Tag: kindergarten

Class of 2029: Kindergarten Orientation 2016

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Dunlap Grade School Kindergarten Families,

I am eager to welcome the Class of 2029 to our school as our newest group that we will be able to lay the foundation of lifelong learning for. If you are like me, you look at the children sitting next to you and feel like it was both a moment and a lifetime ago that they came into your lives. You are beaming with both pride and excitement as much as you are with worry and trepidation as they are on the brink of starting kindergarten.

To the kindergarteners, look up at mom or dad right now and tell them, “I got this.” One more time, “I got this.”

And they do… Sure there may be some hesitation, worry or concern, but they are going to amaze you. They are going to grow, develop, and make you proud. They are going to learn how to read letters, words, and sentences. They are going to learn to write to share their feelings and ideas. They are going to learn about numbers, shapes, and math-problem solving concepts. But, they are also going to learn to become more independent. They are going to learn to be a good friend.  They are going to learn that mistakes are ok and we learn from our failures. They’re going to learn all of that and so much more.

But what’s more, just as they will learn from the fabulous educators in this building, we will learn from them and just as quickly as they went from being a baby to being here tonight embarking on kindergarten, you are going to blink and this class of 2029 is going to be graduating high school and you’re going to remember the day they started kindergarten and smile and remember how far they’ve come. Because… they’ve got this.

Common Core Math: What are Tens Frames?

District Strategic Goal #1: Continuously Improve Student Growth and Achievement
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Kindergarten and First Grade students work with tens frames on a daily basis. Tens frames are a key tool and strategy for developing foundational math skills and number sense to meet the Common Core State Standards. Learn more about tens frames by watching these short videos:
Understanding that numbers are composed of tens and ones is an important foundational concept, setting the stage for work with larger numbers. A strong sense of “ten” is a prerequisite for place value understanding and mental calculations. Using a ten frame, students can easily see that 6 is 1 more than 5 and 4 less than 10, or that 8 can be seen as “5 and 3 more” and as “2 away from 10.” Once students are able to visualize the numbers 1through 10, they begin to develop mental strategies for manipulating  those numbers, all within the context of the numbers’ relationship to ten.
Ten frames and dot cards can be used to develop students’ subitizing skills, the ability to “instantly see how many”. Two types of subitizing exist. Perceptual subitizing is closest to the original definition of subitizing: recognizing a number without using other mathematical processes. For example, a child as young as two might “see 3” without using any learned mathematical knowledge. Conceptual subitizing is being used when a person sees an eight dot domino and “just knows” the total number. The number pattern is recognized as a composite of parts and as a whole. The domino is seen as being composed of two groups of four and as “one eight”.
Some resources to practice tens frames at home are:
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Sight Words in Kindergarten

Sight words are so vital at the kindergarten level.  It is so important for beginning readers to learn their sight words. Sight word recognition improves reading fluency.  It allows the student to focus on reading comprehension rather than sounding out words.  This allows students to focus their efforts on “reading to learn” rather than “learning to read.”  We work on sight words in many different ways in our classroom.  We do have flash cards that the students can work on during our Daily 5 literacy centers.  We also work on sight words in more active ways.  For example, we take sidewalk chalk outside and the students practice writing the sight words on the blacktop.  This is a fun and engaging way for the students to recall their sight words.   When we do read a loud books, the students pick out the sight words in the story.

Many of these activities can be done at home as well!  It is getting a little colder outside, but there is still plenty of time to enjoy some sidewalk chalk!  Students would also love reading stories with you at home!  When you get done reading a page, have your child pick out the sight words.  They really love finding their sight words in stories.   There are also many different sight word songs on YouTube that we play in our classroom.  The kids love to sing and dance and don’t even notice they are learning the sight words!  In the Resources Page of our blog is the list of our sight words for the entire year.  We are currently working on theme 5.  Keep up all the hard work you are doing with your child!  We definitely notice all the work you do at home.  We greatly appreciate all the support!

Some Resources for you to use at home:

http://www.starfall.com/

https://www.abcmouse.com

http://www.abcya.com/kindergarten_computers.htm

 

Planetary Learning

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District Goal #1: Continuously Improve Student Growth and Achievement

Kindergarten has been busy studying planets. The class broke into small groups to research a planet and then drew it for a wall display. Then they picked a planet and wrote a report. We have a class full of future astronomers. The kindergarten students are able to share facts and information regarding all of our planets. If you want to explore more about planets with your student, check out Nasa’s Kid’s Club at http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/index.html

Fundations at DGS

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District Strategic Goal #1
Continuously Improve Student Growth and Achievement

Students in Kindergarten and First Grade develop reading skills through Fundations work in their classroom. Fundations encourages skill development in the following areas:

  • Letter Formation
  • Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
  • Sound Mastery
  • Phonics
  • Vocabulary
  • Irregular (Trick Word) Instruction
  • Fluency
  • Comprehension
  • Written Composition

Student activities provide for hands-on learning of letter concepts. Students utilize magnetic tile boards like the one below to create words according to the target learning skills.

 

A larger version of the magnetic tile board is used by the teacher to teach the concepts to the whole group. Individual letter cards are used to drill letter names and sounds. The letter cards are color coded according to vowel, consonant or blends. In addition, “Marks” are used to indicate welded/glued sounds, digraphs, suffixes, and bonus letters.

Teachers lead students through a series of scaffolded lessons and sessions to build skills in the whole group, small groups, and individually. Fundations thoroughly teaches the Foundational Skills of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and significantly supports other CCSS standards in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language.To learn more about fundations, check out their website at: http://www.fundations.com/overview.aspx