Our Kindergarten Day

Morning Prayers : We begin our day in the parking lot. We gather with the other students and we start our day with prayer.

Morning Meeting: After we unpack we have our Morning Meeting. We add to our calendar. We turn over the next number in our counting chart. We are also counting the days with a chart that helps us to see hundreds, tens and ones. We add an arrow to our counting the days, and on each arrow we take turns putting a blessing in our lives. We have a weather person who reports the weather for our weather chart. Once we are done with all of this, we sing our "Good Morning" song, put on our Thinking Caps, and start our day.

Phonics: Most days we will begin with Phonics. Throughout the year we will learn the letter sounds. Each letter will have a key word which helps us to remember the sound. We will start with the short vowel sounds, and we will learn the long vowel sounds later in the year. We will also learn about consonant blends and digraphs. We will learn to blend sounds to read words. We start with three letter words, but by the end we will be able to read five letter words! We will learn to read sight words and we will learn how to code words so that we can break them down, sound them out, and read them. The coding we learn in Kindergarten will be built on in First and Second Grade.

Math Readiness: This year in Math Readiness we are using Saxon Math. This is a hands-on approach to learning our Math concepts. We will complete a hands-on lesson with manipulatives on the carpet, and then we will move to the table to complete our paper reviewing the concept we are working on. Most days the back of our worksheet will be practicing writing our numbers the correct way. This year in Math Readiness we will learn about sorting, patterns, making and reading graphs, telling time to the hour, coins, shapes, and adding and subtracting.

Snack and Free Choice Time: We usually spend about 30 minutes on Snack and Free Choice Time. This provides the children with the opportunity to socialize. Free Choice Time is spent on the rug using our classroom toys. We have a variety of toys which encourage creativity. This time allows the children to socialize, plan what they are making or working on, and it provides an opportunity to work out disagreements, which is an important skill for all of us to have.

Reading Readiness: During Reading Readiness we will learn about the letters and their sounds. We will learn to identify them as uppercase and lowercase. We will learn how to read sight words, which are also called high-frequency words. We will practice blending sounds to read words, ranging in length from two to six letters. By the end of the year we will be reading emergent reader stories all by ourselves! We will learn about naming words (nouns), action words (verbs), and describing words (adjectives). We will learn how to sequence stories, and how to retell them with a beginning, a middle and an end. We will also begin to learn about the writing process.

Religion: This year in Religion we will learn about God's gifts. We will study the gift of Creation over several chapters. We will also learn about the Church Year, and the special days and seasons we celebrate. We will listen to Bible stories about Jesus and we will learn how our families and friends help us to know God. We will also learn about Baptism. Outside of our text we will learn how to pray the Rosary. We will learn about our saints during the month of November. In December we will celebrate Advent each week, and during Lent we will take part in a special class project where we will "Grow in Jesus". We will learn to pray the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Act of Contrition, and Blessing Before Meals. We will attend Mass each week with the other students in the school.