If you have a child in Kindergarten, what are they doing now in school?

[provenance61]

Our daughter just started kindergarten. She is in an inclusion classroom b/c of a vision impairment. Most of the work they are doing now though I would think is not K level. She was in the same school last two years for part-time inclusion preschool.

 

This fall they are beginning to sort by attributes. Following directions (color this thing yellow, the apples red). I don't even think they have started working on patterns yet. Recognizing letters. All of this she has done at least a year back in preschool.

 

We are in a "good" school district, I am just trying to get a handle on whether for any reason they might be moving slower in the inclusion class. It is also only a 3 hour program in our district, and with specials every day. They also include a play period (which is good, except it's such a short program anyway). Our son did PS kindergarten but it was 5 years ago and another school, he was also reading a year before starting. DD is on target in all areas, and on DIBELS reading readiness they gave all kids -- she is just starting to recognize words. The inclusion class is good however in a smaller ratio and DD needs assistance with magnification etc. b/c of vision.

 

If you are willing to share the kinds of beginning kindergarten work your child is doing, it would be helpful. Thanks!

 

Amy

[stacywatkins34]

what state/county are you in? Because that matters a lot as to what the standard kindergarten curriculum is. I know here in orange county, florida, they start on letter recognition right away.

[allymom]

My dd will be 5 in a month and is doing a combo preschool/kindy year, as she's not quite ready for a full kindy year, but not wanting simple preschool stuff anymore either. She knows all of her colors, but I do have tell her to color things a certain color, just to test that knowledge from time to time. She's mostly working on pre-reading skills, letter recognition/sounds, number recognition and recognizing quantities, counting to 10 and eventually 30 by the end of the year. We also do cutting, pasting, painting, some simple science concepts.

 

ETA: I'm sorry, totally didn't realize this was the afterschooling board, so my comments are pretty out of place. I'm a "new posts" button pusher and just saw this pop up.

Edited October 7, 2012 by allymom

[Caroline]

My son is doing phonics, reading easy books, listening to books and working on listening comprehension, handwriting, following multistep directions, adding, counting to 100, pattern recognition and creation ... They have two recesses a day and a nap time. It is a full day (6.5 hours) program. There are two full time and one part time teachers in the classroom with 16 kids. Hope this helps.

[Sneezyone]

My son is in pk 4 and they are working on handwriting, letter recognition, some science (e.g living/non-living, 5 senses, etc.) patterns and counting to 30. For K they work on phonics, reading basic cvc and sight words, numbers to 100 and handwriting.

[ChristineW]

DD's class is working on letter and number recognition as well as letter and number formation. Last month she learned about apples and this month they are studying bats. Reading instruction is teaching the phonemes but they also send home a list of three to five sight words to practice each week.

 

At the beginning of class, they do work on puzzles, sequencing, sorting, etc so if you only saw the first five minutes it would look a lot like her preschool class last year.

 

K is only three hours, but specials are all on one day (Weds.)

 

Christine

 

ps. I'd probably talk with the teacher about curriculum scope and sequence for the year. They outlined everything at open house so parents would know what to expect. My first grader's class is off to a slow start. They only started reading groups last week and differentiated math the week before (We're six weeks in).

[aug17girl]

The board might have the curriculum, sequence, and learning objectives for kindergarten on its website. That might give you a starting place for discussion with the teacher.

 

My ds is in K, but it is probably not that relevant for you since we are in Canada and he is in French Immersion.

[kiwik]

2 full time and 1 part time teacher for 16 kids. WOW is this standard or is it a private school?

[Caroline]

2 full time and 1 part time teacher for 16 kids. WOW is this standard or is it a private school?

 

It's a public school. All kindergarten classes here have two teachers. After K, only inclusion classes have two teachers.

[provenance61]

Kindergarten classes in our district, even though 3 hour, also typically have one teacher and one assistant. Classes are usually about 20-22.

 

We have one regular teacher, one special ed, and one assistant with 15 since it is an inclusion. The ratio alone is helpful. But we are also wondering about how the curriculum compares to other districts and classes.

 

To the nice poster from Canada...I'd still like to hear what your school is covering if you don't mind. It is always nice to hear different ideas/approaches. We are HSing our older son, and also part-time HSing our daughter in K. So I keep in mind things we want to cover in the time other than 3 hours she's in PS. :)

 

Amy

[kiwik]

It's a public school. All kindergarten classes here have two teachers. After K, only inclusion classes have two teachers.

 

Ok. We don't have a k year just start school at five. My son has one teacher for 19 children. They do writing (lots of invented spelling), reading, spelling, maths (I think counting to 100 and adding and subtracting to 20 plus patterns, symetry, basic shapes etc). Their teacher also covers art, sports, swimming etc so she is a very busy lady.

[Paige]

I'm not sure what they do in class, but all my DD has been bringing home are pages to identify colors and color words, tracing her name and tracing letters and numbers, and rhyming work. This is not at all what we had in K in a different state. The other Ks had them doing sight words and bringing home mini books. DD is bringing home mini books but they are clearly not sight words or early reader type. The words are much too difficult for the average beginner. I think they are expected to memorize them? Or maybe they were just to memorize the color words? For math, she's working on telling time to the hour and counting to 100. I am not impressed and DD will probably come home. She has fun, though, and it keeps her out of trouble, so I'm tempted to just leave her in for fun.

[aug17girl]

To the nice poster from Canada...I'd still like to hear what your school is covering if you don't mind. It is always nice to hear different ideas/approaches. We are HSing our older son, and also part-time HSing our daughter in K. So I keep in mind things we want to cover in the time other than 3 hours she's in PS. :)

 

Amy

 

Ok. We have one teacher and 21 kids in the class. Different teachers for English, gym, computers and library. It is half day.

 

We have only had one month of school so far. The teacher has been focusing on review and easing the kids into French immersion.

 

For English, they are reviewing letter recognitizion and the letter sounds which where introduced in K4 as well as printing their names neatly with proper use of uppercase and lowercase levels. They are talking about uppercase and lowercase and identifying the beginning letter sound of words.

 

Working on counting to 100 in English and 20 in French. Patterns were introduced in K4.

 

Talking about names of body parts and the weather in French. They've also done some complicated craft projects where they had to follow multiple step directions.

Edited October 9, 2012 by aug17girl
Added half day information.

[Uff Da!]

nm

[renmew]

My daughter's kinder class started with letter recognition and sight words right away. They are writing (invented spelling) in journals every day as well. They worked briefly with counting and writing numbers, and are not being eased into addition. She brings home a short consumable book every day that includes current and previously covered sight words, limited words that can be sounded out, and pictures to represent more difficult words.

 

This is a class with a majority English language learners in LAUSD, good old Los Angeles Unified. The community is mostly working poor, but this teacher expects much and is working the kids pretty hard. I don't mind one bit.

[Lena1967]

I just volunteered in my daughter's classroom yesterday so I feel have a pretty good grasp of what they are doing. They do a couple of sight words a week. They are learning what sounds the letters make and how to sound out words. They are learning to write the letters in upper and lower case. They are expected to write (copy) words in worksheets that contain a simple sentence with a blank, such as "I see a ______."

 

They also do a lot of drawing pictures on worksheets, for example to illustrate a story they just listened to. They did a six-page book about pumpkins, where they had to write a word in the blank on each page, and they also had to draw a pumpkin on each page!

 

In math, they have done sorting and are now working on patterns -- creating them and recognizing them. They are learning to write the numerals and to match them with sets of objects.

[mathnerd]

I just volunteered in my daughter's classroom yesterday so I feel have a pretty good grasp of what they are doing. They do a couple of sight words a week. They are learning what sounds the letters make and how to sound out words. They are learning to write the letters in upper and lower case. They are expected to write (copy) words in worksheets that contain a simple sentence with a blank, such as "I see a ______."

 

They also do a lot of drawing pictures on worksheets, for example to illustrate a story they just listened to. They did a six-page book about pumpkins, where they had to write a word in the blank on each page, and they also had to draw a pumpkin on each page!

 

In math, they have done sorting and are now working on patterns -- creating them and recognizing them. They are learning to write the numerals and to match them with sets of objects.

Exactly this, in my son's class. He is attending a combined K/1st grade

class as the school district placed older Kers and younger 1st graders in a combined class room.

My son is reading sight words, writing letters (letter of the week), drawing pictures for the letter of the week, sequences like "start, middle, end", "before, after", number sense, counting, matching pictures with words etc. They make books each week and a small puppet with an appropriate poem. They send in homework for letter tracing and math numbers or patterns or sequences. And they also send "optional challenging homework" which DS could attempt if he were interested. Also, a "show and tell" based on a theme once a month.

[vonfirmath]

They seem to work on tracing letters everyday.

They have sent home sight words cards to work on everyday --3 words the first week and adding a few words every week.

Counting backwards and forwards to 10.

Counting objects

Identifying objects that are bigger and smaller

Talking about properties of what they see, then classifying them in terms of the shapes they know (so the door has two longer sides and two shorter sides and that makes it a rectangle, etc)

 

Illustrating a sentence -- which means illustrating every part of that sentence. Putting a sentence in the correct order.

 

Sequence of events. First this happens, then this, then this

 

Communicating distinctly. How one talks to someone else (looking at them while talking/listening)

 

Memorizing nursery rhymes

Learning how to sing songs, and then to repeat the same song by clapping instead of saying specific words

[2007mama]

Wow, I am pretty impressed with what your schools are doing! DS doesn't tell me much, and his class schedule (posted on the door) keeps changing. It goes something like this:

Morning Meeting

Math

Recess

Snack

Gym/art (alternating days)

Literacy

Then I pick him up at lunchtime while his classmates continue with Rest, Science, and Writer's workshop. His teacher told me they are doing math in the afternoon now, though, so I have very little idea what they do on a daily basis. From what I've seen, they do a lot of tracing letters and letter recognition. So far, no lists of sight words. DS has not told me anything about reading... so really I don't know what they do! He loves gym and art so I hear a lot about those. I'm glad he gets to do those, and then we afterschool pretty much everything else. It works.

[vonfirmath]

2007mama: Most of what my son talks to me about is lunch and recess. Occasionally the song they are doing in Music class (they rotate through specials. I'm not quite sure how many specials/how often. I know they go to the library one day a week)

 

Most of what I've figured out is because of the papers they send home in his folder everyday.

[MistyMountain]

My dd is going to a charter school that has a 2.5 hour day. During the week they have art, music, library, gym and health. Her school uses the spalding method or the writing road to teaching reading to teach reading. Her school is the only school in the district that uses that method. They are working on learning 35 phonograms right now. They have done the numbers 1-20 so far. They still do stuff with letter and shape recognition. They have worked on writing all the letters and recognizing and counting by numbers up to 20 so far. They have moved onto writing the other 9 phonograms they do this year and simple words with two letters. They work really hard with all the kids to get them holding their pencils correctly and to make sure they are forming letters correctly. If they don't form them correctly we need to do corrections and hand them in with their homework folder. A lot of what they are doing is pretty simple still like worksheets with color this red and this blue, how many objects is pictured below, dot to dots and what letter does this start with etc. They have started patterns.

 

They will do the numbers up to 100, skip counting and simple addition and subtraction. Eventually they will be writing sentences. They don't do free form writing at her school. They want them writing correctly and spelling correctly. They also do not do sight words. I think they start reading in January and they give the kids books at their levels to read. They have started segmenting words already.

Edited November 4, 2012 by MistyMountain

[vonfirmath]

BTW I found out at parent-teacher conferences that they have not tested the kids' reading ability. They aren't ALLOWED to do so until the end of the year!

[Giraffe]

We are overseas, so this is a different curriculum than we would find in the US. In a week, DD gets 14 hours of English, 1hour of French, 1 hour of chess, math, science, writing prep/practice, number/letter recognition, art, gym, ballet/gymnastics. There's probably more; I can't locate her curriculum list right this minute.

[Pamela H in Texas]

Way late, but....I had two kindergarteners in PS last year and one this year (and one Kindergartener at home year also).

 

Kids in Kindy are supposed to have 25 sight words right now. THey are asked to write 4 sentence paragraphs. They are asked to "stretch it out" to spell words. Phonetic spelling is fine, but corrected. Kids should be counting to 100 by the end of the semester. They have a little reader to do each week, 45 minutes of reading each night. Spelling is sight words. They regularly do science and history, but it seems connected to 3Rs rather than independent.

 

Honestly, this seems like 1st grade to me. I would rather see a more systematic 3Rs program and leave 1st grade in 1st grade. However, this is really good for advanced students because it allows them to continue to progress at their own rate. Last year, my dd's kindy class had kids who couldn't read or write without direct help as well as a couple kids on a 2nd/3rd grade level by the end of the year.

[Guest Kimmosh]

I'm new and a little late to this post, but my daughter just turned 5 and is in a bilingual pre-K and they have done numbers until 50, all the colors (and mixing, primary etc), sorting, writing their names, writing all the letters, upper and lower case, letter sounds, the senses, a few sight words, and more but I'd have to get the com notebook. We live in PR so they focus more on the Spanish. There are 2 teachers for 8 students. No idea if all this is normal for pre-K.

[MistyMountain]

Now that we are into February I will update what they are up to at this point in the year. Her class is now writing sentences. They do some copywork for that but she also does come up with some on her own. Any mistakes they make are corrected. For handwriting they are spelling words. Right now they are on words with blends from the worksheets but I think they do harder words in class. They are working on 70 phonograms now. In January they started sending home book bags. The teacher listens to the kids read and she picks books at their level. Each night dd gets 2 books and she brings them back the next day. The teacher listens to a page or two from every student and determines from that what books to send home. I like that system because they get books at their level every day.

 

For math they have been working on skip counting 2, 5, and 10s and counting and writing numbers to 100. They work on counting a larger number of objects. They do word simple problems that they write out and draw. They have done patterns. They are currently working on telling time.

[Charlened1974]

In my class we are adding and subtracting within 5, counting to 100, reading simple readers using sight words and easy-to-sound-out words. 2d and 3d shapes are recognized and discussed daily. Calendar math is daily. Each week, they have five sentences and five to ten spelling words ( cat, hat, sat...) which they are tested on. I also send home readers; when they've filled their log, I give them a treat of their choice. Books are read constantly during the day; this is also how I integrate science and social studies. I also incorporate singing, movement, and fun centers.

This is a full day, no nap, 21 kids (two with severe learning disorders, two with moderate behave disorders), and me.

If you want to know more of what the public school in your area should be teaching, search for kindergarten standards in your state. My state is common core, so some of the things that others have said, such as money or time, can no longer be taught in our grade, but we go much deeper into the subjects we do teach. For example, my students are learning that 5 can be shown through numbers, words, pictures, and equations. It's simply amazing what our babies can do!