Our Kindergarten Classroom

In order to give you a better understanding of a typical Kindergarten day, I have briefly described all of the academic components of our day. Calendar/Daily News: This is a large group time that includes a variety of language and math activities. Some of the skills covered during calendar include: sequencing of the days of the week and the months of the year, counting by 1s, 5s, and 10s, numeral recognition, patterning, graphing, letter sounds, reading, and the weather. The purpose of Daily News is to model writing for the students, share their ideas, and include them in the writing process. A variety of skills are covered: letter/sound relations, left to right progression, word tracking, reading, exposure to punctuation, and critical thinking. Daily 5 Students choose centers that focus on the language skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Some examples include: pocket chart, books, ABC, books on tape, word hunt, book making, reading alone or with others, and writing. Each center has a specific focus and skill. While the students are engaged in centers, I will be working with small groups of students to work specifically on reading and writing skills. The activities may vary from group to group depending on the students needs. Reading skills are taught at this time by dividing students into small groups to work with a teacher on specific skills. We practice skills such as tracking, sight words, and using picture clues. Each group will work at a different level with a different easy reader. Starting in mid- September reading books are sent home each week for extra practice. Writers Workshop: We begin writing each day with a short language lesson to introduce and model writing skills. We may read a big book, learn a new sight word or letter, or practice a specific skill. The students will then write and illustrate a story. They often write about our unit of study, a response to a story, or something important to them. The students are then encouraged to share their writing with the class.

Large Group Activity: Science, Social Studies, and Health: These subject areas are taught through a variety of literature based activities during large group time. Many of our Kindergarten thematic units stem from these subject areas. Math: Math is taught through a variety of activities. A new math concept may be taught through a large group activity: a class graph or estimation problem. A crucial component of our math program is called math tubs, which we do 23 times per week. Students are exposed to a variety of manipulativies as they pattern, sort, compare, estimate, add, and subtract. The students are building a concrete understanding of these math concepts through the use of these manipulativies.

I hope this explanation of our classroom schedule will help clarify what a typical day in Kindergarten is like. Hopefully, when you ask your child, What did you do at school today? and he or she says, math tubs, Daily 5, or (our favorite) nothing, you will have a better understanding of what he or she means. Please let me know if you have any questions.