Welcome to Kindergarten

Miss Law-Kindergarten

Room Two

lawmic@ssd.k12.pa.us   

THREE CHEERS FOR OUR KINDERGARTEN ALL STARS!

2-4-6-8 KINDERGARTEN IS REALLY GREAT

 The first day you come to our room you and one parent or family member will get to complete activities and a scavenger hunt around the room to check everything out!  This is also when you will get to meet some of your new friends in our room.  Then, on Thursday you will get to meet the rest of the class for a full session. 

We can't wait to meet your smiling faces!

Love,

Miss Law and Mrs. Perillo

Responsive Classroom: information was gathered from-

 www.responsiveclassroom.org 

The Responsive Classroom is an approach to elementary teaching that emphasizes social, emotional, and academic growth in a strong and safe school community. The goal is to enable optimal student learning. Created by classroom teachers, the Responsive Classroom approach is based on the premise that children learn best when they have both academic and social-emotional skills. The approach therefore consists of classroom and schoolwide practices for helping children build academic and social-emotional competencies.

Guiding Principles:

Seven principles, informed by the work of educational theorists and the experiences of exemplary classroom teachers, guide the Responsive Classroom approach: 

• The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum.
   
• How children learn is as important as what they learn: Process and content go hand in hand.
   
• The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.
   
• To be successful academically and socially, children need a set of social skills: cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control.
   
• Knowing the children we teach-individually, culturally, and developmentally-is as important as knowing the content we teach.
   
• Knowing the families of the children we teach and working with them as partners is essential to children's education.
   

• How the adults at school work together is as important as their individual competence: Lasting change begins with the adult community.

Classroom Practices:

At the heart of the Responsive Classroom approach are ten classroom practices:

Morning Meeting - gathering as a whole class each morning to greet one another, share news, and warm up for the day ahead

Rule Creation - helping students create classroom rules to ensure an environment that allows all class members to meet their learning goals

Interactive Modeling - teaching children to notice and internalize expected behaviors through a unique modeling technique

Positive Teacher Language - using words and tone as a tool to promote children's active learning, sense of community, and self-discipline

Logical Consequences - responding to misbehavior in a way that allows children to fix and learn from their mistakes while preserving their dignity

Guided Discovery - introducing classroom materials using a format that encourages independence, creativity, and responsibility

Academic Choice - increasing student learning by allowing students teacher-structured choices in their work

Classroom Organization - setting up the physical room in ways that encourage students' independence, cooperation, and productivity

Working with Families - creating avenues for hearing parents' insights and helping them understand the school's teaching approaches

Collaborative Problem Solving - using conferencing, role playing, and other strategies to resolve problems with students

Literacy

Strategy Instruction - Good readers use strategies to help them comprehend what they read.  These are the strategies that we will focus on this year:

1.  Making Connections - (text to text, text to self, and text to world)  Readers pay more attention when they relate to the text. Readers naturally bring their prior knowledge and experience to reading, but they comprehend better when they think about the connections they make between the text, their lives and the larger world.

2.  Asking Questions - Questioning is the strategy that keeps readers engaged.  When readers ask questions, they clarify understanding and make meaning.  Asking questions is at the heart of thoughtful reading.

3.  Visualizing - Active readers create visual images in their minds based on wordsthey read in text.  The pictures they create enhance their understanding.

4.  Drawing Inferences - Infererring is a the intersection of taking what is known, garnering clues from the text, and thinking ahead to make judgement, discern a theme, or speculate about what is to come. 

5.  Determining Important Ideas - Thoughtful readers grasp essential ideas and important information when reading.  Readers must differentiate between less important ideas and key ideas that are central to the meaning.

6.  Synthesizing Information - Synthesizing involves combining new information with existing knowledge to form an original idea or interpretation.  Reviewing, sorting, and sifting important information can lead to new insights that change the way readers think.

7.  Repair Understanding - If confusion disrupts meaning, readers need to stop and clarify their understanding.  Readers may use a variety of strategies to "fix up" comprehension when meaning goes awry.

Fluency: We will focus on attending to punctuation, using expression / inflection, using appropriate phrasing, reading smoothly, and maintaining appropriate pace while reading.

The Phonics Library Books are a very important piece of our Kindergarten Balanced Literacy Program.   The Phonics Library Books are small books that our children will practice reading in the classroom and then take home to practice reading again.   I encourage parents to keep these books in a special place (ex.   Shoebox, Ziplock Bag) and continue to take them out occasionally to practice.  

The first few books your child will bring home will be wordless picture books.   At this time, encourage your child to create their own story.   This will prompt them to use picture cues to help them create a story.   Try to find pictures that start with the letter we are working on.   Create names for the characters and give them silly voices.   After the wordless pictures books, you will start to notice simple sentences with our sight words and word family words.   When practicing reading these, you may want to circle the sight words, highlight certain letters, or pick out the rhyming word family words.   It is also very important that you encourage your children to talk about the stories that they are reading.   Use words like “First, Next, and Last” to retell the story.   Have your child recall their favorite part and ask them why.  Thank you for working with your child at home!  Practicing these skills will help reinforce what we are working on the classroom.  HAPPY READING! :)   

Math

Our Everyday Math Program lends itself to real-life experiences throughout the day in Kindergarten  In the beginning of the year, we will practice counting forward to 20, backward from 10, shapes, and one to one correspondence.  We will play games and participate in group activities throughout the year.  Also, each week, Math Links will be sent home for extra practice at home! 

Science

In Kindergarten, we will focus on two Science Units:

Unit One:  Myself and Others 

Unit Two:  Balls and Ramps 

Social Studies

Star of the Week:  Starting in October, each child will have the opportunity to be the star of the week.  This is one of the "favorite" activities for all of the children.  You will receive a letter with the date stating when your child is the star of the week. 

Monday:  Please create a poster (poster board or construction paper) to be hung in the class with pictures of the star and their family.  Some fun pictures include family vacations, pets, and baby pictures.

Tuesday:  Please have the star bring in THREE special things from home.  These things must be able to be able to fit in their school bag.  Practice with your star what is special about them. 

Wednesday:  "Oprah-Miss Law Show"  Miss Law will interview the star along with the ROOM TWO audience about their favorite things!

Thursday:  Please send in the Stars favorite treat to share with the class.  Some popular snacks include soft pretzels, popcorn, fruit snacks, etc.  Please be aware of food allergies in the class. 

Friday:  Star of the Week Book!  We will talk about why the star is special and write a book about the stars favorite things. 

Please join us for Kindergarten Back to School Night on Tuesday September 9, 2008.  We ask that at least one parent please attend as you will receive valuable information regarding Kindergarten Curriculum and Important Dates.  No children please. 

Please remember to sign in at the front office, each time you visit Sabold!