HOMEWORK

We work HARD at school all day and these kids are tired by the end of the day. So, I will not be sending much homework with your child.

At Hellgate Elementary we do a walk-to-read program. This is where we place students who are at similar reading ability levels in groups (determined by an assessment we give early in the school year). Each walk-to-read group will be taught by a different kindergarten teacher. Your child’s walk-to-read teacher will give me the reading homework for the unit they are on and I will send that home in your child’s take-home folder. This DOES NOT need to be sent back. I simply ask that you practice when you can and work with your child on those skills throughout the week.

For reading, one thing I ask parents to do with their child is to read to them at home. Not only does this help with vocabulary, automaticity, accuracy, and fluency but it gives you and your child a chance to spend valuable time with each other. I will also send home an early reading readiness handout that has so many easy ways you can practice letter sound recognition, rhyming, and other early phonics skills. You can practice these while driving in the car, at the dinner table, or on a hike! I will also occasionally send home UFLI (our reading currirulum) reading passages that correlate to what lesson we are currently learning. This is GREAT practice and will reinforce the skills we are working on in class.

For math I suggest playing card games and using day-to-day conversations and activities to teach math. This can be simple counting, sorting, adding, or subtracting. Maybe that looks like adding your 3 carrots and 4 apple slices on your plate to make a total of 7, for example. Or maybe this looks like playing with Legos and having 7 and taking 2 away to see that you now have 5 left. Another fun activity is finger painting numbers, using Play-Dough to practice, etc.

Spend time with your child and have FUN! They are only this young once!

Grading

At Hellgate Elementary we use what they call Standards Based Grading. This will be what you see on your child's report card that we send to you each trimester.

All of the information below was created by Kristine Nannini in order to help you better understand this way of grading. I have pulled some of the most important information from her site and put it here, but I am also linking her website at the bottom of this page if you would like more information.

Why Standards Based Grading?

"When the focus of grading is to give clear feedback and help the student take ownership of their own learning, it becomes a truly useful tool.

All too often we forget the focus of grading. We give a grade to show a student what they did in the past, but forget to connect that to what they can do going forward.

Using standards based grading enables us teachers to give more meaning feedback to our students."

©Kristine Nannini

The grading system uses the numbers 1-4:

4.0 Exceeds Grade Level Standards: Demonstrates understanding beyond grade level standards consistently and independently.

3.0 Meets Grade Level Standards: Demonstrates understanding of grade level standards consistently and independently.

2.0 Partially Meets Grade Level Standards: Demonstrates partial understanding of grade level standards with or without support.

1.0 Does Not Meet Grade Level Standards: Demonstrates minimal (or no) understanding and does not meet grade level standards even with support.

Copy of SBG wording for website

Kindergarten.ppt

Here are some helpful strategies you can use at home to help support your child in their eary literacy skills!

You only need to take about 5 minutes a day to make a huge difference in your child's reading!