00:00:00,067	S1:
All right. Good evening. We're going to get started. There's a couple people straggling in, but they'll just miss some introductions. We were just, um, ruminating on the fact that we had two weeks of snow and had to cancel, and now it's 70 degrees out. So that's living in New England. Uh, I'm Carolyn Cheshire. I am the principal for Winthrop School.

00:00:21,567	S2:
My name is Ben Church, and I'm the principal at Baker Elementary.

00:00:26,300	S3:
Hi, I'm Jen Coffield. I'm the family engagement liaison and the registrar. Hi, Jennifer. I'm the principal advocate for elementary school. I'm Kaitlyn, sir, and I'm a kindergarten teacher at Cutler Elementary School. And I'm Linda McMahon, and I'm a kindergarten teacher at Baker. And typically.

00:00:46,501	S1:
We would have had.

00:00:47,300	S3:
One of our.

00:00:48,267	S1:
Winthrop kindergarten teachers here, but unfortunately, after the third reschedule her, she had something for her own child tonight. So we do not have a kindergarten representative from Winthrop Pier, and also Maureen Smith, who is the elementary. Special Ed coordinator would typically be here to talk about screenings I'm going to fill in. For her. So that's who you've got tonight. All right I'm going to turn it over to Ben.

00:01:14,167	S2:
Welcome everybody.

00:01:17,801	S2:
So today as we talk about kindergarten registration and beginning our journey together, our goal is to work together, to work with families, to nurture confident, cooperative and independent kindergarten learners who can grow into confident, cooperative and independent students throughout their career here. Um, one of the big things that everybody wants to know right away is where is my kid going to go to school? And the answer right now is, I don't know. Um, there are a number of factors that we look at. We don't have true, um, neighborhood schools in Hamilton. Wenham. Um, the first thing that we will do is we will look at siblings. So if you have a child in one of the elementary schools already, then their sibling is going to go to the same school. After that, we look at a couple of things. One of them is geography. Obviously folks to be in the school that is closest to them, but we also weigh class size. So if we have a bunch of folks coming into kindergarten in one area, I don't want to overload class sizes in one building and have really small classes in the other. So that's where we start moving kids across those buildings. Buses are available to everybody, regardless of where you live and where your child goes to school. For folks that have registered. Now we will let you guys know by the end of June what school you're assigned to. We'll deal with summer registrations at the end of the summer, but we are not true neighborhood schools. We do try to get everybody into the closest school to where you're located, but depending on where all of our kindergarten families live, we want to keep class sizes similar across the three schools. So that is a factor that we look at.

00:02:48,267	S2:
Schedule. School starts at 825 in the morning and ends at 257. The exception is the second Wednesday of the month we release at 1115. This allows us to have some professional development meetings with our teachers.

00:03:05,667	S2:
Transportation. Anyone living more than a half mile will be assigned a bus route. Um, Jen Coffee will send out some information later in the summer trying to figure out who is looking to avail themselves of the buses so we can build those bus routes. I typically come out at the very end of the school year. Um, be aware that if kids are taking the bus home, we do require that there be a parent at the bus stop in order to drop the kindergartner off. Um, at first grade, we let the kids decide if they're comfortable, but kindergartners, if they are going to get off the bus, there needs to be a grown up there to meet them. If there is not, the bus driver will bring them back to school and you'll get a phone call from us to come and pick them up.

00:03:44,467	S2:
Um, some important days to think about as we move through the spring. In the summer. Um, right now, registration is open. Uh, we will be reaching out soon around screening appointments. So what we'll do is we will bring all the kindergarteners in in April at the end of the month and have just a quick meeting. We do some small groups. We talk to them about numbers, about letters, just to try to get a sense of where they are. Um, so we'll do those. They do. They run about an hour.

00:04:09,400	S1:
Yeah.

00:04:10,200	S2:
Can you talk more about that? Okay. Um, Carol, we'll talk more about that. Um, so we'll do that at the end of April. Um, at the end of June, the school assignments will go out. So you'll have a sense of what school you're at. And at that point, any of the summer notices that come out from schools. You'll start getting those as well. Um, in late August, usually the week before school starts, you'll be invited into your child's classroom. At that point, they'll be placed into a class. So we'll be able to go in and see the classroom. Um, and then on September 8th, which is late this year, will be our first day of school. So it's a Tuesday, the day after Labor Day.

00:04:43,767	S2:
And, Jen, I think you're speaking now.

00:04:47,701	S3:
Thank you.

00:04:48,901	S4:
Um, again, I'm Jen Cofield, and if you haven't already taken a look at our website on the registration page, which is under the Family Resource Center. Take a look. Most importantly, take a look at the required documents because you're going to have to track them down. Um, we now are using power school. If you're not already in the district, that's new for us. So there is a pre-registration form that is not registration. So you just quickly have to and that's the QR code for it. Also linked on the website. Um you just have to fill out name, address, age, you know, date of birth grade you're enrolling for. Then you will get triggered an email from Power School that has the instructions. And at the very bottom you'll see the access, um, ID and the access code. Um, but again, all of this is on the website, so I will not bore you with details. If you are in the integrated preschool here at Winthrop, you do not need to register, but you should if you have not already, let your teacher or Donna or Carolyn know that you are intending to come to kindergarten here. Um, again, these are the the the short and long list of things you're going to have to track down. Um, if you are moving here, I know I had a couple of emails who people are planning on moving here. You won't have those occupancy and residency docs. We will take a fully executed plans. Um, for anybody who's here who's just about to close and won't have it for a while, we'd rather know everybody who's coming. By the time we start placing in June to get a better sense of optimal place of placements for everybody. Um, I'm available via phone or that's my email. Feel free to reach out. I'm also a proud parent of three Hamilton one um, graduates, so I can answer a lot of questions and just let me know.

00:06:33,868	S4:
I'm not sure. Okay. Okay.

00:06:37,701	S1:
Okay, so I'm going to fill in for Maureen Smith, the, um, preschool and elementary, um, special ed coordinator, to let you know a little bit about what's going to happen on screenings. So there are three screening dates. It will take place at each school. It does not matter which school you go to screening for, so choose the date that works best for you. Jen will send out some kind of a sign up, um, when it gets closer for you to pick a slot. Um.

00:07:06,000	S3:
Say what?

00:07:07,067	S1:
End of the month. Um, she will be sending it out. So Tuesday, April 28th will be here at Winthrop. Thursday, April 30th will be at Buca. And Friday May 1st will be at Cutler. You will come in with your student. Your student will separate from you, and they will go, um, complete a short screening activity. They will also do a small group activity, um, while your children are meeting with the teachers that are doing the screenings, the counselors are going to be available to do some interview with you and get some background information about any things that you're concerned about, or things that we should know when your child is coming in. Um, so let me go back to my notes from Maureen. Um, once you register a sign up, genius will be sent out for the day and time. And you will also be sent a parent questionnaire to fill out, um, as part of that screening. And you're going to bring that with you on screening day. Um, screenings take about 45 minutes. Um, and after the screening, you will receive a follow up letter from Maureen Smith indicating how your child performed. And there will be one of three responses. All good. Um, we're going to re screen a particular area. Maybe speech and language, maybe ot um, or we're going to refer to for testing for special ed testing. So part of this screening process is to identify any kids who will need additional support coming into kindergarten. It is highly unlikely that we're going to pick something up in screening, because most kids that are coming out of preschools have been identified either from their preschools or through early intervention. But every once in a while, if a child has an attended preschool, we might say, oh, we have some concerns, so we want to get addressing those concerns as early as possible. Um, screening is required for all students entering kindergarten, um, and all students not already identified on an IEP. So for people whose students are currently enrolled in Winthrop's, uh, preschool program and are here on an IEP, you do not need to do screenings because your student has already been identified. We screen in all developmental areas speech and language, fine and gross motor and pre readiness skills.

00:09:31,567	S1:
And then the purpose of screening, as I said, is to identify any potential needs that may impact learning and or participation in the school setting so that needs can be addressed without delay. Um, and then there are different levels of intervention that, um, we'll talk a little bit about when kids get here, but there are students who require an IEP for direct instruction to accommodate for their special needs. And then as part of our elementary programming, um, we will do some screenings throughout the school year, literacy screenings throughout the school year. And students might be identified that they might need some tier two interventions, which is not special ed, but we want to sort of help them with their literacy skills early so that we can prevent any big gaps later. Um, and then there's also, um, one of the tier two, um, therapies that we do provide without a student needing to be on an IEP as articulation therapy. So if they do the speech screening and it's just an Arctic problem, we can put kids into a short RTI cycle.

00:10:40,501	S1:
Okay. So how can I help my child be ready for kindergarten this year?

00:10:47,467	S1:
The first thing that we're going to ask everybody to practice over the next, what do we have six months before September starts is independence. Have your children start practicing getting dressed, putting their own clothes on, taking their own clothes off. And we just went through this lovely winter, um, when the kindergarten teachers have 20 kids and there's 20 sets of snow pants and snow boots and mittens and hats and coats, and there's only a 20 minute recess, sometimes it can take the full 20 minutes. So we need kids to be as independent as possible, especially as we get close to winter. But we want kids to be able to put on their own coats, zip them up, tie their shoes. If you don't have tie shoes, get those Velcro ones. But try to make things easier for your kids and for the teachers. Um, practice opening lunch boxes, opening all of those little containers in the snack because at snack and at lunch, I know I monitor my cafeteria for kindergarteners and everybody needs help. So the more that your kids can help themselves. Um, the other thing is toileting. We do not support toileting in kindergarten, meaning the teachers will not go in and wipe for your children. So you've got to make sure that they are fully independent in the bathrooms. Um, so that is something to definitely practice. Um, and then the other piece for those that are going to be doing parent drop off and pick up is your kids need to learn how. And I know this is scary for some people, but your kids need to know how to get in and out of their car seats independently. It. Winthrop, we have a stop, drop and roll situation where you're going to pull up. Your kids are going to jump out of the car. We want the parents to stay in the car because it slows things down. When we've got 50 cars trying to get through in ten minutes. So that is something that you're going to want to practice having your kids having their lunchbox, their backpacks in their laps. So when it's your turn to come through, your child gets out of the car with their stuff. We say, bye, Mom and dad, and off you go. If your child is somebody who's going to need lots of love and hugs and kisses, I know it. Winthrop. We ask you to park and walk your kids to drop off because we need to keep that car flowing. Um, the other thing, and this is a new slide that we added this year, but we're seeing kindergartners coming in a little less prepared for participating in a class of 20 kids, um, than we have in the past. So some things you can work on with your kids is wait time or waiting. When responding to a request. If kid says, I want milk, I'll get it for you in a minute instead of jumping up and getting it. Because in the classroom, when a child asks the teacher for something, the teacher might not be able to respond right away to that child's request, and then we might have a meltdown on our hands. So if you have a child who doesn't have a high tolerance level, please start working on those skills. Sitting and listening to a story. Sitting and listening during circle time. It's going to be an expectation even on day one. And the teachers definitely. And they'll talk about this, but they definitely build that stamina, sit for five minutes, then sit for seven minutes and then sit for eight minutes. But you can help that by having that be an expectation at home so that when they come to school, they're prepared. Frustration tolerance. We're seeing a lot more kindergartners coming in and having complete meltdowns than we ever have before. So if your child is somebody who's prone to a meltdown, start working on those strategies for how to help them calm themselves before a meltdown, how to recognize, ooh, I'm getting upset and I can raise my hand and tell the teacher I'm getting upset. Um, play board games with your kids. Teach them how to win and lose, and it's okay to lose a game. Um, those are some other things. And then kind of following the group plan, we've got group plans for fifth for 20 kids in a class. You've got a group plan for your family. So I think having kids understand that when they come to school, there's expectations that they're expected to follow.

00:14:57,167	S1:
Um, the other thing is building your child's social vocabulary. And this kind of goes to that frustration tolerance and the meltdown stuff. Try to work on your child so they with your child so they have some social vocabulary to express themselves. I'm mad. I'm sad. I'm frustrated. Start helping them identify what they're really feeling so that when they are starting to get upset, they are able to communicate their needs. And then we're here to help them. Um, and as I said, practice playing games, taking turns building all that tolerance and consistency is key when it gets time for kindergarten to start. Bedtimes make a huge difference in the life of a kindergartener, and their ability to kind of maintain for a six hour day. Um, the time they get up in the morning, make sure you're leaving enough time in the morning for them to have a good, easy start to the day so that you're not rushing. And because when you're rushing, they're feeling stressed and then they come to school not in their best, um, expectations for behavior. Eating meals independently. And one of the things I always advocate is having some responsibility, some chores for kids to do so that they can start feeling that sense of responsibility. And now I'm going to turn it over to, um, Jenny, who's going to introduce the kindergarten teachers, and then they are going to jump right in. All right.

00:16:24,667	S3:
Thank you so much.

00:16:26,000	S1:
So the next part of the presentation is going to be.

00:16:29,667	S3:
Um.

00:16:30,367	S1:
Kathleen and Linda. Miss McMahon and Miss Spur. They're going to talk about what a day in the life of a kindergartener looks like. So you're going to see all aspects of the day. You're going to learn a little bit about curriculum lunch, recess, bus. Um, so it's really a good snapshot of what your, what your children will experience when they start kindergarten. So should I hand it off to McMahon wants.

00:16:53,767	S3:
To go first. Okay. Yeah.

00:16:56,868	S1:
Okay.

00:16:58,667	S5:
All right, so before I came here at the end of the school day today, I said to my kindergarteners, I said, hey, you guys, I said, tonight I'm meeting with all of the parents of the new kindergarteners. They were a little outraged that there were going to be new kindergarteners because they are the kindergarteners. But I said, what should I tell them about kindergarten? And they wanted to talk directly to the new kindergartners. And they said, Colin said this you will make so many new friends that you didn't even ever know before. And Lucas said, you will get to play at recess and in the classroom and you get to eat. And Kennedy said, you're going to get really good at cleaning up, packing your bag, and you get to learn lowercase letters first. I bet you didn't even know that. That's what you said. So that's that's from them. I had a lot more, but those were the only ones that I got to write down. All right. So we thought we'd take you through the life of a kindergartener. Oh, first. Um, yeah. That's who it's going to be here. Here are all our schools. Here's Buca School, where I'm a kindergarten teacher. There's me, and I teach with miss O'Shea. She's the other kindergarten teacher. And then here's Cutler school. And at Cutler, we have Mrs. Goodchild, Mrs. Olsen and Miss Spurr. And then we have at Winthrop School. Here we have Mrs. Crock Black and Mrs. Mattera. So those are all our kindergarten teachers. All right. So when we, your child comes to kindergarten, we have our morning arrival routine. We first have a little morning. It's kind of like a morning recess starting at 815. That's when drop off starts. It's supervised and your child can arrive by bus. They could be dropped off or some families walk to school. There's always someone outside. Teachers outside starting at 815 until the bell rings when they start their day. It's a nice time for your child to get there that bit early so that they can socialize before coming into the school building. They really enjoy.

00:19:07,000	S3:
It.

00:19:08,968	S5:
And now your morning responsibilities. So every day when your kindergartener comes in, it's their responsibility to hang up their backpack. At the beginning of kindergarten, everything is so structured and slow and step by step, so don't worry. They come in and I'll say just this. Step one. Open your backpack. Step two take out your folder. Now I say come on everybody get ready. Hang up your stuff. Let's go. Because now they know the routine. But at the beginning it's very, very slow. And it's a process every day where they're responsible for hanging up their backpack. They might take out their snack, their folder. They know all of the routines to get themselves settled. Then they come in and sit down on the rug because then it's morning meeting time and we follow a responsive classroom model for morning meeting. It has four components that we just do every day. Um, we share a greeting build community, especially at the beginning of the year because it's hard for them to learn 20 new names, but now they know how to. They practically know. They know how to read them, almost spell everybody's name because they write to each other all the time. Um, and then we have a share. Then we do a little activity or song just to start our day, And then we have a morning message which tells like the news of the day. And here's one of my old kindergartners reading the message. And we all help them read. We read it together. That's one of the jobs. So kindergartners love their jobs. One is reading the message. All the classrooms have different jobs, like line leader, you might be teaching assistant, you might be the lunch count person. So they love that's my classroom. And there's my little jobs chart. So they love to come in and say, oh, I'm the flag holder today. Um, and then we follow a daily schedule. Like we said, consistency and routine and kindergarten is so important. Um, so our schedule tends to be very consistent routine. And they refer to it. They get to know what each of these are, and they'll look up to say what's next. And I'll say, I don't know, check this schedule and they'll know exactly how to how to follow it. So, um, Open Circle is it's kind of new for us. We started in kindergarten. We started last year, So we've been one full year with Open Circle and I really I really like it. It's a social emotional learning program that supports your child as they develop those skills that are necessary to be not only a good learner, but just a good friend and a good person in society. So we when we have open circle, we all gather our chairs and we bring it in a circle. So the first lesson is just how to carry a chair and how to sit in a circle. But then they progress. When I say it's open circle, they all carry their chairs over. They get it done in a minute. And the lessons really, um, focus on like building empathy. We might do role playing. We might talk about real things that happen in the classroom, like pretend you're up blocks and and so-and-so said this to you, or this happened like it's role playing, those social situations and how to handle them. So it's how to advocate for yourself, how to think about yourself in a positive way, how to name your emotions and how to talk to others about your emotions because those are all those important things that help them build friendships, but also how they they can tell me how they're feeling, which is really important. Um, it also, we talk a lot about problem solving and cooperation, all those great things about it. And they love the meetings too. It's been a nice addition. Um, and then there are many components to the next thing we do usually in most schools is literacy. And there's lots of different parts of our literacy program. And Kathleen's going to come and talk about those.

00:22:51,701	S1:
Thank you Linda.

00:22:52,701	S5:
You're welcome.

00:22:54,000	S3:
Um, yes.

00:22:54,601	S1:
So at the start.

00:22:55,400	S6:
Of the year, I always like to start out with an activity with my students where they share what their hopes and dreams are for kindergarten. And each year, I'd say about 70% of the kids all say that they're excited to learn how to read, so that it's like a great skill that we are very excited to teach them and that they all come to school so ready for and so excited for. Um, so there's many different components throughout our day that go into our literacy instruction. I'm going to dive a little bit deeper into our curriculum that a lot most of our curriculum really focuses on literacy. Um, so Kayla's skills, this is most schools we start the day with. It is their fresh. They're ready to go. They're ready to learn. And in C Kelly skills we learn first the sounds that each letter makes. So we focus on teaching an individual letter and it sound. We don't worry about letter name. And even now if you're at home with your kids, you could start practicing letter sound with them over letter name. Because as kids learn how to read, they first need to know the sounds to be a strong reader. The names can come second. Um, so our curriculum focus is on letter sound, letter identification, letter formation, learning how to blend sounds together to read words, spelling words. And we also learn high frequency words. Or our curriculum calls them tricky words. So words that don't follow the phonics rules. Another part of our curriculum we do a lot of oral listening skills, so we'll do a lot of oral blending in the mornings. So kids are listening to sounds that they're hearing and trying to piece them together to make words. Another part of our literacy instruction is through scaling knowledge. So our knowledge curriculum at my school, we do it in the afternoons, and it's a time where we focus on reading and comprehension skills. But many of the topics are science or social studies related. So this is where we get a little bit more science and social studies in our classroom. Um, we build vocabulary in seeking knowledge. Like I said, it develops comprehension skills. Oftentimes there's some kind of read aloud, some kind of follow up questions. Sometimes there ends up being a discussion about a topic, or kids can ask further and deeper questions, and then we always do an application. Um, we also do connections to texts through Reader's Theater. Some schools, we do that at different times in the year and just research discussions. Like I said, these are some of the topics that we do in SQL knowledge. Some of my personal favorites are the five senses stories, plants, Kings and Queens, seasons and weather. So as you can see, we hit a lot of of different topics with all different variety. We try and make them as hands on as possible. So the five senses usually lands kind of around Halloween, like October usually. And I always ask for parents to donate pumpkins of all different colors, shapes, sizes, and I do a lot of activities and lessons focusing on exploring the pumpkins with our senses. So I know it's fun to get to take these lessons and make them more hands on. Make them more tangible for kindergarten, and they always love learning about new topics. I've been surprised recently at how interested my kindergartners have been at Columbus. That was something I did not expect, but they have been loving learning about ships and how people got over from Europe to North America. And so it's been very exciting. So sometimes there are questions. Help us just to go go deeper in the curriculum too. Um, Hegarty is an oral phonemic awareness curriculum. So with Hagerty, it's very short lessons. They're usually like 5 to 10 minutes. I like to squeeze it in kind of when kids are coming back from lunch. It's like a way to help us settle, sit on the in the carpet again and get back into curriculum. And so what we do, integrity, is there's lots of different hand motions and activities that help kids think about rhyming, clapping out syllables. It helps them isolate beginning, middle and end sounds, segment and blend words. My favorite is when they add and delete phonemes. So I'll say like take the words son and they'll put up their hands and say, son. I'm like, take away this. Put in a what's the word? And they all get so excited when they start to put it together. Fun like. And those get harder and harder as the curriculum goes on. But these are the oral listening skills that really tie into the reading? Something I should mention is our district is a science of reading district, and so we focus on the scientific way of kids focusing on learning their oral language first, being able to listen to sounds, identify sounds, and that then translates into the written word. Um, at our school, we always do our literacy instruction in the mornings with skills, and that heads into snack time. Snack time is always very fun. It's a great social time for them to chit chat at their tables and talk about what's going on each other's lives. Um, for snack, we do ask that people send like 1 or 2 just healthy snacks for your children. Um, sometimes when kids open up their snack and they have 5 or 6 snacks, it can be overwhelming for them to make a choice. So especially at the start of the year, just sending a couple healthy snacks is awesome. Um, we also at all of our schools do offer breakfast, so if kids need to get breakfast in the morning, they can get it as they arrive to school. But you know, if you are able to have your kid have breakfast at home. I know with my kindergartners, I just try to encourage them that they don't need to get second breakfast all the time because they're going to have snack about like an hour after school starts, so they will get to eat.

00:28:20,567	S6:
Um, after we do snack, we always do like a morning recess. And then, um, my school, we go into math and we do Eureka math squared as our math curriculum. So math and kindergarten and is focusing on a lot of foundational skills. Um, counting and cardinality is our first unit. So we do a lot of practicing counting with 1 to 1 correspondence, writing numbers. Then we go into a unit about two and three dimensional shapes. We learn how to compare things by their weight, by their length, height. Um, and then this goes into composition and decomposition of numbers. That's actually the unit we're currently teaching in. This curriculum is really great at just focusing a lot of foundational skills. It has a fluency section that brings up skills that they learned earlier in the year to keep them fresh in the kids minds. And so right now, in composition decomposition, I have been very pleasantly surprised at how quick my kids are able to go from identifying groups of numbers, finding parts and groups of numbers. And just this week we started making additions, number sentences, and they are just flying away with it. So this curriculum I have seen just really great progress with students. Next we'll do addition and subtraction more specifically and then go into place Value foundations.

00:29:34,667	S6:
And then I think Linda is going to talk a bit about lunch.

00:29:37,667	S5:
Yeah okay.

00:29:43,167	S5:
Yeah. The afternoon in kindergarten is a little more. It's they tend to especially at the beginning of the year. They make it to lunchtime and then everyone solves in lying down and like, everyone sit up, wake up. So the afternoon we tried to do a lot of the academics in the morning, um, and so we have lunch. so we have lunch every day. Um, your student can buy. They can get a school lunch. Like today's lunch was pancakes. But then they also offer. You can always get a deli sandwich. I think it's usually a turkey sandwich and then a sun butter sandwich. So if your child doesn't like the hot lunch option, there's always those two available. And I know in my classroom, when they come in in the morning, they sign up for what they're going to do for lunch. So it's really helpful every day if you go over the lunch options with them or what their plan is like to tell them, I packed you a lunch today, because that way they know when they get in the classroom, they can put their little magnet or tally on lunch from home. Or if they're buying lunch, it helps that they know what the lunch is that day, so they'll know what they want before they come. They can say, oh, it's grilled cheese, but I don't want that. I'm going to get the sun butter so they'll know just what to do. Um, and that's listed on the district website they list the monthly comes out once a month, and it lists all the lunch choices. and they can get a milk, um, or a fruit juice with their lunch and they can bring a lunch from home. So those are the.

00:31:06,501	S3:
Options.

00:31:07,300	S5:
And it's a fun time for them. There's lots of conversation in the lunchroom. And then we have recess. We have recess right before lunch every day. So we have a snack recess. And then we have a lunch recess. Um, we go out for recess all the time unless it's raining, even if it's a light drizzle, sometimes I'll go outside because I need to go outside. But, um, if it's below 20 degrees, we don't. But if there's snow on the ground, it's really snowy. If it's snowing, we still go out. They love that now. Not so much. They're kind of getting sick of putting on their snow pants. It was exciting at first. Now they're like, when's the snow going to melt? I'm like, well, I wanted to melt too, but there's mud under that. So now I'm saying, please stay out of the mud. But recess is a really fun time. It helps to build those social relationships and to build their core muscles as they do a lot of running around, um, silence. silence. Kaitlyn kind of talked about it. We have our sciences incorporated into our CLA knowledge units, and you saw them listed, but some of them that are really science related, or the plants, the farms, the five senses. We are we just finished weather in the Four Seasons and taking care of the earth, and we try to make them hands on when we can, like when we did plants. We took a walk to the community gardens over at Pingree Park and just explored the gardens and, um, did like nature journals. What we noticed when we did farms, we went to Appleton to visit with the cows and learn about farm life. So we make it really hands on because that's when learning is memorable and hands on. Learning isn't just for science, it's also in the other aspects of our learning time. Like during literacy. They play a lot of games which are using little manipulatives with each other. Same in math. It's a lot of hands on learning, a lot of learning with games like as they build fluency with math, they're playing games. They're winning and losing every single day. Um, same with literacy. Every day your child will go to a special. So these are the five specials that go once a week to either art, physical education, library, medium, media, music or Stem. So once every day they'll go to one of these. It's in a different classroom, so they'll leave the classroom, walk down the hall, go to the music room, and then come back. They're 50, 55 minutes long.

00:33:30,767	S5:
Um, why is play important? It's so important. So, um, play is really how your child explores the world, as you know, but it's also how they learn. So when play is incorporated, like I just said, into like, math and literacy, that really solidifies their learning. So wherever I can in kindergarten, wherever we can, we incorporate games to make it fun and memorable. But it's they're learning, but they're learning through play and they're building their cooperation and interpersonal skills while they're doing it. They're learning how to cooperate, negotiate, compromise, which is really important. They learn to problem solve their learning language skills through play. Um, every day, mostly every day when we we try to we all have choice time at the end of the day or near the end of the day in my classroom. Um, that's time in the classroom. So it's almost like a little mini recess in the classroom. Sometimes it's short, sometimes it's a little longer where they'll play with different things in the classroom. Like we might have a dramatic play area. Some classes have like a sandbox in my classroom right now. The most popular thing, ironically, is office, where it's just more writing. Like, they'll go, we'll finish. They'll say, phew, it's choice time. And then they're like, I'm writing a book. I'm like, great.

00:34:45,667	S3:
So.

00:34:46,767	S5:
Um, but they play all sorts of things and they love it. That's where they build their social skills.

00:34:51,467	S3:
And.

00:34:52,100	S5:
Kindergarten is just a magical year for your child. Well, they will grow before your eyes so much physically, socially, emotionally. They'll build like lifelong friendships and they're just going to have a magical year.

00:35:09,300	S3:
That's it.

00:35:10,300	S1:
That's another day in kindergarten.

00:35:11,767	S5:
Who do I give this to now?

00:35:13,300	S1:
Okay.

00:35:16,100	S1:
Okay. All right. Thank you, Linda and Kaitlyn, for doing such a wonderful job of explaining and describing what a day in life of kindergartener is. And I'm sure at this point you might be feeling a bunch of emotions, right? You know, thinking about sending your little one off to school for the day. And I'm sure you're having a lot of thoughts about how do you get your child ready for kindergarten. So I want to start off just by saying that, first and foremost, we all believe very strongly that, um, a strong school home connection is essential to your students overall learning and well-being. So please don't ever hesitate to reach out to one of us. Um. Email. Phone calls. Stop by the office. We are here to support you. We are here to support your child. Um. We know that kindergarten can be an anxious time, um, for you as parents, but also for the child. Um, so we have there are lots of different, um, children's literature around preparing your child for kindergarten and preparing yourself, um, to prepare your child for kindergarten. Um, this one, this is a book recommendation called How to Prepare Your Child for kindergarten. And some of the things that it talks about. Um, has hundreds of samples and suggestions to help bring out the best in your child, help your child develop listening ability, increase concentration, comprehension. Like Carolyn had mentioned earlier. Um, we are seeing more, um, dysregulated children, I would say. And we believe a lot of that is related to anxiety. Um, we are a very anxious society, I think, right now. So it is coming into school. We are noticing that that is kind of one of the, um, primary functions of some of the behavior that we're seeing. So just kind of getting yourself ready to be sort of like that strong, um, parenting, nurturing parent, but also positive parenting around sending your child to kindergarten because it is exciting. It's a big milestone. Um, but it can be helpful to present the transition as normal and as positive as you can. Um, rather than building it up as, like, this huge thing. Like, you want to make it seem just very normal. It's part of your child's, um, you know, turning 5 or 6, um, over the summer, talk with your child about how they can get to and from school each day so they feel prepared for the routines. It's really important if you can visit the playgrounds over the summer. Our friends groups do have a kindergarten playdate, but just kind of go to those playgrounds. During the summer. You'll be meeting, um, other kindergartners and encouraging your children to build new friendships. Um, like Carolyn said, using that social language as part of that. Um. Let's see. Also, you may want to explain to your child that kindergarten is kind of like their job. Like it's your job. You get up every day. It's part of your routine to go to school. Um, talk about what it means to do their job well by being responsible. Listening to the teacher. Always being kind and respectful. We focus mostly on kindness, um, with our schools. Um, remind your child that many other children are also starting school, and many other children may also be worried about going to school. Um, a couple of things about. Oops. Wrong one.

00:38:47,601	S1:
Sorry. Why didn't it go back? Okay. What a couple of things. Again about literature there. There are lots of children's books around. Starting school. If you know the author, Kevin Henke. He has Wimberly worried Chrysanthemum. There's lots of children's books. Just reading books and getting your kids ready, talking about school again, being sort of like the person that is not showing your anxiety as much to your kids because they are going to take your lead. They're going to look to how you're reacting and responding. And if you're having, you know, at the beginning of kindergarten, sometimes the kids come to the line crying. It's just it's just how it is. It's it's age appropriate. Typically, if we notice that we're going to come right over, we're going to come help your child come get into line. We might have a spot for them to have, like a cool off area where they can get their body feeling just right, ready to start the day. Typically that ends like within the like the first week or two. So if you just trust the adults at the school, that we are there to support you and we will take care of your child. We all know how hard it is. We're all parents ourselves. To let your child go off to someone you don't know yet. They don't know yet and they're crying. But just trust that we are there, um, to make their transition as positive as possible. And again, reach out to us if you have, um, a child who's really having a hard time. And you, maybe we meet you at the front door, maybe we have a different sort of, um, routine for the very beginning of the school year. Okay. All right. Right. Now we have time for questions. Any questions you might have about the presentation, anything that we didn't address or answer for you tonight? Yes.

00:40:26,100	S7:
I'm curious what you do in the Stem. Um, the Stem curriculum.

00:40:31,367	S3:
Sure.

00:40:32,167	S7:
The extra curricular.

00:40:34,167	S1:
Yeah.

00:40:34,801	S7:
So here you have it. And how much tablets or screens are you in Any classroom.

00:40:40,367	S1:
Oh great questions. So Stem is science, technology, engineering and math. We this is a new special for us this year. We do follow a curriculum the Museum of Science curriculum. Right now Stem is an opportunity for kids to explore lots and lots of hands on learning. Um, for example, I know it's mostly engineering. Yeah.

00:41:06,267	S3:
Um, I know that ours just.

00:41:08,100	S5:
Recently.

00:41:09,267	S3:
Finished a.

00:41:10,767	S5:
Um, they're talking about.

00:41:12,167	S3:
Lab composting.

00:41:13,267	S5:
And, uh.

00:41:14,067	S3:
How.

00:41:14,267	S5:
Do we reduce.

00:41:15,267	S3:
Waste?

00:41:15,667	S5:
And they were designing their own, um, little trash collectors. So it's.

00:41:20,767	S3:
Like kind.

00:41:21,167	S5:
Of using the engineering.

00:41:22,300	S3:
Process.

00:41:22,901	S5:
Of design.

00:41:23,868	S3:
But then with a purpose.

00:41:25,167	S5:
In mind, that's.

00:41:25,868	S3:
Another.

00:41:26,367	S5:
Learning objective, which would be like about how to take care of the environment. They did another one on, um, one of our um, parts of curriculum is, uh, protection from the sun. So they designed their own sun hats, but using paper and like all sorts of fun materials and like, I'm not there. So the teacher has the teacher, I bring them to Stem, and then I kind of get them up, pick them up. And when I when they were done, they were all in line. And I just looked at them. They all had on these hats, some like tinfoil just hanging in there. And I just had to say, really? Come on, you're hilarious. Yeah, it really is fun. It's very hands on. I also will say, if any of you work in the sciences, um, one of my students parents is an engineer. Um, and it's my the Stem teacher at our school that we have the same Stem teacher, and there's two for the district. Um, but yeah, so she has reached out to parents and said, please come in if you work in the sciences. And he came and talked about robotic engineering with the kindergartners. And they had so much fun. He brought in like some little robots from work, and they made their own like, little robot kind of design things out of like tinfoil and, that, you know, tape and all that stuff. Um, so, yeah. So it's very fun to be hands on. I know that connection was so exciting for the kids. What was your second question?

00:42:43,868	S1:
Screen time.

00:42:44,868	S5:
Screen time? I would use a tablet. Just very limited. Did you ever use them for two assessments? That we did. And we just today, yesterday I used them to film them while they were giving weather reports in small groups. But, um, can't we have enough hands on learning in school that I figure that we can wait for that later? Regarding the time that there should be exploring with their minds and bodies.

00:43:12,667	S7:
Go ahead. Thank you for doing all this for us. Um, I'm.

00:43:16,167	S5:
Just curious, how.

00:43:17,067	S7:
Is diversity.

00:43:18,000	S5:
Reflected in the.

00:43:18,968	S7:
Kindergarten curriculum?

00:43:20,100	S5:
And then maybe just throughout.

00:43:21,467	S7:
The Kimbolton.

00:43:22,701	S5:
School.

00:43:23,000	S7:
District.

00:43:25,567	S4:
Can we talk about that?

00:43:27,667	S8:
So when we adopted so both of our curricula are newer. This is our fourth year with Cola and our second year with Eureka math squared. And one of the things that we do whenever we're adopting a new curriculum is go through a curriculum review process. And part of that curriculum review process is to make sure that we are seeing a wide variety of people represented in the curriculum. So that was one of the reasons that we chose CLA is and you guys can talk a little bit more, but in the readers, kids will see pictures of all kinds of different kids, different kinds of families. So that's essentially how it is reflected. And I would say that part of our school cultures is that we welcome everybody. Everybody has a place in our schools. Everybody is important. We do a lot of work around belonging. And what are the things that make me feel that I belong. And I'm, you know, I can speak only for Winthrop, but I do know that that's essentially what's happening at all three schools.

00:44:38,667	S8:
Yes.

00:44:40,701	S7:
I know it probably varies year to year how many kindergarten classes and the boys like to keep 1 or 2.

00:44:47,367	S8:
So there's at least two at each school. And then there's always what we call the bubble kindergarten. And that bubble kindergarten is at each the school that has the extra classroom. So this year I have the bubble fifth grade. And so when the bubble fifth grade moves along, I have now an empty classroom. So Winthrop will probably have the bubble kindergarten next year. The bubble kindergarten right now is at Cutler, so it varies each year depending on which school has the actual classroom space for it. So it's 2 or 3. Typically we have seven if we don't have a big enrollment and class sizes are under 20. So say we only get 120 registrations. There will only be six kindergartens across the district. So that's why we want people to register early so we can plan accordingly.

00:45:41,267	S2:
And that and that and that bubble gets into what I was talking about at the beginning around those neighborhood schools. When we get into a situation where, like the year that I had the bubble kindergarten, I had a I had kids in my building who are in not traditional Bücker neighborhoods because I was taking 60 kids and they were taking 40. So when we get into that bubble, that does impact that neighborhood piece.

00:46:05,167	S7:
And then my follow up, sorry, how would they do?

00:46:11,100	S8:
Well, two years ago we had classrooms of about 1617. And this year we've got classrooms of 2021. So it really all depends. Um, and one other piece. So one of the things that sometimes gets questioned. Is that Winthrop the sort of. The geographic areas. Winthrop actually sort of covers the biggest geographic area where we're going like way out towards I don't even know. I'm not from Hamilton, so out towards Essex. And so those had been traditionally Winthrop neighborhoods, but this past year where Winthrop could not have the bubble classroom, we had about 20 kids who probably live in a neighborhood where in the upper grades, the kids on their street, in their neighborhoods come to Winthrop. But we didn't have enough room because siblings get placed first. And out of the 42 kindergarten positions I had available, I had like 36 siblings on my list and could only take eight new families in kindergarten this year. So when Winthrop doesn't have the bubble, that's when kids typically end up sort of far away from. From their neighborhood where other kids might go.

00:47:30,267	S5:
I just want to say that those kids came to cut, um, and.

00:47:33,901	S8:
There.

00:47:34,100	S5:
Was a lot of anxiety with parents around that because of the reason that Carolyn was talking about that. You know, why are my kids having to go somewhere else? All these people in our neighborhoods go to Windsor. So I just had a lot of meetings. I had a lot of conversations with a lot of parents, reassuring them that their kids were going to have a wonderful experience at Cutler, even though it's not their neighborhood, quote unquote, school. And I will tell you, every one of those children is doing amazing and loving school and loving their friends. So just, you know, like Ben had said earlier, it's really not a neighborhood school district. It's really more about enrollment numbers, classroom sizes, classroom spaces available. But it's all been positive, really.

00:48:18,467	S2:
It's a it's a really thoughtful process, um, that we get we get to the siblings, we get to sort of the folks that, like, can see a school from their front yard. And then when we get to that place where we're like, we're going to have kids in schools that are not the closest school to them. What we also start looking at is that our own current rosters of are there kids in these neighborhoods who are who are already going to a different school? We can pair them up. So, so we can try to have situations where neighbors are going to the same school and working with the same group.

00:48:49,667	S8:
Yes.

00:48:50,467	S7:
Um, if you end up at a school that is not directly near your house, or you been at that school for the remaining elementary schools. Yes. Not something the model shifts you back and forth. Nope. Nope.

00:49:03,000	S8:
Once you're in, you're in. But once you're in, you're going to love where you are.

00:49:06,601	S7:
Yeah. It's true.

00:49:08,167	S5:
It's the truth.

00:49:09,767	S7:
Yeah.

00:49:12,968	S5:
Yep.

00:49:13,567	S7:
How many teachers or Tas are there? Classrooms. You said 20.

00:49:17,167	S8:
There's one teacher, and there's a half time to, um. Currently in the classrooms. And so they are usually here. As Linda mentioned, the morning is the heavier academic time. So the Tas are in the classrooms for the mornings, and then they stay generally through lunch and kindergarten recess. And then the afternoon is when you know, the stress is a little less and the expectations are a little less in the afternoons, so that the teachers can generally handle the 20 kids on their own. Um, plus they usually have specials in the afternoon. So that's almost an hour when they're with a specialist teacher. But right now it's one teacher and one we call them ISPs, um, educational support professionals, um, that are in the classroom for the mornings to support the classroom. That being said, depending on children who might be already on an IEP, who gets some classroom support, there might be an additional special ed to assigned to a classroom for a short period of time. Um, and is there specifically to support us, a child or a small group of children, but also is an extra set of hands. But that isn't guaranteed, and it's really based on children children's specific needs.

00:50:36,901	S7:
Um, if.

00:50:37,267	S5:
They're taking a bus, will they.

00:50:38,767	S7:
Make it early enough to have that morning play?

00:50:41,567	S8:
We try. Um, do you want to talk about the transfer buses? Sure.

00:50:46,300	S7:
Okay.

00:50:48,100	S9:
So the way buses work.

00:50:49,367	S8:
Let me say one thing. Don't freak out when you hear this. Because when I first started working here, I was like, you do what?

00:50:56,868	S9:
So everybody says that, and it works out really, really well. So there.

00:51:01,167	S2:
Are, um, 12 buses right now. There are 12 bus routes. Four of them come to Bucharest, three of them go to Cutler. Five of them come here. And that's just based on which school is closest to which neighborhoods and which streets. Um, kids, get off those buses. There are some kids who live in the Bücker end of town who do not attend Bücker. They are Cutler and Winthrop and same thing at the other at the other schools. Of the four buses that come to my school. Two of them then become transfer buses, and they take a handful of kids to Cutler and a handful of kids to Winthrop. Same thing happens here. Those five buses come in here, everybody gets off the buses. Two of those buses become transfer buses. Bring a handful of kids to Cutler, a handful of kids to Bücker. The same thing happens at Cutler in the morning. The whole thing happens in reverse in the afternoon. It's a little crazy the first day or two, but the kids get really good at it really quickly. We flood buses with, um, the the arrival and dismissal. We have tons of adult adults out there in the first couple of weeks. We will also make bus tags. Every kindergartener will have one, and that'll have their different colors for each school. So we can quickly identify where a student needs to be at the end of their ride. But then specific notes about how they're getting home. Are they getting home? Are they being picked up by car or are they going on the bus? What is their bus route? So that if any kindergartener gets lost, there's a written piece of information on their body so that any adult can help get them where they need to be?

00:52:26,400	S5:
Just part of that is we are in constant communication when needed with the bus company and they are so responsive. I know that, you know, they go right away walking whoever the bus driver is. So let's just say not necessarily the kindergarten. Sometimes kids who have extracurricular activities after school, like the community house, might go to the park center. Um, every now and then kids get on the bus and they are supposed to be parent pick up. So we call the bus company, they walk you the driver, kids go right back to school, or they get dropped off where one of those programs are being held. So we are in constant communication all the time.

00:53:01,000	S8:
And generally if there's kindergartners that are taking those transfer buses, we try to pair them up with like a fourth or fifth grader who also rides that transfer bus so that they feel secure when they're doing that. But like Ben said after the second week of school, they all knew the know the routines and it's not a big deal. That being said, the transfer bus kids sometimes get a shorter amount of time. Back to your question. Um, get a shorter amount of time to play before school starts, so sometimes they might arrive five minutes, three minutes before sort of the bell rings that that 825. But the kids who are coming directly to a school on a bus, the buses are generally here by five, by eight, eight, 18. So they'll have a good 5 or 7 minutes to play. Yeah.

00:53:52,000	S10:
Um, everything is going to be available later, like be a recording or a check.

00:53:56,601	S8:
Yep. So HW cam is recording and the slide deck will be made available.

00:54:03,200	S9:
Yeah.

00:54:04,200	S5:
I'm so sorry. You may not be able to answer this, but children who are going to the community house for after school care. Do you know the process of How they get over there?

00:54:13,868	S8:
Yep. Um, I will speak for Winthrop. So currently we have, um, we have some community house space at Winthrop. So when only Winthrop kids who go to community house that are the younger kids, they stay in this building. Um, at Winthrop, the community house staff will come over and pick up the older kids and walk them across the street, both Cutler and Booker. They take a bus to community House.

00:54:42,167	S9:
Yep.

00:54:42,601	S8:
Right. Yep. Okay.

00:54:47,000	S11:
We'll see.

00:54:49,467	S8:
Say it again.

00:54:50,267	S5:
What would.

00:54:51,067	S11:
The level of inclusion be first, especially.

00:54:54,400	S8:
If it is a sort of a rag? I don't want to say regular a moderate special ed IEP. So a kid who has speech and language, or a kid who might have some developmental delay. They are fully included. And depending on what their IEP says, they might have some pull out pullout services. They might have in-class support. If it's students who. At Winthrop, we have students. Um, we have the intensive learning program here, and that is for students with sort of more severe special needs. And so their inclusion, um, you know, it's a separate program and their inclusion would be based on sort of what their IEP is. But right now, all kindergartners are in kindergarten classrooms, whether they're on an IEP or not, unless they are in the ILP program.

00:55:41,067	S2:
So as much as possible, um, for if going a little further down the road, if kindergarten IEPs, they tend not to be academic. They tend to be more around social skills. Um, so they're not being pulled out of those things. It might be a small pull out to talk about, you know, taking perspective. There's things like that. But kindergartners are in the kindergarten classroom. Okay.

00:56:04,000	S12:
Any other questions?

00:56:08,200	S12:
Okay?

00:56:09,000	S8:
Nope.

00:56:09,300	S5:
Nope.

00:56:11,200	S11:
She had a question about transportation for the after school community.

00:56:15,000	S8:
So same thing in the afternoon. Is that for Winthrop? Yep.

00:56:20,000	S11:
In the morning. Do they go directly from there?

00:56:23,767	S5:
Yep.

00:56:24,000	S11:
Yep. From here.

00:56:29,667	S8:
Yeah. So in the morning, they all get walked to Winthrop and get on their transfer buses to either Buca or Cutler. So if kids go to before school care at community House, they all come here. Oh, okay. And then they get on a transfer bus to go to their schools.

00:56:47,367	S11:
Oh, okay. Thank you.

00:56:54,400	S12:
Any other questions?

00:56:57,767	S5:
All right.

00:56:58,200	S2:
Well, thank you all for coming down. And we will get information out about the recording and the slide deck. If you have individual questions you want to ask in front of the group, please feel free to come on up and enjoy your evening.