Welcome to Kindergarten!

There are several skills that would be helpful for your child to be make a smooth transition to kindergarten. Students should be working on fine motor skills such as cutting, holding a pencil/crayon with proper pencil grip, opening and closing glue bottles, buttoning/zipping jackets, coats and pants, and working toward tying shoes.

Our kindergartners will be discovering the world of print all around them and learn how we use print everyday as we learn to identify all the letters of the alphabet and learn to connect the letters to the sounds they make.

We will use story books to learn reading strategies and respond through drama, drawing and writing. We will not only listen to stories but learn to retell using basic story structure. Students will learn the difference between fiction and non-fiction stories and learn to comprehend the stories. As the year progresses we will learn to read and write upper and lower case words. We will build upon listening and speaking vocabulary to improve oral language.

Kindergartners will develop the math concepts of counting, patterns, money, ordinal numbers, shapes, calendar, basic measurement, graphing, fractions (1/2, 1/4) and developing a concept of number. Kindergartners will be able to write numbers 0 – 15 and count forward to 100 by 1’s, 5’s and 10’s. By the end of the year they will be adding and subtracting.

Our kindergartners will be observing the world around them as they learn about their senses and how to use their senses like a scientist. We will be observing magnets, water, shadows and weather, and discussing how these things change and what causes them to change. We will also be studying the life cycle of plants and animals. Students will learn about reusing, recycling, and conserving. We will study the concept of differences between living and nonliving things.

Kindergartners will be introduced to history by learning about people and events of places and other time periods. Students will identify patriotic symbols of Virginia and America; pledge/flag, President and citizenship. Students will understand what it means to be a good citizen. Students will understand basic needs, wants, exchanging money and saving for the future. Students will explore community helpers and various holidays.