Kindergarten
Overview
Mrs. Cindy Strickland – Teacher
Room 100
Hamilton Elementary
Daily Schedule
AM
8:40 – Arrival
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Unpack
Breakfast
Wake Up Work
 Skill practice
 Journals
9:00 – Oral Language
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Morning Meeting
Building Concepts
Oral Vocabulary
9:10 – Small Group Activities
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Differentiated Learning Centers
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Comprehension
Vocabulary
Word Work
Fluency
One to One Intervention
Small Group Reading
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Phonemic Awareness
Letter Recognition
Word Work
10:15 – Hand Writing
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Letter Formation
Names
Mini Writing Lesson/Work Shop
11:40 – Whole Group
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Read Aloud
Theme Unit Study
Reading Strategies
Listening Comprehension
11:20 – Lunch Preparation
11:35 – Lunch
PM
12:05 - Recess
12:40 – Fine Motor Focus
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Self-selected Activities
1:15 – Specials
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Gym
Music
Library
Computer
Art
1:55 – Math
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Whole Group Common Core Focus
Literature Connection
Small Group Differentiated Math
Practice
2:40 – Writing
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Common Core Kindergarten Focus
3:10 – Clean up and Pack
3:15 – Car Rider Dismissal
3:30 – Bus Rider Dismissal
Other Information
School Work/Home Work: Please take time to go over your child’s schoolwork and ask
your child questions about what they did and learned. Invite them to explain it to you! Children
love being the expert! Give lots of specific praise and show sincere interest. Class work will
generally come home the day or day after it was completed in your child’s Take Home Folder.
The work is for you and your child to keep. It’s also nice to have a special place to showcase
your child’s work.
Your will get a Home Work packet each week. They need to complete one page (both front and
back) each evening. Please only complete one page a day and return the whole packet in your
child’s folder every day. Remember, Practice makes perfect!
BEE Folders (Bring Everything Everyday!): Children are responsible for bringing
their green BEE folder to school every day. These folders are vital to parent-school
communication. Please make time to go through this folder each night to check for homework,
papers that may need to be returned and to remove the things to be left at home. Treat the BEE
Folders with care!
Home Reading Program (Baggie Books): In the future your child will be bringing home
books to read out loud to you or another adult. Please listen to your child carefully and help
them gently by encouraging them to look at the pictures, ask what would make sense or to
sound out the letters and word chunks. If your child is unable to read the book on their own you
may help them through it and/or read it to them. Our Home Reading program is a very
successful program that will dramatically increase the speed with which your child will learn to
read, if it is followed and done consistently and correctly. Research shows that reading aloud to
your child after they have learned to read dramatically increases their oral language skills and
vocabulary development and should be done every night. Along with homework, dinner and
bath, it should become part of your nightly routine.
The books will come home Monday through Thursday in a plastic bag in your child’s
BEE Folder. After you read, talk with your child about the book and ask them to retell the story.
Remember to sign the Book Log in the baggie. Please make sure the book and the Book Log
come back to school the very next day so that your child and the other children can participate
in choosing another book for the next evening. Your child will also get a treat every time the
book and log are returned. When a book is not returned, your child will not get to take one home
that night. If a book is lost or, for whatever reason, not returned, the family will be charged for
the cost of the book.
Practice Makes Perfect packet: At the beginning of the school year you will find a
packet in your child’s BEE folder that is for practice. The packet contains various skills that your
child will need to master by May. Any time that you can complete any of the suggested activities
in the packet it will benefit your child tremendously! You can keep the packet in your child’s
folder or store it in a safe place at home. Please use it!
Book Orders: Once a month, Scholastic Book Orders will be sent home. This is an
opportunity for you to buy quality books for your child at a very low price. They take 2-3 weeks
for delivery. The more books that are purchased, the more free books we receive for our
classroom library.
Discipline and Classroom Management
In order to provide the students with the excellent educational climate they deserve, we
have developed the following classroom management system for kindergarten.
You will receive a monthly behavior calendar attached to your child’s folder. The calendar will
reflect your child’s behavior for each day of that month.
How the monthly behavior calendar works:
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Each day your child’s person clip (bearing his/her name) will begin positioned up
at the top of the behavior banner in the green area (directly to the right as you
enter our classroom door.)
All the students that complete the school day without any rule infraction for an
undesired behavior throughout the entire class time that day will get a green
mark on their behavior calendar that day.
If an undesired behavior should occur, the student will remove his/her shape and
place it in the yellow area of the banner. At this time the student will get a yellow
mark on his/her calendar that day and may miss 10 minutes of recess. In that
day’s box on the calendar by the yellow mark I will circle the number of the rule
that was broken.
If the student’s behavior should continue to spiral downward, his/her clip will
continue to be moved down the banner. The next area is blue. I will circle the
appropriate number that reflects which rule or rules that the child continued to
break. And your child will have a blue check mark on his/her behavior calendar
that evening.
The last area is red. If your child continues to display undesirable behaviors they
will move their clip to the red pocket and begin the school wide discipline plan.
On the first step of the plan the student will bring home a behavior letter and you
will receive a phone call. If needed, they will be referred for office level
intervention or be removed from class for a short time to reflect.
Once on the second step of the plan the student will begin to serve recess
detention and so on.
At the end of each week any students who have earned a green mark four out
of five days will earn a special treat. This treat could be a visit to the classroom
treasure box, a special snack, or even an extra 15 minutes of free time.
Please look for this behavior calendar at the end of each day and review with your child. I count on you as
parents, to look for the calendar and monitor your child’s behavior. It is important that you focus on and
emphasize the green marks that your child did get throughout the week and praise their great efforts and hard
work. If only one green mark has been lost in a week’s time, please do not focus on any negative aspects. (We
all have an off day now and then! A simple reminder of the rules will be more than enough!!)
Thank you for your support!
Mrs. Strickland
Language
Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening
A rich model of language in all forms of literature, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, songs, and
more are introduced. Language arts skills and strategies are taught with the Scott Foresman
curriculum model as well as integration with other daily activities.
These five big ideas in reading are included within our curriculum and instruction and inspire the
measures (assessment) we use.
• Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words, as well as the
ability to isolate letters and sounds, blend sounds and segment sounds.
• Alphabetic Principle: The ability to associate sounds with letters and use these sounds to
form words.
• Fluency with Text: The effortless, automatic ability to read words in connected text.
• Vocabulary: The ability to understand (receptive) and use (expressive) words to acquire and
convey meaning.
• Comprehension: The complex cognitive process involving the interaction between reader
and text to convey meaning.
All of these components are taught within the Kindergarten Language Arts Curriculum. This will be
our core framework for reading instruction. Specific reading comprehension strategies will be
individualized through whole group activities; small group guided reading lessons, small group
intervention, literacy centers and the use of leveled texts, which we combine with our Home Reading
Program (Baggie Books).
*We provide activities in which children learn to read by reading and learn to write by writing.
Materials Used with the Language Arts Curriculum:
• Leveled classroom books
• Leveled guided reading sets
• Library books
• Big Books
• Songs, Poems and Charts
• Journals
• Phonemic Awareness (various materials)
• Word Wall Words
• Fiction and Non-fiction trade books
Writing, Spelling, Phonics & Literacy Centers
In Kindergarten, your child is taught to say words slowly and listen for the sounds. They then record the letter for
the sound they identify. This helps your child record their message and think of themselves as a writer. As the year
progresses, your child will be expected to move toward more conventional spelling and will be held increasingly
accountable. These lessons will be integrated into our daily reading and writing activities. Sound/Spelling patterns may
include:
*Short/long vowels
*Blends (such as: bl, sl, br, tr)
*Word Chunks (such as: -at, -an, -in)
*Digraphs (such as: sh, ch, th)
*Sight Words/Word Wall Words
Our goal is for your child to be able to recognize spelling patterns and consistently use these in his/her writing. We work
for each child to move through six writing stages during the year achieving a stage six by the year’s end. To accomplish
this your child will need to…
 represent each sound heard in words, so that they can easily be read
 begin to use capital letters and some punctuation marks
 use at least two complete sentences
 spell simple sight words correctly
 relate the written piece to a topic
High-frequency words are taught through our Language Arts block of time as well as writing. Each week Word
Wall Words (Sight Words) will be introduced. These words are high-frequency words that your child will see often in their
reading and will need to spell frequently in their writing. In addition, through these words, your child will be taught letter
sounds and spelling patterns referred to as “chunks.” Your child will be taught to transfer the spelling patterns of known
words to new words that have the same pattern. For example, if the Word Wall Word was “at”, your child will learn
Transfer Words like “sat”, “mat”, “fat” and “that.” In addition to Word Wall Words, your child will have opportunities to
manipulate sounds and increase their knowledge of language.
Our Writer’s block will consist of various forms and stages of writing, mini-lessons, ample time to write and often,
sharing called “Author’s Chair.” Children will be taught grammar, including the use of punctuation marks. We will introduce
simple editing and the application of their known Word Wall Words.
We will be using the D’Nealian form of Handwriting. We will spend a portion of extra class time teaching formal
handwriting, but the teaching of proper stroking and letter formation is also incorporated into other daily lessons. A letter
formation sheet is attached in this packet.
Every day the student will participate in Centers. In Kindergarten, some of the centers include, Working with
Words, Writing Center, Listening Center, Computers, Letter/Word/Picture Sorts, Whiteboards, Magnetic Letters, Making
Books, Social Studies/Science Activities, Manipulatives, Making Words, Math Games, Pocket Chart Activities, Cut-up
Sentences and more!
3
2
1
5
M+A+T+H=
4
enVisionMath
The enVisionMath is a math program that is written specifically to address the Common Core State
Standards. It is based on critical foundational research that we will model our math block.
 Common Core Review helps reinforce Common Core State Standards
 Problem-Based Interactive Learning develops deeper conceptual understanding.
 Step-by-Step Visual Instruction makes the math explicit for students and parents.
Components of a Lesson:
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Topic Openers
Whole group Interactive Lesson Instruction to develop concepts
Visual Learning to continue concept development
Guided Practice
Hands-on Differentiated Activities
Social
Studies
Social Studies will be integrated into our Language Arts curriculum as well as various
thematic units. Throughout the year we will draw on History, People in Societies, Geography,
Economics, Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities, and Skills and Methods meeting each of the
Core State Standards. Daily, students are encouraged to work and play cooperatively and to solve
social problems in an acceptable manner.
Science
Science will also be taught integrated within the Language Arts curriculum and within various
thematic units. Children will explore their world through investigation, guided practice, scientific
method and literature links. As we meet each of the Core State Standards for Science activities
instruction will include Earth and Space, Life Science, Physical Science, Science and Technology,
Scientific Inquiry, and Scientific Ways of Knowing.
A Little Bit About Me
This is my eighth year teaching Kindergarten at Hamilton Elementary. I am looking forward to this exciting new
year at Hamilton! Before I came to Hamilton I taught Pre-Kindergarten in a private school for seven years as
well as worked with our local public schools. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education and an
Associates Degree in Child Development. I have been married for twenty-nine years. We live on a hillside in
the country with two dogs and a cat. My husband and I have three children and eight grandchildren ranging in
age from 1 year to 16 who always come first! In our free time (there is never enough) my husband enjoy
looking for antiques and sneaking off on a quiet country motorcycle ride. I look forward to getting to know and
work with your family this year. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns as the year progresses.