“A child is like a butterfly in the wind. Some can fly higher than others, but each one flies the best it can. Why compare one against the other? Each one is different. Each one is special. Each one is beautiful."
Kindergarten is an exciting time and a year of significant growth and change in a child's life. Children develop skills in reading, writing, math, and interpersonal relationships that they will use for the rest of their lives. During the year we become a community of learners who work together through independent learning, cooperative groups, and partner learning experiences. My classroom is designed to reflect current research and best practices. I focus on the core academic areas outlined in St. Paul's district curriculum.
In our classroom environment, children are engaged in purposeful learning at all times. Children learn through modeling, share responsibility for their learning, work at developmentally appropriate tasks, are encouraged to take risks, and celebrate their efforts.
I teach a balanced literacy program through the Saint Paul’s Project for Academic Excellence Model of Readers and Writers Workshop. Students participate in shared reading, word-work/phonics, guided reading and independent reading. Shared reading involves learning vocabulary and comprehension skills in the context of a weekly story. Word-work/phonics introduces sight words, word families, reading strategies, and phonemic awareness activities. Guided reading enables children to read in small groups at their instructional level while independent reading allows time for reading enjoyment and an opportunity to practice reading strategies.
Children learn quickly and love to express themselves. Using the Writer's Workshop model, each student will write every day! By the end of Kindergarten each child will complete a personal narrative, a nonfiction report, a procedure, a poem, and numerous responses to literature. These are just a sample of the many works of writing your child will complete throughout the kindergarten year.
My Everyday Math curriculum encourages children to explore basic concepts in math through the use of real life applications, hands-on activities, games, and cooperative learning. It gives attention to numeration and computation without neglecting geometry, data, and algebraic thinking.
Your child will experience a great year of growth! Please fell free to stop by for a visit and see your child grow.
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