book list
Below you will find a list of kindergarten books listed by DRA level
Developing Fine Motor Skills
Developing Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills
involve the use of the small muscles of the hands. Many school
activities, such as writing, cutting with scissors and drawing, involve
fine motor skills. Sorking on these skills at home will be helpful to
your child.
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Play with jacks and marbles. These games will help your child learn how to control his/her motor movements.
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Use spring-type
clothes pins to clip things together. Make index cards with numbers
written on them and have your child clip the correct number of
clothespins to the numbered index card.
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Play with clay and
playdough. Use forks and other utensils to cut the clay into pieces.
Using a garlic press, whisk, rolling pin, cookie cutters or a rolling
pizza slicer can make the activity even more fun.
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Sort small objects such as nails, screws, botlts, paper clips and buttons.
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Use a water mister to mist plants or grass.
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Cut small shapes out
of cardboard and poke holes through them. Stringing beads, tube
macaroni, cheerios or fruit loops are fun ways to help reine your
child's motor coordination.
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Put coins intoa a bank, play with wind-up toys and twist bottle caps ona dn off.
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Use clothes fasteners
such as buttons, zippers, snapas and shoe strings. Minipulating the
fasteners requires fine hand control. Dress up and doll activities
provide a good context for using fastening skills.
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Play with games and
toys such as blocks, puzzles, Lite-Brite, Legos, pick-up sticks and easy
to assemble models. Working with these games and toys uses the small
muscles of the hands to develop fine motor skills.
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Screw nuts onto match bolts. Start with the largest first and then move to the next size down.
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Use a hole puncher to make confetti out of scrap paper.
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Cut, color, fold and
paste paper. Working with paper is a great way to develp your child's
fine motor skills. Use child-size scissors that have small openings for
the thumb and a larger opening for the ring and middle fingers. The
pointer and pinky fingers do not go into the scissor openings; they help
the hand open and close the scissors.
Fast Start Fun!
Fast Start Fun!
Dear Families,
Welcome
to the new school year and kindergarten! Learning to read will be an
important goal for your child this year. We will be working on this
goal every day in our classrooms. You also have an essentail part to
play at home! This year we will participate in the Fast Start program. Fast Start is a set of short poems and wordplay activities for you and your child to do together. Here is how the program works.
Each Monday, we will send a poem, a family page, and a yellow log sheet home with your child in his/her Fast Start folder. The Fast Start routine is simple:
Enjoy the poem together. Then...
Spend
a few minutes doing the activities on the family page. We will mark
the log sheet to tell you which activities to use with your child. Please feel free, however, to try any of the other activities as well.
On
the log sheet, record the amount of time you and your child have spent
on the routine. Also, be sure to use the "Comments" portion of the log
to let us know how your work together is progressing.
Please
have your child bring his/her yellow log sheet only and reading log to
school each Monday. If there is no school on a particular Monday, send
both things back on the next school day.
Please
enjoy this experience with your child. As always, please feel free to
contact us if you have any questions or want to share information about
your child. Together we will help our children become strong and
successful readers!
Just For Kids
Parent's Page
For suggestions on how to better help your Kindergartner, click on the below links.
Reading Strategies
Reading Strategies: Ways to support your young reader.
There is no way to overestimate the importance of reading. Try to make
time everyday to read to and with your child Below are some
suggestions of ways you can support your young reader during family
reading time. Please don't feel that all of these need to be done all the time. Choose a few to focus on each night. The most important thing is to make reading time fun and enjoyable.
Before Reading:
1. Look at the title and take a picture walk.
2. Ask
your child to make predictions about what might happen. Ask your child
to tell you what he/she knows about the subject of the story.
3. Point
out some tricky words that your child might come across. Talk about
the meaning of the word. Notice the beginning sound.
During Reading:
If your child is stuck on a word, you can say:
*Look at the picture. Can the picture help you figure out what the word is?
*
Get your mouth ready (to make sounds) Check the first letter in the word? What sound does it make? Check the last letter in the word?
*
Reread
Have your child read the page again and think if it makes sense.
* What word would fit here? Check the first letter...think of what makes sense.
Encourage your child to point to each word as they say it.
If they are not pointing to the words they might miss one or add a word. If your child is not pointing while reading have them try it again.
Stop
and share any questions you may have or what you might be wondering
about. Encourage your child to do the same. Also make predictions
together.
After Reading:
1. Talk about the story. Have your child tell you what happened first, next and in the end.
2. Talk about your favorite parts. A part that made you sad, happy, surprised, etc.
3.
Ask your child if he/she would do what the character did or how he/she
would feel if something like that happened to him/her.
Read
your child's favorite books over and over. Studies show that each time
a child listens to the same story, new kinds of learning take place.
When your child knows the book by heart, let him read it to you.
For more information, follow these links.
15 Minute Reading Activities
Reading Rockets
Spelling Words
Kindergarten 25
These
are the 25 sight words that your child will be learning throughout
their kindergarten year. Please have your child practice reading and
writing them.
I
|
said |
like |
| a |
see |
to |
| no |
and |
will |
| not |
in |
do |
| my |
the |
go |
| can |
is |
it |
| you |
yes |
us |
| we |
he |
she |
| look |
Writing Tips
Tips on how to support your young writer....
1.
Have your child write whatever letters he/she hears in a word. In the
beginning, this might just be 1 letter or a line of markings. Try not
to be overly concerned with spelling. Instead, praise your child for
the imagination and ideas he/she expresses in writing.
2. Let your child create a quiet writing corner in the house and encourage him/her to write frequently.
3.
Give him/her ideas to write about. For instance: "Write a note to
Grandma to thank her for the birthday present". or "Write about your
favorite part of the museum we just visited.
4. Have your child write lists of anything from what she wants for his/her birthday to what his/her favorite movies are.
5. Let your child see you writing and talk about how you're using writing to communicate.
6. Get the whole family involved in keeping a "special days" journal.
7. Buy your child a fancy journal or fancy paper to write on.
8. Let your child use the computer to type a story.
9. Write a story as a family.
10.
When writing together, take the time to point out correct letter
formation and use of lowercase and capital letters. See the Handwriting
Without Tears link for more information. http://www.hwtears.com/parents/newtohwt
For more information, click here
* some ideas from scholastic.com