We’re gonna get started. There’s a couple people that are straggling in, but we’re gonna get started so that we can start close to one time and finish up close to one time. I’m Carolyn Shettiak. I’m the Whitford school principal. I’m gonna do some quick introductions, and then I’m gonna be passing them off and we’re gonna be sharing the rest of the presentation, um, with Benhurston, who is the principal of the Buer school. Jenny Hunt is the principal of the Cutler school. You’ll hear from Maureen Smith, who is the elementary special education coordinator, Jenny Caufield, who is our communications specialist and has been helping people with registrations and things, and she’s the knower of all things and answerer of all questions. Patty Olsson, kindergarten teacher at Cutler. Linda McMahon. Kindergarten teacher at Uer and Meropola is the kindergarten teacher at Winthrop, and they are gonna be representing all the kindergarten teachers from across the district. So I’m gonna pass off now to Mr. Sher. Thank you. Um, so as we begin tonight, our Go next slide. Now my simple. Yes and discovered. All right, I’m, I’m gonna start talking and we’ll get this cut up. Um, our goal is to work together, um, to be confident, cooperative, independent kindergarten arts. So that’s this process to begins inside that as we move through the end of next, uh, year. The one thing everyone always wants to know about is where the kids can go to school. How do you decide that. Um, the first thing to look at is siblings. Um, if you, if your child has an older sibling who was at a school, um, that the kindergarten still with two, with families together. Um, the second two pieces pieces that we think about are class size and geography. Um, we do have transfer buses that get kids from different areas from town to the schools, so there is buses available to ours what school you go to. Um, we also do try to keep class sizes similar across the district. Um, so once we get those siblings placed, uh, we start looking where folks live, who really live really close to the school. Um, if you would walk business you’re more likely, um, to attend that school, um, and then once you do that, the class sizes are funky, that’s when you have to start, um, making some decisions and that. 11 of the things we’ll look at is, are there, I mean, there are a handful of kids in what I would call traditional Buker neighborhoods not go to Buker, um, and so we’ll look to see if there are any incoming families who have neighbors who are also going to schools that are not necessarily close to schools like Eden neighbors to go, um, we’re working is a in a complicated process, um, and one of those things we can’t really figure out until we know exactly what we have. The schedule for the year is a little bit different next year. Um, Monday through Friday we are gonna be 8:25 to 257. Um, what’s different about that is that this year we do early releases on the Wednesdays, uh, February week, I mean that’s been that way for time getting next year we are only doing early releases once a month. Um, so most Wendys will be regular school days and then that second Wednesday by going to house that can really support the students, um, and that gives us a chance to do some work with teachers, do some development, so during their days. Uh, anyone living more than a half mile from school, um, has the opportunity to take the bus. Um, we will set those up, uh, at the end of the summer where we have a sense of exactly who’s coming. Uh, we’ll send out some information later this summer to look for some general commitments about do you think you’re going to take the bus, um, or not, that helps us in the bus company build fix routes, but that is not an is an option for everyone. Um, I did mention transfer buses. Um, if you are someone who lives sort of in the Bugre end of towns, you’re not at Bugger. What ends up happening is your child will take a bus to Bure up on a transfer bus that will bring you to Cutler to. It sounds totally insane. I had that look on my face and was super hand pulled me about and he hired me and it worked so well. We would the whole thing reverse the me. And again, it sounds totally insane and it works really, really well. Um, we’ve got lots of adults there to make sure kids go where they need to go. Um, and when kindergartners are coming through, we’ve got 1st graders, 2nd graders, 3rd grades, 4th graders, 5th graders who’ve been doing this for years, and we can help out a lot with that as well. So, in the afternoon, um, we need someone at the kindergarten bus stop for us to go to kindergarten job. Um, so if there’s not someone at that bus stop and then the bus rolls up, they will not be kindergartners, um, along the side of the road, and you’ll get a phone call from our school has to be come down to school to pick them up, just the bus to bring it back to us. OK Some important dates as you think about the option of months. Um, registration officially opens tomorrow. Is that right? Registration tomorrow. It’s already open, open. fantastic. Um, we will do screening appointments the week of April 28th. Um, we’re going to talk a little bit about a little bit more about what it actually means. Um, at the end of June we will take all of those folks who are registered, um, and we’ll make some placements throughout schools, um, so we can let folks know at the end of June when this happens. I say when I say end of June I mean end of June, not when kids get out of school, but by the end of June, so kids will get out of school and then we’ll figure it out because it’s all other stuff we’re doing in the last few days of kids are ripped, so really the end of June. Um, I’m gonna skip the next line and go right down to September 2nd. Uh, so the first day of kindergarten is gonna be the Tuesday after Labor Day. Um, that is a change, um, for us at normal when historically 1st through 5th grade has begun on that Tuesday in kindergarten is starting on Wednesday. Um, we’re making a change this year so that everyone will start on that Tuesday. Um, which I think will help for, for working parents. Um, what that means is the system that we’ve used right introducing kids and introducing, um, families to school is gonna look different and we have not sorted that out yet, um, so there will be some some sort of opportunity for folks to come in to visit their schools, uh, before school starts, but I don’t know exactly what it looks like and as soon as we figure it out we will let you know. Um, I think Jan, we’re gonna talk about the registration process. Hi everyone, uh, my name is Jen Hatfield, and like I said I’m registrar, but apparently I know a lot of them supporting Carolyn, but honestly feel free to ask me anything. I’ve also had the privilege of raising our three girls here and the baby is 19 in college, so we’ve been in town raising kids for 20, almost 28 years, so free to ask me anything, even about transfer buses because I would admit I also work in transportation. Anyways, so most of you may have already registered. Our registration process is 100% online. Um, this little QR think will take you to that registration information page. Most importantly, um, the students, not most importantly, but if you have any problems or questions during that process, my email is also on that page and my phone number, um, asking questions go directly to the asking desk, but I can also help you get there. Um, any of your students who are currently enrolled at the Hamilton and pre-K do not need to register, but Donna will, um, probably be creating a list soon that the teachers will, I guess, coordinate with in terms of yes, you’re coming to kindergarten to one or you are not. That’s all we ask. those are the Winthrop free school in the district. Yes, our church, you know, everyone else needs to register. All right, next, uh, most importantly, I encourage you to get to that page to read the required documents before you start a registration process because you need to dig out your lead screening for when your child was 3 or 4, and that’s fine, but also this list is on the website, um, and I’m not gonna read it to you, obviously, um, again QR code will take you there. There is just a link that’ll have all those documents. Um, if you have any questions, I’ll be on that. Uh But. Hi everyone , um, I’m gonna just talk about kindergarten screening process a bit. Um, the every in Massachusetts, every child who is required to anyP screen, so we hold our process in April, um. And the reason for screening is to identify any potential needs of students entering into pedia so that we can meet needs, provide for needs, identify service needs as soon as possible for young children. um, the areas that we screen for all developmental areas we screen academic readiness we screen. Rose motor for language, for regulation, social development, so that’s, that’s the purpose and the areas that we screen for. It So I OK , um, so when, when screening is done, you’ll get information from us. You’ll get a letter from us after the screening that says either that, um, everything was fine and the child is uh mentally, um, OK, in all those areas that. They want to re-screen your child in October once they enter into into kindergarten, and the reason would be if we just saw some areas of potential need that maybe we just wanted to look at it again because it’s months later children could be very easily. And then the third option of response should be that we not only we go meet with if the songs that we need to devaluate to address the media. We do keep in mind that screening is and we want you all to keep in mind that screening is a snapshot in a 45 years. Uh, children can present all present very, very differently. Some come in ready to go, and others we can’t salary from all of that is fine, and I really don’t want this process to create any undue stress on the parents or for the children if, if a child doesn’t separate, if your child is not. Ready for it that day or able to cooperate or able to leave you, it’s all good we do another screening in August and then we will be screening when they get you out of that, so no worries on that. It’s, it’s just all OK. We’ve seen everything and we do everything it’s just great so. Any questions so far on kind of why we screaming or how we scream. good. So logistics, um, what to expect. So the days we have 3 days, um, after April vacation at school you can sign up. Jim is gonna send you a sign up sheet. You can sign up at any school, whatever day works for your schedule. The school that you go to has no bearing on the school that your child will go to, so you can go to any of the three schools, whatever is convenient for you. Uh, and there’ll be times I’ll sign up. I’m looking at 4 to 5 and there are 1 or 4 blocks, um, that you can sign up for. Where the clocks. So, um, uh, the first screening is the special education teachers, usually, uh, an occupational therapist, a speech and language therapist, and kindergarten teachers. Yeah. So on the. That I should be. On the day of screening, um, We’ll come in with your child through your time slot. The counselors will be here. You’ll have received a questionnaire ahead of time to complete, and the counselors will meet with parents during the 45 minutes and we’ll, uh, the students will take your child to a certain area, and you’ll meet with the counselor. That’s your time to talk about any concerns you have. Um, then they’ll ask you questions, go over anything, ask any questions of that. Um and talk about, like I said, any concerns or any information that you want to provide to the schools at that time, um, and we talked about how the results are communicated and if you, if you can’t make it, something happens on that day and somebody’s sick, your child’s sick, just call the school, the school that you’re going to, and just let them know. We do ask that because sometimes we do have, uh, you know, jokes and people don’t know where to go, so just call us at the school. And my last, uh, to would be if your child is already receiving services on an IEP, any special ed services at all, um, do not register you don’t need to. You So, um, so here I have it up so I still yeah, it’s just to see uh OK. The fact that I struggle. Um, just about screening, um, when Maureen talks about a screener that has a really specific meaning for us in education, um, what a screener looks for is really just Are we 100% sure everything is fine. So if you get that and you want to re-screen your kid, that doesn’t mean something is wrong. OK? Do not care if you get that phone call, we will have lots of kids who are asked to re-screen and developmently they’re totally. Um, the, the bar for passing that freedom is pretty high, um, it’s pretty high, uh, so just if you get that phone call, don’t, it doesn’t mean that we are concerned. Um, we will have lots of kids who are who will come back with a race for clue our development like all development right. It also might be when you get the letter, my um contact information will count as and if you do you have any questions or any notice of this or we have any follow-up questions because it’s like. You didn’t say that. OK. Oh OK . So we’re gonna talk a little bit about how you as parents can help you get your children ready for kindergarten. Um, so one thing that’s super helpful for kindergarten teachers and for us as administrators is to try to build as much independence for your kindergarten for your incoming kindergartners as you possibly can before they get here, um, you know, we have 1516, 1820 little children in a classroom with a teacher and a part-time teaching assistant, and it’s time to zip up coats and tie shoes and get lunch boxes and snacks. Mask ready, um, that could take up a lot of time. So the more work you could do with your children to help them learn how to get dressed, um, tying shoes is something that usually happens in the 1st and 2nd grade, but we’re really excited if kindergartners know how to do it, um, or if they’ve got Velcro shoes they can put them on and off. Um, we are in the midst of snow season right now, and we, the expectation is that kids are putting on their snow pants, their snow boots, their coats, their hats, their mittens by themselves. We’re all there to help them do a little final zipping, but it would take the whole recess period if adults had to get every single kid dressed so all of those kinds of independent things are super helpful if you can help them work on them. Um, kids will be eating snack in school and they will be eating in the cafeteria. So if you’re planning for your child to be bringing their lunch from home, having them independently be able to zip in. Unzip or clip and unclip their lunch boxes opening up packages all of those things that we as parents tend to help our kids do because it’s quicker and easier um we don’t have people to be able to do one on one stuff and certainly if kids are having a hard time. I spend a lot of time opening up those cheese sticks at lunchtime when I’m in the cafeteria, but the more you can help kids practice doing those things before they get to school, the easier it is for. Us, um, bathrooming is something that we are expecting kindergartners to be able to independently do um we do not go into bathrooms with kids to help them wipe, so that’s something definitely to practice with them um this year as you’re getting them ready to launch into kindergarten, um, and then the other thing is if you are planning to drop kids off getting in and out of the car, including and. I know this is something we tend not to want to tell our kids how to do, but getting in and out of their car seats independently, um, I believe that Bucher and Cutler do it the way we do it here, but we do a stop, drop and roll here where the kids are expected to be ready to jump out of the car and off you go, um, if you’re dropping off. So all of those really independent skills you’ve got some time between now and September to start working on it getting your kids ready for those things. Um, the other thing you can work on with your kids over the next few months is building their own sociable vocabulary. So one of the things that we have kindergartners coming in and it’s often hard for them to express how they’re feeling and so they’re either just mad or they’re crying and they can’t really explain if they’re frustrated if they’re sad if they’re not feeling well so really working on kind of feeling words and trying to help them identify how their body feels. how their brain is feeling how they’re emotionally feeling and help them work on isolating how they’re feeling and teaching them some of those vocabulary so that we can help them better um and also being able to ask for specific help I need help with my jacket or my friend who’s just mean to me I need help working. All that so those are things that you can continue to work on with them is to help them identify sort of their feelings and teach them some of those failing words we’re gonna continue to do that when they get to kindergarten, but it’s super helpful if kids have some of that vocabulary coming in to be able to identify how they’re feeling when they’re overwhelmed or when they’re not feeling. Um, so that is would be super helpful to all of us, and was there anything else I needed to say? Oh, and consistency is key, yes, um, so when we get close to kindergarten at the end of the summer really start working on making those bedtimes a consistent time kids need a lot of sleep we um work them really hard all day long and so kids who come to school tired and grouchy are not gonna be. Best as we all know as parents, um, so I stay consistent time from getting up in the morning, um, some expectations around behaviors um working on sort of helping kids identify disappointments and we’re gonna say no sometimes to things we’re going to expect them to be able to play a game in the classroom. And sometimes they’re gonna lose and not lose their grip because they lost the game or they didn’t get to play with the toy that they wanted to play right now so we’re really hoping that you can help to build some of that resiliency for little kids, um, and teach them how to play a game and gracefully win and gracefully lose and it’s not the end of the world, um. Again, eating meals independently and one of the things that you can do is have them help with family chores to build some independence and a little bit of leadership skills. So any questions about this part and we’re gonna pass it off to the kindergarten teachers for some specifics. OK. Um, and just so everybody knows, this slideshow is gonna be posted to the website, so you’ll have access to all of these slides. All right. So he’s first. Uh, oh, come on, here I am the same. They want their friends. This And and we we’re the kindergarten teachers again, I’m Linda McMann, Miss Megan, that the caddie from the base. Uh, this is Beau for school. This is where I’m a kindergarten teacher with Kathy O’Shea. She teaches with me. With the items. Oh, with the. That’s, that’s how we lived. Oh gosh, that was a few years ago, and that’s how children see us. I’m Patty Wilson. I teach with Allison Go at the Cutler School. and I’m Megan. I teach here at the school, and my colleagues are Sarah Matera and Kaine Sur. All right, so I’m going to start with the official, but first, um, I talked to my children today because they are report to the kindergarten experts, and I asked them if I should share with you in a meeting with the families of the children who are coming to kindergarten each year and what should I tell them about kindergarten. So they insisted that I give them a big welcome to kindergartens, um, and what they want you to know is that kindergarten is fun. You will learn something new every day. Like how to be friends and how to be a good friend. You will learn to share your toys, sometimes it would be easy, sometimes it would be hard. You will learn to be really good listeners. We are still learning to. You will have important jobs. You will count to 100 by 1s and by 10s. You will learn sounds and letters. You will learn to even breathe. OK, you’re not gonna get this, but let’s still avoid you know one of me to say this. You, you will learn the story about how the animals wanna be a musician. So, so you’re gonna learn some fables and now we can not only forward to this story when your child comes home and tell it to you in the fall. You will make lots of pictures, you will build stuff and make cool things. Kindergarten is lots of fun, and this is exact work so we wish you have a happy time in kindergarten, but he says in your. Uh OK, so student arrival, um, 8:15. Staff will rate , um, 8:15 from verytra off points. Um, there’s a supervised recess from 8:15 to 8:25. School officially starts at 8:25. Te teachers will grate students and we transition into the school building, um, for the day to begin. So here are our first responsibilities, um, unpacking their snack, unpacking their school folder, hanging up backpacks and jackets. Now this is the same routine every day and as Carolyn mentioned, we do help the children, um, with routines and strategies that will help them to be successful and independent. Now this is important because we start with a jacket, a light jacket and a backpack, and then it becomes a backpack and a heavy jacket and maybe a hat, and now we have a backpack and a heavy jacket and the hat and mittens and boots with no mans. So if we’re successful in the beginning, we can be successful as we gather more belongings as we went along. Then we transition into our morning meeting. Our morning meeting follows a format that’s designed by the responsive classroom approach. It includes a greeting, a share, then a song movement or game and a message. Now, a greeting is important because it helps the children to get comfortable saying their own name to a group. It helps them to learn other friends’ names. Um, a share is important as a part of community building. You might share at the beginning your a favorite animal, favorite color, favorite activities inside or outside, helps them to have a nice sense of belonging. Movement is very important. Canada Barton and of course favorite familiar songs are enjoyable for the children. And the message will give some information about the day. Well, they said they would have jobs, so a helper job would be to, um, help read the morning message. It will also be the daily schedule, the daily schedule, but jobs it could also be classroom specific. I have a schedule turner in my classroom. Um, they like to go up and turn over each section of the day. So they know how they’re moving on the day the beginning of the year, many of them are gonna ask when it’s time to go home so that we can go right over to the schedule and say you’re here, we have this no left to go. Some other fun jobs are shake down holders, light switch operators, and of course Ives and door owners. So this is new for us in kindergarten. We’ve just gone through um a training with the open circle for you. It’s um a pretty in depth um social emotional curriculum that really breaks things down for students about what it means to be a student in a classroom, what it means to be a friend in a classroom, and how we do that is through really specific lessons on getting calm, listening well, recognizing similarities and differences, latent connections with each other, uh, cooperating, understanding feelings. Our first lesson is how do we bring a chair to a group and sit and share in a group. Um, and then there are really cooperative lessons, um, collaborative lessons on how we can work together in a group. So as a team we felt really excited about this workshop, um, and I really looking forward to implementing it in our classrooms. Moving on to literacy instruction, there are Many components to our literacy instruction in kindergarten literacy. Um, kindergarten is a language-rich environment in general. Um, a large part of our instruction is CKLA skills. Um, CKLA stands for To Knowledge, Language Arts. Um, big components of that part of our day are learning sounds and sounds and letters, um, letter ID. Go back one We really work hard with that information. We’re blending sounds into reading words. So we first start with three letter words, and now we’re working into 4 or 5 letter words. Kids are also working on reading words, they’re bringing phrases, the reading sentences, um, the spelling words, they letting my Greekins and words. We do a lot of work in kindergarten. I get. I’m gonna take what we’re gonna do. Um, the CPL Knowledge is enough for about this program, and this part is really centered around value and informational read allow texts and through these read allow few students in a class really didn’t build their vocabulary. It really enriches their vocabulary quite a bit as they develop listening and comprehension skills while listening to these stories and then to support the comprehension, we do a lot of um. The rich conversations, there’s text, they may do some journaling, um, picture sequencing. Do go on to that and here so here is a list of the topics that down to the knowledge. So these are all the reasons we have in the same nature that there’s like approximately 10 lessons and each lesson has a read aloud story about and some ideas, like some ideas like so we’re 5 senses and we learn 5 senses and maybe do a nature walk and what do we hear spell see and then come back and journal but we small sound of so and so. Um, we do a weather journal for a day the see the weather and but you see they look people and some ladying of a flower with plane, so there’s lots of different things that we do to support the company to win our story. Hegrity is the literacy component that we have, and it’s basically a 10 to 15 minute daily game with a tow where the students really learn through listening and it’s like the curse sounding cat. They would be you know we’re going to learn right to and and it’s just all verbal, it’s all listening skills, and that’s just a 1015 minute d lesson that we do support the rest of the program that we have. Um, snacks, I know Carolyn touched on a lot of the snacks. Uh, first, you will be notified at the beginning of the year there’s two victims in the class soon that it’s not great, um, so you’ll find out about that. And then we just suggest, uh, also packing easy to open snacks for your students and some things you can do at home and again I don’t mention previous like practice of snacks, eating snacks in the time frame in the classroom we have about 15 minutes to eat a snack, so just kind of crack these they can take on you can sat it’s like, OK, let’s eat our snack, um, so it’s something you can do in the summer and also a water bottle with your student’s name on it and. And the first few weeks that students sometimes looks like they’re probably gonna be eating this snack because they’re just so concerned or worried or, you know, happy or whatever with the class and you don’t eat the snack the first feed yourself, that’s just not on, so they’ll be concerned about it. And the last time we started a new math curriculum this year, uh, and basically focuses on the foundational math concepts like counting number recognition they use part of, um, addition subtraction go through next month one you say and so right now we’re doing with the decomposition and the decomposition that’s so it’s part our whole already we have 3 and 5, make 8 and also 44 make 8 that they need to get program to support with that. easy stuff to talk so lunch we have lunch every day. um, your child can either bring a lunch from home or they can buy lunch at school, and our school lunch options are like the hot lunch of the day which is listed on the district website somewhere, um, and they give you the month worth of of choices and it’s good to talk with your child in the morning about what their plan is going to be so if their plans. Is to get a hot lunch that day it’s nice if they know that so because as soon as they walk in in the morning we do lunch count where they take a little magnet or something and show the teacher like what they’re doing for lunch that day so it’s helpful if they don’t move sometimes they get worried and confused so it’s good that they know what their plan is that day. um, the hot lunch of the day, they can also this year they can have a sun butter sandwich or a deli sandwich so those are the choices. Um, lunch is 20 minutes. It’s, um, pretty quick, especially like at snack time when they’re chatting, we have to give them reminders to like, OK, your lunch, um, so they have something to eat. Um, also, again, you’re gonna really know that we. I like them to open their own containers if they have easy containers to open and they practice it also if you’re packing a lunch and a snack, it’s really important to pack two separate bags or they will, they definitely will if their snack at their lunch at snack time. And then they’ll get to lunch in the oven. So if you pack them separately, that will be helpful. Um, so they always take up a lot of space, so I always tell parents coming into kindergarten those cute little backpacks because your child is small look cute, but they’re really. hard for your child to pack up at the end of the day if they have a snack bag and a lunch bag and your work folder and snow pants and everything to go in there. So a regular size backpack, even though it looks huge on your child, it’s actually much easier for them to manage. So. And recess. We have recess at the highlight of the day. We go out and look out. But you. Is it still? Oh, lunch is going to be free. We still say buying up for it, yeah, you have to sign up for it and be free again. Oh, I wasn’t sure so I didn’t say it. That’s good to know. But yeah, we, um have a recess every day. Um, it’s 20 minutes long, usually the lunchtime recess. We go out every day unless it’s raining or if it’s super cold outside, we’ll have recess still, but we have inside the classroom I guess open lights. So Science our science units we address the science standards through our CKLA knowledge, um, strands that Patty was talking about earlier and some things that we cover that are science related are plants, farms, the five seasons, and the five senses, the four seasons. Um, weather and taking care of the earth and um we try to make it hands on because it’s us visiting a farm this year with the farms unit. There’s some exploring of evergreens. We talk about deciduous trees and evergreen trees. We get outside when we can for it. Um, we try to make learning hands on whenever we can because we know that students learn fast when they learn through exploration and physical movement that they can really touch things and learn hands on, so we try to make every area of our learning hands on in some way, whether in math or manipulative or during literacy where they’re actually like moving letters around because that really helps them to remember learn things. Um, students will leave the classroom every day to go to specials we call them, so, um, they’re in different rooms. They’re about 50, 50 minutes long. I think this will be, we have art, physical education, library, media, and music, and next year because now we have our Wednesdays as a full day, we have another day for it we’ll have STEM, which will be fun. Excited about that. Right Uh, like, so play, of course, as you know, for young children play is super important and we all think that it’s a very important part of our day and we infuse it into not just unstructured play time like we have choice time which I’ll talk about in a minute but we infuse play into all parts of our day whether it’s literacy or math we do a lot of. The Lucy games, math games that are working with a partner, so your child is learning that um that really great gift of winning the grace and losing the grace because they’ll lose daily to someone else because they’ll win daily so it’s nice if you start playing games with them win a couple of games because it’ll get them used to losing. um, the play is also a really important time for your child to build those wonderful social building skills, how to, um, how to share, how to cooperate. Um, it’s great for language too. So we have Choice time, which is uh one of the most popular times during the day where they have unstructured playtime and they can play with blocks or Legos or imagine to play dollhouse. We have the sandbox. Um this is a time when they’re playing. But they’re also doing some of the most important learning that they’ll do in kindergarten because they’re learning that how to build those social relationships, how to negotiate, how to compromise, how to um problem solve how to work as a team. The left So kindergarten is a magical, magical year. It’s a time of growth, academic growth, physical growth, social emotional growth, and it’s a time when they’re they’ll learn to be a friend and to make many new friends. It’s like a big fail. Maybe it’s fine. There you go. Nice to be here, yeah. Thank you so much, ladies, for that great presentation. OK, so you’ve heard a lot tonight, um, about what it means to be in kindergarten, um, how your what your children are going to be experiencing in kindergarten. One thing that, um, we forgot to mention is yes, there’s free lunch, but there’s also free breakfast starting Hear this year. So again it’s something that you should sign your child up for if your child wants to get breakfast before school. um, it’s a very simple process they come in. Um, it’s a, it’s a grab and go kind of situation where they get to have different items put into a bag. They take their bag. They’re probably said they in their backpack and bring them to the classroom, and all classroom teachers grades came by, uh, give children opportunities to their snack, and again, I mean their breakfast again it’s like a 15 minute time period at the very beginning of the day, so you’ll be getting more information on that, but also something to keep in mind, um. And again, we’ve heard a lot about what kindergartens would be like a day in light of the kindergarten, but it would like be wondering how do I get myself and my child prepared for kindergarten. Um, we know that this is a very anxious time for parents. It’s, you know, the first time you’re going independently, you know, putting your child on the bus. Um, so just some things to kind of keep in mind over the summer, some things you can think about doing, um, just treat kindergarten, like it’s a normal, a normal occurrence, so it’s not like a big deal. Try not to make too big of a deal out of it because that could, you know, raise your child’s anxiety, getting nervous. and um take opportunities to visit your school, take opportunities to go to the playground, make some play dates with you know other children that are living in your area going to your same school, um, that’s a really important thing too, because just learning how to use the playground equipment is important for children, um, who wanna make sure that they know down the slide and up the slide, um, how to play on the monkey bars, how to, um, just. Utilize the different equipment on the playground, so it’s a social socialization time but also a good time to learn about your school, um, so we talk a lot uh to kids at school about school is their job, um, just like grown ups have our jobs, so it’s their job and their job is sort of their responsibility to go to school every day and to learn to go to school every day and to be kind and respectful. Um, so that’s really important to talk to your children about, um, and just make sure that they know that they’re gonna make new friends. So some of your kids are at preschool right now and they probably aren’t gonna go to kindergarten with everyone that they’re preschooling. So just, you know, talking a lot about what does that look like, what you’re meeting a friend, how do you meet a new friend, what would you say, um, so that’s, that’s important topic friendship. Um, and I’m sure you’re already just reading books in general with your children, which we know is one of the most important things you can do, um, but taking some books out of the library, looking into books that actually talk about kindergarten or like the start of school. I know, uh, there’s a book by Kevin Yankey called Where Are We Wearing, and it’s where Willie’s going to school for the first time she’s very worried about if she’s gonna make friends if she’s gonna like her teacher. Sure, um, so that’s a good one to check out as well, um, and then this book at the bottom how to prepare your child for Kindergarten, this is just a book that has hundreds of suggestions of things you can do, um, with your child conversations you can have tips you can use, um, to get your child prepared for kindergarten and most importantly remember that a lot of kids are going to have a lot of anxiety that I about starting school they have. Even in other grades, but once you get to the school, if you could just hand your children on to us, we will take you with them we can promise you. Most of the time once the kids are out of the car or out of the parents’s hands and they’re with us, they end up having a wonderful day. So just keep that in mind as part of your team and maybe an expectation that it could, you know, anticipate that your, your child could have some anxiety going into the building, but we are here to support and help, OK. Um, nitsy for this child, and I just, yes, we just got something, uh, that I’m allergic to, uh. So after we do um your school assignments before school starts um for people who are not currently in um in our schools, our PTO or PTA are called the friends of, so there’s the friends of the girl friends of color friends of Winthrop, and they do a kindergarten kind of play date before school starts. So you’ll have an opportunity um as parents to meet the people who run friends groups and get signed up to get involved in um in the schools and it will also be an opportunity to meet some of the other children who will be coming to kindergarten those specific schools so I just wanted to make that pointing into the building. Oh please, please, you’ll see the locks of mounds that’s at the back of the school. Please label everything your child brings to school, including like even the shirts that they put on because I don’t know somehow kids take off. The clothes that they shouldn’t be taking off and then we find it. So if you can label everything, um, I don’t know how people are dealing with the winter without their snow jackets that have been here all winter. So anyway, label label label label, lunch boxes, water bottles and everything. OK, so now I guess we are ready for um any questions that you might have for us. Yes. But I’m a new early release today because they don’t want. Yes, it’s so it’s early. They will not have lunch on that day. Um, anytime it’s an 11:15 day you’ll the, the district calendars are on our website, so, um. That the second Tuesday or Wednesday is gonna be early release. uh Wednesday before Thanksgiving is at 11:15. There are certain days that are 11:50 dismissals. We do not serve lunch on those days, and we also do not serve breakfast on those days because the cafeteria staff is not. Yes, did you say that peers in the integrated program this year? Yes, if you have a peer student in the integrated program at Winthrop, you want to sign up for a um screening. If you have a student who’s in the program as a special ed student, you do not have to sign up for screens. You know that talking bus devils. I’m chopped, but it’s um there’s a spring break over like bus that already comes that like my our neighbor get that did you raise calls to assume that the time wouldn’t be very similar. Yes, it’s a safe bet and every year after we get kindergarten, I mean, do you want to talk more about this after we get kindergarten registrations, um, you know, we as a district do not run the bus schedules that’s on the bus company so once they see. Who’s gonna be on buses they reroute, but it’s generally close to the same routes and the same timing, um, and those schedules we try to have them out the week before school starts sometimes it gets close to the day before school starts, but yes. Then it’s understand that. All right, we’ll Any individual questions, thank you all for coming and if you haven’t registered, please do ASAP. It helps us be able to plan better. Thank you. That’s something. Oh, and, and if you don’t register before June, then you will not know what your student’s school placement will be until August. So if you want to know what school your child is going to, you need to do it before June. That’s because it just. I. They. So. Yeah. I Yeah. Yeah. I. outside. Yeah And up. Yeah. OK. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s I. Yeah. Yeah. That’s. Yeah. Yeah. I. I. there’s this. Yes. Um, it’s. Yeah, Yes. It’s like you. OK Yeah. I. Right. No, she has. OK. Yeah. I. Yeah. So Don’t. And You Yeah. I. OK, um, so. I No. Yeah. And it was just. Yeah. Yeah I. Yeah education So And. It’s like this. more Yes. Yeah. Yeah You. Yeah. I. Yeah. I. You Yeah. Yeah. I Yeah. Yeah. I Well. Right. Yeah. Yeah I. I. I. Yeah. I think so. I. We’re gonna get started. There’s a couple people that are straggling in, but we’re gonna get started so that we can start close to one time and finish up close to one time. I’m Caroline Shettiak. I’m the Whitford school principal. I’m gonna do some quick introductions, and then I’m gonna be passing off and we’re gonna be sharing the rest of the presentation, um, with Benhurston, who is the principal of the Buker School. Jenny Hunt is the principal of the Cutler school. You’ll hear from Maureen Smith, who is the elementary special education coordinator, Jenny Caufield, who is our communications specialist and has been helping people with registrations and things, and she’s the knower of all things and answer of all questions. Pattie Olson, kindergarten teacher at Cutler. Linda McMaho. Kindergarten teacher at Uber and Michael Kropola is the kindergarten teacher at Winthrop, and they’re gonna be representing all the kindergarten teachers from across the district. So I’m gonna pass off now to Mr. Sher. Thank you. Um, so as we begin tonight, our Bold next slide. Now, what could you simple. Yes so. All right, I’m, I’m gonna start talking and and we’ll get this cut up. Um, our goal is to work together, um, to be confident, cooperative, independent kindergarten arts. So that’s when this process to begins inside that as we move through the end of next, uh, year. The one thing everyone always wants to know about is where the kid in to go to school, how do you decide that. Um, the first thing to look at is siblings. Um, if you, if your child has an older sibling who is at the school, um, then your kindergarten still with two, with families together. Um, the second two pieces pieces that we think about are class size and yo. Um, we do have transfer buses that get kids from different areas from town to the schools, so there is buses available in what school you go to. Um, we also do try to keep class sizes similar across the district. Um, so once we get those siblings placed, uh, we start looking where folks live, who really live really close to the school. Um, if you would walk distance you’re more likely, um, to attend that school, um, and then once you do that, the class sizes are quickly, that’s when you have to start, um, making some decisions and that. 11 of the things we’ll look at is, are there, I mean, there are a handful of kids in what I would call traditional Buker neighborhoods who not go to Buker, um, and so we’ll look to see if there are any incoming families who have neighbors who are also going to schools that are not necessarily close to schools like Eden neighbors to go, um, we’re working is a in a complicated process, um, and one of those things we can’t really figure out until we know exactly what we have. The schedule for the year is a little bit different next year. Um, Monday through Friday we are in the 8:25 to 257. Um, what’s different about that is that this year we do early releases on the Wednesdays, uh, February week, I that’s been that way for time beginning next year we are only doing early releases once a month. Um, so most Wends can be regular school days and then that second Wednesday by one to go with houses that can really support the students, um, and that gives us a chance to do some work with teachers, do some development, so during their days. Uh, anyone living more than a half mile from school, um, has the opportunity to take the bus. Um, we will set those up, uh, at the end of the summer when we have a sense of exactly who’s coming. Uh, we’ll send out some information later this summer to look for some general commitments about do you think you’re going to take the bus, um, or not. That helps us in the bus company build fix routes, but that is not an is an option for everyone. Um, I did mention transfer buses. Um, if you are someone who lives sort of in the bure and in of towns, but you’re not at ere. What ends up happening is your child will take bus to Bure up on a transfer bus that will bring you to Cutler to winter. It sounds totally insane. I had that look on my face and was super hand pulled me about and he hired me and it worked so bad. We would whole thing reverse from the afternoon. And again, it sounds totally insane and it works really, really well. Um, we’ve got lots of adults there to make sure kids go where they need to go. Um, and when kindergarteners are coming through, we’ve got 1st graders, 2nd graders, 3rd grades, 4th graders, 5th graders who’ve been doing this for years and we can help out a lot with that as well. So, in the afternoon, um, we need someone at the kindergarten bus stop for us to drop kindergarten job. Um, so if there’s not someone at that bus stop and then the bus rolls up, they will not be kindergartners, um, along the side of the road, and you’ll get a phone call from our school has me come down to school to pick them up, just the bus to bring it back to us. OK Some important dates as you think about the option of months. Um, registration initially opens tomorrow. Is that right? Registration tomorrow. It’s already open. It’s already open. fantastic. Um, we will do screening appointments the week of April 28th. Um, we’re going to talk a little bit about a little bit more about what it actually means. Um, at the end of June we will take all of those folks who are registered, um, and we’ll make some placements around schools, um, so we can let folks know at the end of June when this happens. I say when I say end of June I mean end of June, not when kids get out of school, but by the end of June, so kids will get out of school and then we’ll figure it out because it’s all other stuff we’re doing in the last few days that kids are ripped, so really the end of June. Um, I’m gonna sit the next line I’m go right down to September 2nd. Uh, so the first day of kindergarten is gonna be the Tuesday after Labor Day. Um, that is a change, um, for us at normal when historically 1st through 5th grade has begun on that Tuesday in kindergarten is starting Wednesday. Um, we’re making a change this year so that everyone will start on that Tuesday. Um, which I think will help for, for working parents. Um, what that means is the system that we’ve used right introducing kids and introducing, um, families to school is gonna look different and we have not sorted that out yet, um, so there will be some some sort of opportunity for folks to come in and visit their schools, uh, before school starts, but I don’t know exactly what it looks like and as soon as we figure it out, we will let you know. Um, I think Jan, we’re gonna talk about the registration process. Hi everyone, uh, my name is Jen Caufield, and like I said, I’m a registrar but apparently. I know a lot of things according to Carolyn, but honestly feel free to ask me anything. I’ve also had the privilege of raising our three girls here. The baby is 19 in college, so we’ve been in town raising kids for 20, almost 28 years, several free to ask me anything, even about transfer buses because I will admit I also work in transportation. Anyway, so most of you may have already registered. Our registration process is 100% online. Um, this will QR will take you to that registration information page. Most importantly, um, the students, not most importantly, but if you have any problems or questions during that process, my email is also on that page and my phone number, um, asking questions go directly to the asking desk, but I can also help you get there. Um, any of your students who are currently enrolled at the Hamilton and pre-K do not need to register, but Donna will, um, probably be creating a list soon that the teachers will, I guess, coordinate with in terms of yes, you are coming to kindergarten to 10 or you are not. That’s all we ask. those are the Winthrop free school in the district. Yes, it’s church, you know, everyone else needs to register. All right, next, uh, most importantly, I encourage you to get to that page to read the required documents before you start a registration process because you need to dig out your lead screening for when your child was 3 or 4, and that’s fine, but also this list is on the website, um, and I’m not gonna read it to you, obviously, um, again, QR code will take you there. There is just a link that’ll have all those documents. Um, if you have any questions, I’ll be our investor. Uh But his words. Hey. Hi, everyone. Um, I’m gonna just talk about kindergarten screening process a bit, um. The in Massachusetts, every child who is required to any peace screen so we hold our process in, um, and the reason for screening is to identify any potential needs of students entering into so that we can meet needs, provide for needs, identify any service needs as soon as possible for young children, um. The areas that we screen for all developmental areas we screen readiness we screen motor rose motor for language, for regulation and social development. So that’s, that’s the purpose and the areas that we screen for. And So I OK, um, so when, when screening is done, you’ll get information from us. You’ll get a letter from us after the screening that says either that, um, everything was fine and the child is uh mentally, um, OK, Erica. That we may want to re-screen your child in October once they enter into into kindergarten and the reason would be if we just saw some areas of potential need that maybe we just wanted to look at again because 6 months later children could be very easily and then the third option of drug response should be that we not only we go meet with if this sounds that we need to devalue to address the media. We do keep in mind that screening is and we want you all to keep in mind that screening is a snapshot in a 45 years. Uh, children can present all present very, very differently. Some come in ready to go, and others we can’t salary from. All of that is fine, and I really don’t want this process to create any undue stress on the parents or for the children if, if a child doesn’t separate, if your child is not. Ready for it that day or able to cooperate or able to leave you, it’s all good we do another screening in August and then we will be screening when they get you out of that so no worries on that. It’s, it’s just all OK. We’ve seen everything and we do everything it’s just great so. Any questions so far on kind of why we screaming or how we scream. So logistics, um, what do you expect? So the days we have 3 days, um, after April vacation at school you can sign up. Jim is gonna send you a sign up sheet. You can sign up at any school, whatever day works for your schedule. The school that you go to has no bearing on the school that your child will go to, so you can go to any of the three schools, whatever is 3. Uh, and there’ll be times I’ll sign up. I’m looking at 4 to 5 and there are 1 or 4 blocks, um, that you can sign up for. Where the clocks. So, um, uh, the first screening is the special education teachers, usually, uh, an occupational therapist, a speech and language therapist, and kindergarten teachers. Yeah. So on the. That I should be. Um, the day of screening, um, We’ll come in with your child through your time slot. The counselors will be here. You’ll have received a questionnaire ahead of time to complete, and the counselors will meet with parents during the 45 minutes and we’ll, um, the screens will take your child to a certain area, and you’ll meet with the counselor. That’s your time to talk about any concerns you have. Um, then they’ll ask you questions, go over anything, ask any questions of that. Um, and talk about, like I said, any concerns or any information that you want to provide to the schools at that time, um, and we talked about how the results are communicated and if you, if you can’t make it, something happens on that day and somebody’s sick, your child’s sick, just call the school, the school that you’re going to, and just let them know. We do ask that because sometimes we do have, uh, you know, jokes and people don’t know where to go, so just call us at the school. And my last, uh, to would be if your child is already receiving services on an IEP, any special ed services at all, um, do not register. You don’t need to. You So it um so you so it should I still this yes yeah it’s just it to receive uh OK. The fact that I struggle. Um, just about screening, um, when Maureen talks about a screener that has a really specific meaning for us in education, um, what a screener looks for is really just Are we 100% sure everything is fine. So if you get that phone call and you want to re-screen your kid, that doesn’t mean something is wrong, OK? Do not if you get that phone call, we will have lots of kids who are asked for re-screen and developmentally they’re totally even. Um, the, the bar for passing that freedom is pretty high, and, um, it’s pretty high, uh, so just if you get that phone call, don’t, it doesn’t mean that we are concerned. Um, we will have lots of kids who are gonna be will come back with a race for clue our development they all development right. It also might be when you get the letter, my um contact information will count and if you do you have any questions or any notice of this or you have any follow-up question because it’s like. You didn’t say that. OK. Oh OK. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about how you as parents can help you get your children ready for kindergarten. Um, so one thing that’s super helpful for kindergarten teachers and for us as administrators is to try to build as much independence for your kindergarten for your incoming kindergartners as you possibly can before they get here, um, you know, when we have 1516. 1820 little children in a classroom with a teacher and a part-time teaching assistant and it’s time to zip up coats and tie shoes and get lunch boxes and snacks ready um that could take up a lot of time so the more work you could do with your children to help them learn how to get dressed. Uh, tying shoes is something that usually happens in the 1st and 2nd grade, but we’re really excited if kindergartners know how to do it, um, or if they’ve got Velcro shoes they can put them on and off. Um, we are in the midst of snow season right now, and we, the expectation is that kids are putting on their snow pants, their snow boots, their boats, their hats, their mittens by themselves. We’re all there to help them do a little final zipping, but it would take the whole recess period. And adults have to get every single kid dressed, so all of those kinds of independent things are super helpful if you can help them work on them, um, kids will be eating snack in school and they will be eating in the cafeteria. So if you’re planning for your child to be bringing their lunch from home, having them independently be able to zip and unzip or clip and unclip their lunch boxes, opening up packages. All of those things that we as parents tend to help our kids do because it’s quicker and easier um we don’t have people to be able to do one on one stuff and certainly the kids are having a hard time. I spend a lot of time opening up those cheese sticks at lunchtime when I’m in the cafeteria, but the more you can help kids practice doing those things before they get to school, the easier it is for us, um, bathrooming is. Is something that we are expecting kindergartners to be able to independently do um we do not go into bathrooms with kids to help them wait so that’s something definitely to practice with them um this year as you’re getting them ready to launch into kindergarten, um, and then the other thing is if you are planning to drop kids off getting in and out of the car, including and I know this is something we tend. And not to want to tell our kids how to do but getting in and out of their car seats independently, um, I believe that Bucher and Cutler do it the way we do it here, but we do a stop, drop and roll here where the kids are expected to be ready to jump out of the car and off you go, um, if you’re dropping off. So all of those really independent skills you’ve got some time between now and September to start working on getting your kids ready for those things. Um, the other thing you can work on with your kids over the next few months is building their own sociable vocabulary. So one of the things that we have kindergarteners coming in and it’s often hard for them to express how they’re feeling and so they’re either just mad or they’re funny and they can’t really explain if they’re frustrated if they’re sad if they’re not feeling well so really working on kind of feeling words and trying to help them identify how their body feels. how their brain is feeling how they’re emotionally feeling and help them work on isolating how they’re feeling and teaching them some of those vocabulary so that we can help them better um and also being able to ask for specific help I need help with my jacket or my friend who’s just mean to me I need help working. All that so those are things that you can continue to work on with them is to help them identify sort of their feelings and teach them some of those failing words we’re gonna continue to do that when they get to kindergarten, but it’s super helpful if kids have some of that vocabulary coming in to be able to identify how they’re feeling when they’re overwhelmed or when they’re not feeling. Um, so that is would be super helpful to all of us, and was there anything else I needed to say? Oh, and consistency is key, yes, um, so when you get close to kindergarten at the end of the summer really start working on making those bedtime a consistent time kids need a lot of sleep we um work them really hard all day long and so kids who come to school tired and grouchy are not gonna be. Best as we all know as parents, um, so I stayed consistent time from getting up in the morning, um, some expectations around behaviors, uh, working on sort of helping kids identify disappointments and we’re gonna say no sometimes to things we’re going to expect them to be able to play a game in the classroom. And sometimes they’re gonna lose and not lose their grip because they lost the game or they didn’t get to play with the toy that they wanted to play right now so we’re really hoping that you can help to build some of that resiliency for little kids, um, and teach them how to play a game and gracefully win and gracefully lose and it’s not the end of the world, um. Again, eating meals independently and one of the things that you can do is have them help with family chores to build some independence and a little bit of leadership skills. So any questions about this part and we’re gonna pass it off to the kindergarten teachers for some specifics. OK, um, and just so everybody knows, this slideshow is gonna be posted to the website, so you’ll have access to all of these slides. All right. So he’s first. Uh, oh, come on up here. They want as their friends. This And and we we’re the kindergarten teachers again, I’m Linda McMann, Miss Megan, that the caddie from the baseball. Uh, this is Beau for school. This is where I’m a kindergarten teacher with Kathy O’Shea. She teaches with me. With the items. So with the. That’s, that’s how we lived. Oh gosh, that was a few years ago, and that’s how the children see us. I’m Patty Wilson. I teach with Allison Goha at the Cutler School. and I’m Megan. I teach here at the school, and my colleagues are Sarah Matera and Kingsburg. All right, so I’m going to start with the official, but first, um, I talked to my children today because they are of course the kindergarten experts, and I asked them if I should share with you in a meeting with the families of the children who are coming to kindergarten year and what should I tell them about kindergarten. So they insisted that I give them a big welcome to kindergartens, um, and what they want you to know is that kindergarten is fun. You will learn something new every day. Like how to be friends and how to be a good friend. You will learn to share your toys, sometimes this would be easy, sometimes this would be hard. You will learn to be really listeners. We are still learning to. You will have important jobs. You will count to 100 by 1s and by 10s. You will learn sounds and letters. You will learn to even breathe. OK, you’re not gonna get this, but let’s still avoid you know one of me to say this. You, you will learn a story about how the animals wanna be a musician. So, so you’re gonna learn some fables, and now we can not only forward to this story when your child comes home and tells it to you in the fall. You will make lots of pictures, you will build stuff and make cool things. Kindergarten is lots of fun, and this is exact work so we wish you have a happy time in kindergarten in your marriage. Uh OK, so student arrival, um, 8:15. Staff will rate, um, 8:15 from verytra off points. Um, there’s a supervised recess from 8:15 to 8:25. School officially starts at 8:25. Teacher teachers will grate students and we transition into the school building, um, for the day to begin. So here are our first responsibilities, um, unpacking their snack, unpacking their school folder, hanging up backpacks and jackets. Now this is the same routine every day and as Carolyn mentioned, we do help the children, um, with routines and strategies that will help them to be successful and independent. Now this is important because we start with a jacket, a light jacket and a backpack, and then it becomes a backpack and a heavy jacket and maybe a hat, and now we have a backpack, and heavy jacket and a hat and mittens and boots with no hands. So if we’re successful in the beginning, we can be successful as we go and more belongings as we went along. Then we transition into our morning meeting. Our morning meeting follows a format that’s designed by the responsive classroom approach. It includes a greeting, a share, then a song movement or game and a message. Now, a greeting is important because it helps the children to get comfortable saying their own name to a group. It helps them to learn other friends’ names. Um, a share is important as a part of community building. You might share at the beginning your a favorite animal, favorite color, favorite activities inside or outside, helps them to have a nice sense of belonging. Movement is very important. Canada Barton and of course favorite songs are enjoyable for the children. And the message will give some information about the day. Well, they said they would have jobs, so the helper job would be to, um, help read the morning message. It will also be the daily schedule, the daily schedule, but jobs it could also be classroom specific. I have a schedule turner in my classroom. Um, they like to go up and turn over each section of the day so they know how they’re moving on the day the beginning of the year, many of them are gonna ask when it’s time to go home so that we can go right over to the schedule and say you’re here, we have those no left to go. Some other fun jobs are shake down holders, light switch operators, and of course diators and door owners. So this is new for us in kindergarten. We’ve just gone through um a training with the open circle for you. It’s um a pretty in depth um social emotional curriculum that really breaks things down for students about what it means to be a student in a classroom, what it means to be a friend in a classroom, and how we do that is through really specific lessons on getting calm, listening well, recognizing similarities and differences, latent connections with each other, uh, cooperating, understanding feelings. Our first lesson is how do we bring a chair to a group and sit and share in a group. Um, and then there are really cooperative lessons, um, collaborative lessons on how we can work together in a group. So as a team we felt very very excited about this workshop, um, and I’m really looking forward to implementing it in our classrooms. Moving on to literacy instruction, there are Many components to our literacy instruction in kindergarten literacy. Um, kindergarten is a language-rich environment in general. Um, a large part of our instruction is CKLA skills. Um, CKLA stands for To Knowledge, Language Arts. Um, big components of that part of our day are learning sounds and sounds and letters, um, letter ID. Go back one We really work hard with that information. We’re blending sounds into. Read words. So we first start with three letter words and now we’re working into 4 or 5 letter words. Kids are also working on reading words. They’re bringing phrases, the reading sentences, um, the spelling words, they letting my Greekins and words. You do a lot of work you can get. I’m gonna take over. Um, the CPL acknowledge is enough for about this program, and this part is really centered around value and informational read allow texts and through these read allow few students in a class really didn’t build their vocabulary. It really enriches the vocabulary quite a bit as they develop listening and comprehension skills while listening to these stories and then to support the comprevention, we do a lot of um. The rich conversations, there’s text, they may do some journaling, um, picture sequencing. Do come on to that and here, so here’s a list of the topics that are down to the knowledge. So these are all the news we have in the same nature, but there’s like approximate 10 lessons and each lesson has a read aloud story about and some ideas like some ideas like so we’re 5 senses and we learn 5 senses and maybe do a nature walk and what do we hear spelled see and then come back and journal but we small sound to so on and so forth. Um, we do a weather journal for a day the see the weather and but you see they look people on some lady of a plane, so there’s lots of different things that we do to support the company to win our story. Hegrity is the literacy component that we have, and it’s basically a 10 to 15 minute daily game with to one where the students really learn through listening and it’s like the first sounding cat. They would be, you know, we’re going to learn the right to and and it’s just all verbal, it’s all listening skills and that’s just a 1015 minute daily lesson that we do support the rest of the program that we have. Um, snacks, I know Carolyn touched on a lot of the snacks. Uh, first, you will be notified at the beginning of the year there’s two victims in the class and that it’s not free, um, so you’ll find out about that. And then we just suggest, uh, also packing easy to open snacks for your students and some things you can do at home and again I don’t mention a few like practice of snacks, eating snacks in the time frame in the classroom we have about 15 minutes to eat a snack, so just kind of crack these they can take on you can sat it’s like, OK, let’s eat our snack, um, so it’s something you can do in the summer and also a water bottle with your student’s name on it, um. And the first few weeks that students sometimes looks like they’re probably gonna be eating this snack because they’re just so concerned or worried or, you know, happy or whatever with the class and you don’t eat the snack, the first feed yourself, that’s just not online, so they’ll be concerned about it. And then lastly we started a new math curriculum this year, uh, and basically focuses on the foundational math concepts like counting number recognition. They do partmarkical, um, addition subtraction go through next month one you say and so right now we’re doing with decomposition and the decomposition that’s so it’s part our whole or you need a 3 and 5, make 8 and also 44 make 8 that they need to get program to support with that. easy stuff to talk so lunch we have lunch every day. um, your child can either bring a lunch from home or they can buy a lunch at school, and our school lunch options are like the hot lunch of the day which is listed on the district website somewhere, um, and they give you the month worth of of choices and it’s good to talk with your child in the morning about what their plan is going to be so if their plan. Is to get a hot lunch that day, it’s nice if they know that so because as soon as they walk in in the morning we do lunch count where they take a little magnet or something and show the teacher like what they’re doing for lunch that day so it’s helpful if they don’t lose sometimes they get worried and confused so it’s good that they know what their plan is that day. um, the hot lunch of the day they can also this year they can have a sun butter sandwich or a deli sandwich so those are the choices. Um, lunch is 20 minutes. It’s, um, pretty quick, especially like at snack time when they’re chatting, we have to give them reminders to like, OK, your lunch, um, so they have something to eat. Um, also, again, you’re gonna really know that we. Like them to open their own containers if they have easy containers to open and they practice it also if you’re packing a lunch and a snack, it’s really important to pack two separate bags or they will, they definitely will get their snack at their lunch at snack time. And then they’ll get to lunch in the oven. So if you pack them separately, that will be helpful. Um, so they always take up a lot of space, so I always tell parents coming into kindergarten those cute little backpacks because your child is small look cute, but they’re really. hard for your child to pack up at the end of the day if they have a snack bag and a lunch bag and your work folder and snow pants and everything to go in there. So a regular size backpack, even though it looks huge on your child, it’s actually much easier for them to manage. So. And recess. We have recess at the highlight of the day. We go out and look out. Mure. Is it still? Oh, lunch is going to be free. We still say bagging up for it, yeah, you have to sign up for it and be free again. Oh, I wasn’t sure so I didn’t say it. That’s good to know. But yeah, we, um, have a recess every day. Um, it’s 20 minutes long, usually the lunchtime recess. We go out every day unless it’s raining or if it’s super cold outside, we’ll have recess still, but we have that inside the classroom I guess opening lights. So Science our science units we address the science standards through our CKLA knowledge, um, strands that Patty was talking about earlier and some things that we covered that are science related are plants, farms, the five seasons and the five senses, the 4 seasons. Um, weather and taking care of the earth and um we try to make it hands on because it’s us visiting a farm this year with the farms unit. There’s some exploring of evergreens. We talk about deciduous trees and evergreen trees. We get outside when we can for it. Um, we try to make learning hands on whenever we can because we know that students learn fast when they learn through exploration and physical movement that they can really touch things and learn hands on, so we try to make every area of our learning hands on in some way, whether in math or manipulative or during literacy where they’re actually like moving letters around because that really helps them to remember learn things. Um, students will leave the classroom every day to go to specials we call them, so, um, they’re in different rooms. They’re about 50, 50 minutes long. I think this will be, we have art, physical education, library, media, music, and next year because now we have our Wednesdays as a full day, we have another day for it we’ll have STEM, which will be fun. Excited about that. Right Uh, like, so play, of course, as you know, for young children play is super important and we all think that it’s a very important part of our day and we infuse it into not just unstructured play time like we have choice time which I’ll talk about in a minute but we infuse play into all parts of our day whether it’s literacy or math we do a lot of. The Lucy games, math games that are working with a partner, so your child is learning that um that really great gift of winning the grace and losing the grace because they’ll lose daily to someone else because they’ll win daily so it’s nice if you start playing games with them win a couple of games because it’ll get them used to losing um the play is also a really important time for your child to build those wonderful social building skills, how to, um, how to share, how to cooperate. Um, it’s great for language too. So we have Choice time, which is uh one of the most popular times during the day where they have unstructured playtime and they can play blocks or Legos or imagine to play dollhouse. We have the sandbox. Um this is a time when they’re playing. But they’re also doing some of the most important learning that they’ll do in kindergarten because they’re learning that how to build those social relationships, how to negotiate, how to compromise, how to um problem solve how to work as a team. The So kindergarten is a magical, magical year. It’s a time of growth, academic growth, physical growth, social emotional growth, and it’s a time when they’re, they’ll learn to be a friend and to make many new friends. It’s like a big fail. Maybe it’s fine. There you go. Nice to hear, yeah. Thank you so much, ladies, for that great presentation. OK, so you’ve heard a lot tonight, um, about what it means to be in kindergarten, um, how your what your children are going to be experiencing in kindergarten. One thing that, um, we forgot to mention is yes, there’s free lunch, but there’s also free breakfast starting Hear this year. So again it’s something that you should sign your child before if your child wants to get breakfast before school. um, it’s a very simple process they come in. Um, it’s a, it’s a grab and go kind of situation where they get to have different items put into a bag. They take their bag. They’re properly said they in their backpack and bring them to the classroom, and then all classroom teachers grades take goodbye, uh, give children opportunities to their snack, and again, I mean their breakfast again it’s like a 15 minute time period at the very beginning of the day, so you’ll be getting more information on that, but also something to keep in mind, um. And again, we’ve heard a lot about what kindergartens would be like a day in light of the kindergarten, but it would make me wondering how do I get myself and my child prepared for kindergarten. Um, we know that this is a very anxious time for parents. It’s, you know, the first time you’re going independently, you know, putting your child on the bus. Um, so just some things to kind of keep in mind over the summer, some things you can think about doing, um, just treat kindergarten, like it’s a normal, a normal occurrence, so it’s not like a big deal. Try not to make too big of a deal out of it because that could, you know, raise your child’s anxiety, getting nervous. And um take opportunities to visit your school take opportunities to go to the playground, make some play dates with you know other children that are living in your area, going to your same school, um, that’s a really important thing too, because just learning how to use the playground equipment is important for children, um, who wanna make sure that they know down the slide and up the slide, um, how to play on the monkey bars, how to, um, just. Utilize the different equipment on the playground, so it’s a social socialization time but also a good time to learn about your school, um, so we talk a lot uh to kids at school about school is their job, um, just like grown ups have our jobs, so it’s their job and their job is sort of their responsibility to go to school every day and to learn, to go to school every day and to be kind and respectful. Um, so that’s really important to talk to your children about, um, and just make sure that they know that they’re gonna make new friends. So some of your kids are at preschool right now and they probably aren’t gonna go to kindergarten with everyone that they’re preschooling. So just, you know, talking a lot about what does that look like when you’re meeting a friend, how do you meet a new friend, what would you say, um, so that’s, that’s important topic friendship. Um, and I’m sure you’re already just reading books in general with your children, which we know is one of the most important things you can do, um, but taking some books out of the library, looking into books that actually talk about kindergarten or like the start of school. I know, uh, there’s a book by Kevin Hankey called Where Were You Wearing, and it’s where Willie’s going to school for the first time she’s very worried about if she’s gonna make friends if she’s gonna like her teacher. Sure, um, so that’s a good one to check out as well, um, and then this book at the bottom, how to prepare your child for Kindergarten, this is just a book that has hundreds of suggestions of things you can do, um, with your child conversations you can have tips you can use, um, to get your child prepared for kindergarten and most importantly remember that a lot of kids are going to have a lot of anxiety that have not starting school they have. Even in other grades, but once you get to the school, if you could just hand your children on to us, we will take you with them we can promise you. Most of the time once the kids are out of the car or out of the parents’s hands and they’re with us, they end up having a wonderful day. So just keep that in mind as part of your team and maybe an expectation that it could, you know, anticipate that your, your child could have some anxiety going into the building, but we are here to support and help, OK. Um, nitsy for this side, and I just, yes, we just got something, uh, that I wanted to taste. So after we do um your school assignments before school starts um for people who are not currently in um in our schools, our PTO or PTA are called the friends of, so there’s the friends of the girlfriend of color friends of Winthrop, and they do a kindergarten kind of play date before school starts. So you’ll have an opportunity um as parents to meet the people who run friends groups and get signed up to get involved in um in the schools and it will also be an opportunity to meet some of the other children who will be coming to kindergarten at those specific schools so I just wanted to make that pointing into the building. Oh please, please, you’ll see the lost of mounds that’s at the back of the school. Please label everything your child brings to school, including like even the shirts that they put on because I don’t know somehow kids take off. The clothes that they shouldn’t be taking off and then we find it. So if you can label everything, um, I don’t know how people are dealing with the winter without their snow jackets that have been here all winter. So anyway, label label label label, lunch boxes, water bottles and everything. OK, so now I guess we are ready for um any questions that you might have for us. Yes. But a new early release today because they don’t want. Yes, it’s so it’s early. They will not have lunch on that day. Um, anytime it’s an 11:15 day you’ll the, the district calendars are on our website, so, um. That the 2nd Tuesday or Wednesday is gonna be early release. uh Wednesday before Thanksgiving is at 11:50. There are certain days that are 11:50 dismissals. We do not serve lunch on those days, and we also do not serve breakfast on those days because the cafeteria staff is not. Yes, did you say that peers in the integrated this year? Yes, if you have a peer student in the integrated program at Winthrop, you want to sign up for a um screening. If you have a student who’s in the program as a special ed student, you do not have to sign up for screens. No, talking sleep bus devils. I’m chopped, but it’s um there’s a spring break over like bus that already comes that like my ends our neighbor gets that. I did you raise calls to assume that the time wouldn’t be very similar. Yes, it’s a safe bet and every year after we get kindergarten, I mean, do you want to talk more about this after we get kindergarten registrations, um, you know, we as a district do not run the bus schedules that’s on the bus company so once they. Who’s gonna be on buses they reroute, but it’s generally close to the same routes and the same timing, um, and those schedules we try to have them out the week before school starts sometimes it gets close to the day before school starts, but yes. They understand that. All right, we’ll be Any individual questions, thank you all for coming and if you haven’t registered, please do ASAP. It helps us be able to play better. Thank you. That’s something. Oh, and, and if you don’t register before June, then you will not know what your student’s school placement will be until August. So if you wanna know what school your child is going to, you need to do it before June.