may vary from day to day, or some activities may be replaced by a special program or special subject class. The students have library class once a week with Mrs. Hughes. When the gym becomes available, we will have gym class once a week in place of recess. Art activities are integrated into the classroom Learning Center Activities. Computer activities are a part of our Learning Centers.
Daily Routine
w Each day we open the session by sharing news. We then take attendance, go over the day’s schedule, say the “Pledge of Allegiance,” and sing a song. We then work as a group to write and read the Daily Message, an interactive writing experience that includes modeling by the teacher and active participation by the students. Sometimes this activity is moved to the Writing Workshop to serve as the introductory lesson before the students’ independent writing.
w We next focus on the calendar to introduce math concepts that range from recognizing and quantifying numbers to making a pattern to graphing the weather. The ongoing counting line and paper-clip collection help to build an understanding of number sense and place value over the course of the year.
w Our classroom then moves on to do a daily activity to help the students develop phonemic awareness, the ability to discriminate individual sounds and then to “manipulate” those sounds by either taking apart the sounds in a word or putting the sounds together to form a word. These lessons, which are part of the Harcourt Language Arts program, will introduce phonemic awareness skills in a systematic sequence that introduces and then continues to review these skills in a progression over the school year and on into first grade.
w Next, we use a selection of literature as the center of a language arts lesson. This means that what seems to the students to be “Story Time” is also a lesson in identifying characters, recognizing the beginning/middle/end of the story, or retelling the story. These elements are another part of the Harcourt Language Arts series.
w A favorite part of the day is our Learning Centers when the class moves into small-group or independent learning activities. These learning activities are often related to the overarching theme of the language arts program. They are partly teacher-directed and partly activities that the student can choose from the learning centers that are available that day.
Typically there will be a teacher-facilitated lesson, an art activity, a math activity, a fine- motor activity (such as building with Lego’s or stringing beads), a dramatic play center (such as kitchen area or puppet theater), a large-motor activity (such as block building), computer activities, a writing center activity, and a quiet independent reading area. Other center activities may include a science discovery center, a listening center where students listen to a book tape while “reading” along the book, play dough or sand play, and painting at the easel. Students not only learn many important academic concepts during center activities, but they also are learning and practicing many very important social skills that are a natural outcome of this more informal time of instruction.
w Recess/gym provides an opportunity for large-muscle activities, working out some of the “squirmies,” as well as important social interaction.
w During music time we sing songs, learn rhythmic chants, do finger plays, and move to music. The music selections are tied into the current theme, and the words to some of the songs we sing are printed on large charts to provide additional opportunity for letter recognition or other literacy skills. Mrs. Eckenrode also provides a music lesson each week allowing your child to explore many musical skills.
w The writers’ workshop has three components and styles.
1. The entire class works together with the teacher on a shared mini-lesson that is designed to teach and model some facet of the writing process (for instance, sounding out words or using a period).
2. After participating in writing a group story, the students go to the tables and write an individual piece of work because it is totally normal for kindergartners to vary widely in their individual development in all areas, including writing. There is also wide variation in how they use emergent writing to put their words onto paper. Please take a minute to look at the information on the Stages of Emergent Writing in the appendices at the back of this handbook.
3. The students can volunteer to share their writing with the class by having a turn in the “Author’s Chair.”
w We end each day by summarizing and reflecting on the day’s activities, reading from a story or novel, passing out papers if needed, and getting ready for dismissal.
Curriculum Information
General Information and Goals
A primary goal of kindergarten is to provide your child with opportunities to acquire and practice the positive learning and social behaviors necessary to be a happy, confident, successful, and contributing member of the class. These skills will be presented, discussed, modeled, encouraged, and positively reinforced every day. The kindergarten curriculum allows the students to explore and develop skills at their own pace. Much of our work will be introductory and exploratory in nature. Curriculum areas are integrated into the theme we are studying rather than being taught as isolated subjects.
Language Arts
The language arts program includes reading, writing, and listening activities which are centered around thematic units and quality literature. We are using a program from Harcourt, which is designed for emergent readers. A very important component of this program is the systematic study of phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonemic awareness activities teach the students to discriminate and manipulate the sounds they hear, while phonics activities take this learning a step further by connecting sounds to letters in print. An “Alphabet/Sound Link Chart” is shown in the Appendices in the back of this packet.
The students also participate in reading literature, either as a teacher read-aloud or a class shared reading. This reading process helps students to become familiar with basic conventions of print and to work toward learning simple reading strategies such as left-to-right orientation, rhyming word repetition, and using picture cues to read or tell a story. All of these skills and more are practiced through various daily language experiences.
Literature activities integrate all language skills, come from all curriculum areas (including math, social studies, and science), and make use of all learning styles – visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. The students are exposed to literature that encompasses a variety of literary types and incorporates rhythm, rhyme, song, and repetition. A piece of literature will generally be read more than once because research has shown that children learn to be more fluent readers through repeated reading of familiar text. Through these experiences your child will make the connection between letters and their sounds and how they come together to form the printed word. The students also will read from classroom sets of books which provide a book for each student to read along as the teacher reads the book and guides the students in exploring the text.
Writing workshop goes hand-in-hand with the study of reading since it is a reciprocal activity. In reading, the children are learning to look at letters in print and sound out what the word is. In writing, they are conversely sounding out the words and putting them down in print as written letters. The teacher uses the group mini-lesson to explicitly teach aspects of the writing process such as sounding out words, orienting print from left to right, using ending punctuation, and leaving spaces between words. The “author’s chair” gives students the opportunity to read to an audience and to be an audience member and “good listener.” Students will learn to write in three genres in kindergarten: (1) narrative (simple story from their personal experience), (2) report (information gathered, use graphic organizer picture, write facts), and (3) functional writing - a how-to description such as “how to plant a seed.”
Math
The kindergarten math curriculum is the Math Central program from Houghton Mifflin. It uses the daily calendar time to present math concepts in a meaningful, interactive way. The activities centered around the calendar teach counting, one-to-one correspondence, number sense, pattern recognition, place value, estimation, probability, graph making and interpretation, sorting and classifying, measurement, geometry, and problem-solving. Math activities are reinforced in a small-group setting as center activities, using quality manipulative materials such as pattern cubes, shape blocks, counting bears, pattern/measuring links, geoboards, and math games. The students also use hands-on materials to group objects and then write a number sentence (e.g., 2+2=4) representing the actual items. A Number Poems Chart is provided in the Appendices so that your child can practice how to correctly form the numbers.
Handwriting
Your child will be exposed to the correct way to form letters and numbers. Correct posture, left-to-right orientation, and pencil grip will also be presented and encouraged. You will find charts showing Pencil Grip and Letter Formation in the Appendices at the back of this packet.
Social Studies
The Social Studies curriculum explores the ideas of self and others. It introduces the basic areas of social studies, history, economics, geography, civics and government that form the basis of the social studies curriculum throughout the educational system. These themes are integrated into the other subject areas, including literature selections and games in the math curriculum and literature selections in the language arts curriculum. We will learn about selected events in our nation’s history as well as cultures in other parts of the world.
Character Education
Heartwood is a Character Education curriculum that reinforces the concepts of Respect, Honesty, Justice, Love, Courage, Loyalty, and Hope. Each month one character attribute is featured through stories, discussion, activities, and interdisciplinary projects. The objective of Heartwood is to foster moral development and provide reference points for ethical decisions. We will be following the schedule below:
Sept. /Oct. _ Respect February _ Courage
November _ Honesty March _ Loyalty
December _ Love April _ Hope
January _ Justice
We will share your child’s character education booklet at the January conference. The booklet will become part of your child’s portfolio that will be sent home in June.
Science
Our science program includes both a textbook curriculum from Addison-Wesley and an inquiry-based program through the ASSET consortium comprised of universities, industry, and school district representatives. Our ASSET unit is a study of trees. It extends throughout the year as we adopt, observe, and collect data about a tree in our school yard in each season. As we investigate all aspects of trees in hands-on activities, the students learn directly through their own discoveries. This discovery process teaches important skills in observing, reflecting, predicting, collecting data, drawing conclusions, and constructing real knowledge. Our science studies also include hands-on investigation of seasonal changes, life in a pond, seeds and plants, and birds. We will observe the birds that come to the Markham birdfeeders and then color the birds in our kindergarten Bird Field Guide. We will use Cornell University’s Project Feederwatch materials to enhance our study of birds. We also begin the study of outer space by learning about the sun, moon, and stars.
Health
Our health program includes the Here’s Looking at You drug awareness program as well as lessons on healthy bodies, hand washing to prevent germs, and nutrition. The Here’s Looking at You materials use discussion, role play, and simulations to introduce the idea of what a drug is, talk about poison prevention, discuss feelings, and reinforce social skills. This program continues throughout the elementary grades.
Technology
The students will be working with computer in the classroom throughout the year. The software used reinforces skills introduced in our language and math curriculums. Students are taught the basic parts of a computer and how to use the mouse to navigate through the learning activity.
Music / Art / Gym
Music and art are a part of the kindergarten day and are integrated into the language art and center activities. We are fortunate to also have a parent volunteer, Linda Eckenrode, share music with us each week. Gym class occurs once a week when the students go to the gymnasium to play games, do dance and movement activities, and learn to use basic sports equipment and skills. Gym will start as soon as the gym becomes available. Please have your child wear tennis shoes on Fridays!
Miscellaneous
Recess
Always send your child to school dressed appropriately for outdoor play. We go out for recess every day unless it is extremely cold or it is raining. When the office posts the “Indoor Recess” sign, we will play a game or extend center time.
School Supplies
The District provides all school supplies. To provide consistency for the children, please do not send additional supplies to school unless requested by the teacher.
Toys
Please do not allow your child to bring toys from home. It is very difficult for a child if a toy gets broken or lost, and it is difficult for other children if they are not able to play with something another child brings in. The toys in the classroom have been selected to provide the students with not only particular academic objectives, but also with opportunities for important lessons in sharing and taking turns.
Field Trips
Field trips are planned to coincide with our curriculum. A field trip permission form will be sent home prior to all field trips. Parents may accompany the class as chaperones on an as-needed basis. If you did not have an opportunity at the kindergarten coffee to sign up for a field trip, the homeroom parents will call if more chaperones are needed.
Student Absences
Please send a note to school following your child’s absence. If you participate in the morning Safewalking program, please call the Safewalking line to report your child’s absence. Please note that the call to the Safewalking line does not take the place of a written excuse. A reminder will be sent home if an excuse is not turned in within a week of the absence. Safewalking is not activated in the afternoon. You may call the office directly at 412-344-2152 to report your child’s absence for the afternoon kindergarten session.
Communication
Please feel free to call the school (412-344-2152) or send a note to your teacher with any questions or concerns. If you call and are asked to leave a voice mail because the teacher is not available, please briefly state the reason for the call. This will allow the teacher to be better prepared to discuss the issue with you. Newsletters will be sent home monthly.
School Drop-Off
Parents are welcome to walk their child to the classroom during the first full week of school. After the first full week of school, please have your child proceed to the classroom alone. This encourages independence and allows the child to enter and interact with the activity that is underway.
Birthdays
It is school policy that treats and favors are not permitted for birthdays. Instead, we will celebrate with other activities to make this day special for your child. Listed below are some suggestions of ways to celebrate your child’s birthday:
J Individually wrap a cookie and/or provide a snack bag for each child to be passed out at the end of the kindergarten session.
J Purchase ice cream for each child which benefits the 5th grade camp fund. Ice cream is 50¢ per child. The money can be given to Mrs. Miller in the office and we will plan a time to go to the multi-purpose room for the ice cream treat.
J Read a favorite book in our classroom on the day your child celebrates a birthday.
J Celebrate summer birthdays on your child’s “half” birthday or near the end of the school year.
Dismissal
Although the kindergarten students enter at the back door on the lower level, the class will dismiss at the front door. If your child is going home with a sibling or carpool and needs to meet someone outside, please establish a regular place to meet (front steps or at the flagpole). If your child is going home with a friend or is being picked up by someone other than the usual dismissal arrangement, please send in a note so that there is no confusion at dismissal.
Conferences
The parent-teacher conference is scheduled at the end of the first semester in January. At that time the teacher will share samples of your child’s work and discuss your child’s progress. A copy of the Kindergarten Progress Report is included in the Appendices in the back of this packet. If you have questions or concerns at any time of the year, please contact your child’s teacher directly.
Open House
Please watch for information on the date and time for the evening Open House at Markham Elementary this fall. It is a wonderful opportunity for the whole family to come to school in the evening to see the classrooms and other areas of the school.
|
