Starting Kindergarten

They learn everything! My grandson will be in the first grade this year. last year he learned to read,he can do math, he sings all the fun songs, and, I think, he has a slight grasp of science, he brought school library books home every week. They even had an election at election time! It was amazing. I know all this because we picked him up after school every day and I am nosy! I looked in his back pack.

You will be surprised what they learn in Kindergarden. My son learned all the basics like letters sounds numbers 1-100, first 40 sight words, reading, adding, subrtraction, shapes, geometric shapes, money (coins). Our school had alot of extra stuff for the kids like apple day, beach day, 100th day for the whole school which is alot of fun letting them celebrate 100th day of school, Native american day. etc... Have fun I know it's a lot of emotions for both the kids and parents be prepared for them to have melt downs the first couple of weeks from being tired! S.

When my daughter was in Kindergarten they focused mainly on reading and handwriting. They had a list of sight words that were brought home weekly, animated literacy characters that they were learning for the week, basic addition and subtraction, sentence structure, sentence spacing, punctuation, etc. I'm sure you'll be given some kind of newsletter to tell you what they're going to be learning for the week. It's great you're wanting to be involved. My youngest is starting Kindergarten this year and I couldn't be more excited.

Good Morning S., When they started all day kindergarten 30 some years ago, our youngest son, learned ABC, numbers, colors, shapes, following directions, interacting with others. Now they do this in preschool. It will probably be more reinforcements of the above, plus writing. They do so much more now with children then they did when our son's were young. We had already mastered letters, numbers, counting, money, colors and shapes etc before either one of them went to school.
Our eldest went half days every day, our youngest went all day every other day. One week three days next week 2 days.
I was also very involved with the boys class's being an aide some days with reading. Going on field trips, supplying goodies for parties.

He will have a good time and have alot of frig drawings to post. I remember Asher (gr son) bring home re-enforcement sheets to practice different things this last year. Tracing, cutting, matching things. He went to school every day half days. Will be 1st grader this year.

God Bless you and yours
K. Nana of 5
PS Ok S. do you have 2 boys and a girl, one boy and 2 girls? What are your 3 blessings from above? ;)

My daughter will start first grade next month. For the first part of the year they went over their colors, letters, and numbers. They had three or four site words each week to learn. We had homework almost every day. On monday it was going over the site words by the end of the year there were 10 words and a spelling test on Friday. Tuesday math At first it was learning to write their numbers by the end it was adding and subtracting. Wend. was reading in the begining it was that she made up a story by what was happening in the pictures of the book that she made at school in the end it was a book that she had to read to me. Thrusday in the begining was to fill a lunch sack with what ever the note said on the outside like during colors it was with a certain color then during letters it as with something that started with that letter then toward the end it was a review night of writing site words/spelling words. None of her home work took us more than 15 min. The only reason it even took that long was that I made her rewrite something so that I could read it. I explained to her that it was not a race and that if I could not read it than the teacher could not either and she would get it marked wrong. She had a problem with just wanting to get it done and to move on to something else and did not care about neatness. She ended up missing outside time one day to redo a worksheet on coloring because she scribbled to get it done first.
So to answer your question they will learn to read, spell, (yes my daughter had spelling tests the last three months of school) and write they will have gym, music, art, library, one day a week (not on the same day except maybe library). My daughter also had computers and history (I do not think that was the name but I can not remeber what it was called now.) They were supposed to get time to rest but they have so much to learn that it did not happen. They did get a snack time every day our school has each parent send in something for the whole class for the day that they are asigned. So when there was 16 kids in her class I had to send snack in every 16 days. It could not be something that I made at home it had to be something that I bought in the store. However I was able to send celery cut up and washed and baby carrots and a bottle of ranch dressing that was not opened. It is so much different from when I went to school. Oh something else that they are going to be doing at our school this year is that until December they are only going to be writing in capital letters. In Jan. they will start writing in lower case. It has something to do with learning to write cursive.

most school districts focus on fully informing parents! There should be a presentation from the teacher, with weekly newsletters sent home. Our school district also encourages all staff to daily/weekly update their personal websites. In addition to the teacher sites, the teachers usually have links to fun educational websites too!

By the end of KG, you should plan on your child being able to read....with "independent reader" happening in the first month or two of 1st grade. Both of my children read by the end of KG, but my sister's kids all read by mid-KG (different districts & methods of teaching). To help in this, please be sure to read every single day to your child! It makes all the difference in the world.

As for volunteering, at Open House there should be a sign-up form for helping the class/room mom/etc. Usually these duties are shared between several families. The school will also put out an all-school monthly newsletter which will also inform you as to opportunities to participate.

KG is a blast! Have fun!

You can call the school and ask for a curriculum guide for kindergarten (this is the "plan" that teachers must follow). The teacher should also keep you informed with newsletters.
Volunteering in the classroom is a great way to see what's going on. Just be sure to be there to help your teacher in whatever way she needs you. Some parents come to "help" and basically just want to watch their own child in the classroom setting.
Ask questions, don't be scared to ask! Be informed!

My son just got out of kindergarten. He came out knowing how to count indefinitely (as long as I helped him past 999) and do addition and subtraction all the way into double digits, and even some single digit multiplication. He took classes in Spanish, art, music, and learned to read some sight words, and how to sound out words. I can't speak for every school, but this was a public school that he went to, and that's what he did last year.

My school district actually has a website and lists the kindergarten curriculum, etc. YOu may want to look for something like that.

S., you will be absolutly amazed by what your child will learn in kindergarten! My youngest is going into first grade this year and we were worried about her (her b-day is only a week before the cut off - she was the youngest in her class). But she did great! She can read simple books, can sound out words (many that I'm blown away that she can figure out) and can spell using fonics. Plus math and the usual getting along with others, how to listen and there is also art and music. The school day actually goes by really fast for them. Good luck!!

Our kindergten has an all day program also, and we had a great orientation day before class started. Contact the school and ask for something like that. Also, our K teacher gave us all a "program" that detailed what the kids would be doing at what time during the day and how long that "session" would be. If your teacher doesn't have that already, you could always request it!