Although this school year is going to look different than usual, I am very excited to welcome our new kindergartners and we are busy planning an exciting year for all of them! In order to get our year off to a good start, I have several things I'd like to share with you:
- If you'd like to receive texts with class announcements, I will be using the app called "Remind" this year. I will try to use Remind more sparingly, and most of my communication will be via email. If you'd like text reminders, send a text to 81010 with this message: @ngrist. You can also just type in ngrist as your class code directly on the app
- Back-to-School Night, which is a meeting for parents only (even virtually!) is on Tuesday, August 11th, at 6:00 pm. Please make every effort to attend this meeting, as I will be going over our policies and procedures for the year.
- The first few weeks of school are dedicated to getting to know our new students. Therefore, we will be doing one-on-one meet & greets in the first week, followed by additional one-on-one meetings in the second week. During that time, your child will have some school assignments to complete, but will not necessarily have "live" Zoom meetings. By meeting individually with students, we will best be able to group them for their small group instruction. We will ease into the school year with work load, however, the work load will ramp up as we get to know the skills and capabilities of our students.
- Please make sure that you provide me with a good email address and contact information using this form. As you can imagine, there will be many emails, especially as things get started, and I don't want you to miss any pertinent information. It might be wise to even have a dedicated email address just for school communications.
Schedule
**Please note that we are building up to this schedule. The first few weeks will be dedicated mainly to getting to know our students and their learning needs, as mentioned above.
Zoom Expectations
One thing that we found during the final trimester last year was the importance of coming prepared to the Zoom meetings. We will be spending a lot of time during the first few weeks reinforcing Zoom etiquette and expectations, so please help us with these at home.
- Come to the Zoom ready to learn. Students should be dressed and have already eaten their breakfast, and used the restroom.
- Have a quiet space with a work area set aside. You should be able to draw and write when prompted by your teacher in your work area.
- Your work area should be free of distractions. Please do not bring things like stuffed animals, toys, or be using other apps during a Zoom (unless requested for an activity or Spirit Day).
- For attendance purposes, your video should be on at all times, and you should remain seated during work time.
- Your microphone should be on mute, unless answering a question. Please show your child how to mute & unmute themselves.
- When we are meeting with our class, we need to be sure that our brain is working, our ears are listening, our eyes are watching, and our voice is off (unless it's our turn to answer).
- No eating during a Zoom lesson-- just as you would not be eating during instructional time in class.
Supplies
The following supplies should be in your child's work area during a Zoom call, and should be available to them to complete assignments:
- Crayons (box of 16)
- Several sharpened #2 pencils with erasers
- Glue sticks
- Child scissors
- Markers
- Blue & Black Dry erase markers (thin)
- An iPad stand is recommended, but not necessary. Some simple DIY iPad stand ideas can be found here, or an inexpensive stand such as this can be found on Amazon.
- Headphones with a microphone are also helpful if your child's work area may have background noise.
Skills to be Working On:
It is helpful for children to have the following skills "under their belts" as soon as possible, as the pace of kindergarten builds up quite quickly:
- recognizing most letters
- writing his/her name legibly, using one upper-case & the rest lower-case letters
- recognizing numbers to 10 & beyond
- knowing names of basic shapes
- having good cutting/scissor skills
- able to sit attentively for the duration of a picture book/Zoom call
- always using kind words in the Zoom classroom
Finally, we can't stress enough the importance of building independence. In this distance learning environment, you have to let your child do assignments independently, and let us help your child with any areas of difficulty. Your job is to make sure the work is completed-- not to correct and do the work for your child. If your child is constantly being corrected and overly-assisted at home, we will not be able to get a clear picture of your child's academic needs. When we return to the classroom, if your child has not been building independence, it will be very difficult for him/her to suddenly have to operate without you by their side.
