Kindergarten

Kindergarten with Mrs. Moore

Learning is an active process where learners should learn to discover principles, concepts and facts for themselves. My role as an educator is to facilitate children’s learning through active engagement and exploration of the world around them.

I believe learning is accomplished best by using a hands-on approach. Learners learn through experimentation, and not by being told what will happen. This allows them to form their own opinions, discoveries and conclusions. Learning is not an all or nothing process; students learn new information by building upon their background knowledge.

Our kindergarten classroom is a stimulating environment designed to inspire children to learn and share through any and all of their intelligences. The children are exposed to an atmosphere of love and acceptance where they can experience optimal development across all domains. Our classroom focuses on all areas of development including academic, social and emotional development. We have high expectations for all our students; we will take from their current level and excel them as far as they are ready to go. Below you will find a brief description what students learn in kindergarten at Hale Academy.

Social Emotional Development

Building a child’s social and emotional development is vital part of their success in school. Children need to learn how to express themselves in positive and meaningful ways. We work on building their social understandings and relationships, how to build and maintain relationships, having a positive self esteem and how to be a productive member our classroom family. Children learn how to express their wants and needs through their words and actions. We accomplish this goal through modeling of appropriate behavior and actions, role playing and practicing these behaviors and actions.

Reading

The goal of the Kindergarten reading program is to teach children to love reading. Reading instruction focuses on phonemic awareness, concepts of print, phonics, sight words and comprehension. Reading instruction takes place during whole group, small group and individual instruction. During our reading block children are engaged in literacy centers while the teacher pulls children for ability groups.

Phonemic Awareness:

“One of the most compelling and well-established findings in the research on beginning reading is the important relationship between phonemic awareness and reading acquisition.” (Kame’enui, et. al., 1997) Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words. Phonemic awareness is auditory and does not involve words in print and is not phonics.

 By the end of kindergarten the students are expected to master eight various phonemic awareness skills. We begin the year of by reviewing blending of words, phoneme isolation of initial and final sounds. During quarter one and two we work on phoneme segmentation, phoneme deletion of initial sounds and phoneme identification of medial sounds both short and long vowels. Quarter three and four is spent identifying syllables, mastering phoneme deletion of final sounds, phoneme substitution of the initial and final sound and phoneme identification of medial sounds consonants.

Concepts of Print

Concepts of print are fundamental understandings that support reading acquisition. Concepts of print include awareness that print conveys a meaning; there are conventions of print, differences between letter and words, distinction between upper and lower case letters, punctuation, and the common characteristics of a book. We concentrate on identifying and describing: a capital letter, a lower case letter, a period, comma, question mark, exclamation mark, and quotation mark.

Phonics:

Phonics is the ability to connect the sound of spoken English to the letters or letters the sound represents. During quarter one and two we concentrate on long and short vowels, silent “e” and various vowel combinations. During the third and fourth quarter we focus on blends, “y” as a vowel, adding endings, diagraphs and introduce contractions.

Sight Words:

Children will learn 100 sight words by the end of kindergarten. They need to be able to recognize them instantaneously. Most sight words cannot be “sounded out”, and hence must be learned by sight. The children will be introduced to five words per week. They will need to readily identify 90 of the 100 words in order to be considered proficient.

Fluency:

Reading fluency is the ability to read text accurately and quickly. “Fluency bridges word decoding and comprehension. Comprehension is understanding what has been read. Fluency is a set of skills that allows readers to rapidly decode text while maintaining high comprehension” (National Reading Panel, 2001).

Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension. There are three areas that make up fluency: rate (the speed in which you read), prosody (appropriate use of phrasing and expression to convey meaning), and accuracy (accurate decoding of words in text). We focus on all three areas of fluency through read- a-loud, timed reading, modeling, echo readings and other reading strategies.

Comprehension:

Comprehension is the overall goal of reading instruction. Comprehension is the ability to construct meaning from text (do students understand what they read?). The development of comprehension is a long-term developmental process which is influenced by many factors. During kindergarten we begin to teach the factors need for comprehension to occur. We learn how to decode unfamiliar words, recognize sight words, and enhance our vocabulary and our reading fluency.

Writing

During writing instruction children focus on both their handwriting and the process of writing. Children are taught how to properly write both upper and lowercase letters using D’Nealian manuscript. Children move through many stages of writing. The goal of our writing program is to take the children from their current writing level and encourage them to continue for as far as they can go. These are the different writing levels or stages being used to evaluate the writing of students; Level 1: Pre-Writer, Level 2: Emergent Writer, Level 3: Beginning Writer, Level 4: Developing Writer, Level 5: Capable Writer and Level 5: Experienced Writer.

By the end of Kindergarten they are expected to be writing at level 3 or above. A beginning writer understands that text conveys meaning; the child can read it even though others may not, and they begin to use spaces to separate words and uses some beginning, middle and ending letters. The children will be using what is known as invented spelling. Invented spelling is when children use letters that match the sounds they hear in words they are trying to write. Children learn by writing, therefore they write daily. Children are taught the writing process through whole group, small group and individual instruction.

Grammar

Grammar instruction focuses on the components of a sentence, punctuation marks, capitalizations, nouns, and verbs. They will practice these skills while reading, writing and speaking. Grammar requires repeated practice and exposure. Students use their grammar workbooks to provide extra practice and reinforcement to the skills being taught.

Spelling

Each week children are taught a specific spelling rule. The children are taught the specific rule and then given a spelling list of six words based on that spelling rule. Learning the different spelling rules will help children in both their reading and writing.

Math

The kindergarten math curriculum builds a broad math foundation including number sense, algebra, data analysis, probability, measurement, and geometry. The main goal is for the children to possess a true understanding of numbers, how they work and how to use them. During quarter one and two we work on understanding and manipulating numbers 0-31, counting to 100, and addition and subtraction. During quarter three we work on place value, measurement, and fractions. During the fourth quarter we continue working on addition and subtraction, time, money, geometry and probability. Math is taught using direct instruction, whole and small group, games, and manipulatives.

Science

Science is the discovery of how the physical world works. There are four units we study throughout the year: Life Science, Earth Science, Physical Science, and Health Science. Science is an abstract concept for you young children. We read a variety of literature and hands on activities/experiments help the children learn abstract concepts.

Social Studies

Social Studies is the study of the various fields which involve past and current human behavior and interactions. There are eight strands of Social Studies: History, Economics, Geography, Government, Citizenship, Culture, Technology and Society, and Social Studies Skills. In Kindergarten we focus on five main topics: Families, Citizenship, Jobs, and American History.

Spanish

Kindergarten students are instructed in Spanish daily by a qualified Spanish instructor in the Spanish classroom.  Students are introduced to basic Spanish vocabulary through songs, pictures, hands-on and interactive activities. Students learn basic greetings in Spanish, colors, numbers, days of the week, types of foods and other items.

Art

Kindergarteners experiment with a variety of mediums including colored pencils, watercolors, sand, charcoal, finger-paints, and pastels.

Physical Education

Receiving regular exercise is an integral component of growing up healthy. Kindergarten students receive year-long instruction and practice opportunities in a variety of age appropriate sports. Active participation, teamwork, and good sportsmanship are modeled and encouraged.

Music

The purpose of the music education program at Hale Academy is to develop life-long musical understanding, skill, and sensitivity. As education develops the intellect, music education develops musical ability. As musical understanding, skill and sensitivity grow, aesthetic response increases.

Hale Academy music students learn that music has duration, pitch, form, timbre and expressive qualities. They feel the emotional content that music expresses. They possess adequate understanding of their own musical heritage and that of other cultures and continually grow in their ability to listen to, respond to, and create music with understanding, skill, and sensitivity.

Library

Kindergarten students attend library weekly during which time they are exposed to read aloud sessions along with opportunities to explore and check books out from the school library.

Kindergarten students at Hale Academy do not have a designated napping period.  All students may participate in after school clubs including arts & crafts, drama, American Girls, Superhero Club, bicycle club and more for no additional charge.