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How to Prepare Your Child Before Kindergarten:

Write their own name

Fine motor skills: Pencil grip and scissor hold

Alphabet knowledge- capital and lowercase letter names

Letter sounds

Rote counting to 20

Naming basic shapes

Naming basic colors

1st Quarter Expectations

Letter sounds

Letter identification (capital and lowercase)

Know 13 High Frequency Words/Sight Words

Book and Print Awareness (tracking print/left to right sweep, punctuation, first and last letter of the word, identifying upper and lower case letters, difference between letter and word)

Number to object correspondence- counting with objects to 10

Write numbers 1-10 when counting objects

Identify 2D and 3D shapes

Position words: in, out, in front, behind, beside, below, above

Citizenship/Following the Rules at school and at home

Changes/Weather and change over time

Animals/Needs/Similarities and Differences

Kindergarten Important Information:

Your child’s teacher will send all important information in a homework folder each night. It is vital that you check this folder and communicate with your child’s teacher. Should your child be absent due to an illness, please send a signed excuse note with your name, your child’s name, and the date of the absence. If you are sending money to school (for a field trip or snack), please place the money in a labeled envelope.

Kindergarten Supply List

• box of 24 crayons
• glue sticks
• pack of pencils
• 1 box of tissues
• paper Towels
• hand Soap (Liquid soap)
• box of washable markers
• book bag/back pack (no wheels)
• 1 solid colored 2-pocket folder
• hand sanitizer (Purell/Dial/GermX)
• change of clothes (Place in a zip-lock bag with student's name on the outside of the bag.)
• 1 box of zip-lock bags (quart/gallon) for flash cards, take-home books, etc.)

High Frequency Words

a    all    am    and    as    at    be    boy    but    can    did    do    down    for    girl    go    had    has    have    he    her    him    his    I    in    is    it    little    look    not    of    on    other    out    said    see    she    so    some    that    the    then    there    they    to    up    was    we    were    what    when    with    you

Please consider donating the following items to your child's class:

Clorox wipes

Hand sanitizer

Extra Underwear (girls/boys)

Napkins

Extra Crayons and Glue Sticks

Play Dough

Stamp Pads

Seasonal Stickers

Sidewalk Chalk

Parallel Block

In Kindergarten at Mineral Springs Elementary, we have the opportunity to teach reading in small differentiated groups during parallel block. Students are working in groups at their instructional reading level. Each day, students will spend 40 minutes in small group with their classroom teacher. During this time, they are learning reading skills and strategies, practicing comprehension and responding to the stories they read through writing and group discussions. Students will also spend 40 minutes in our reading lab. The reading lab consists of three adults working with students in small groups. We have a morning and an afternoon session with three differentiated rotations. Each rotation is approximately 40 minutes of small group instruction. These groups contain 7 to 8 students at the most. One group focuses on phonological awareness and decoding skills. One group focuses on recognition of sight words. The third group works on the computer program iReady while a teacher pulls them one by one to review sight words, letters and sounds. The phonics and sight word group rotates within the 40 minute block of time. Parallel Block is not offered in every kindergarten program. It has shown to be a great support to our kindergarten readers here at MSES!