Turtle Clan -  All Day Kindergarten
 

Jennifer Niemann
janiemann@seattleschools.org

Turtle Clan Syllabus

My goals are many and expectations high. They include taking twenty-four 5 and 6 year olds and facilitating the formation of a group that works and plays together in kind, respectful, responsible ways. I need to see a functional group and I need to see 24 individuals. The group is important to the children, as they want to belong and be accepted. I need to make sure each child is a part and feels a part of the group.

My goals also include helping the children be responsible citizens and friends. Social skills are a very big part of kindergarten!! Learning to control impulses or to speak up for what you need are very important parts of the first year of school. Learning how to move around responsibly and independently in the school are also important lessons.

This syllabus includes a list of the units for social studies and science for this school year. These units will be taught through integrated curriculum so that the children are learning the content through literacy and math. We will also do field work in most of these areas. I will keep you informed of the time line for these units through my classroom newsletter. The newsletter will come out bi-monthly.

Attached to the syllabus are the reading and writing developmental continuums that outline skill development in those two areas. The emphasis for kindergarten is level A for both reading and writing. However, we are not limited to only level A and I will individualize instruction for children who are moving along the developmental continuum.

Our district and school has adopted a new math curriculum: Everyday Math. I will be using it as our primary source of math curriculum. I will also introduce appropriate activities and games from other curriculums as they apply to the program. The SPS standards do not supply a continuum for math as they do for reading and writing, so I have simply added a list of the most outstanding benchmarks for kindergarten math that are included in the standards for kindergarten.

SOCIAL STUDIES

• Group development through routines, rituals, rules and relationships
• Learning about myself and my classmates
• Learning about children around the world
• Northwest Native culture

SCIENCE

• Fabric
• Animals / organisms
• Turtles

HANDWRITING

As a school we have decided to use the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum for k-3. This teaches handwriting through the three basic types of lines used in handwriting. We will be starting with the lowercase letters because they are used most often in daily writing.

EXPEDITIONS

• Market-to-Market
• Animal Homes

LITERACY

• Poetry
• Shared reading (reading together in a group)
• Buddy reading (with Eagle Clan buddy readers)
• Story time
• Small group reading
• 1:1 reading
• Class book making
• Sight word wall
• Language experience (reading your own story that someone has scribed for you and sometimes we will act these out)
• Oral storytelling
• Reading responses (responding to stories with pictures, words or other means)
• Mini-lessons in conventions of reading
• Printing practice
• Shared writing
• Guess and go spelling
• Literacy manipulatives, games, and puzzles
• Quiet reading time

WRITERS WORKSHOP

• Daily mini-lessons
• Daily writing time
• Weekly individual writing conferences
• Periodic small skill based groups
• Monthly writing celebrations
• Shared & interactive writing
• Reading and learning from target texts

MATH

• Morning routine

• Calendar
• Attendance stick
• Lunch count
• Days of the year

• Math manipulatives
• Math games
• Large and small group lessons

Kindergarten Math Benchmarks

Number Sense

• Counting objects to 30
• Reads and writes numerals to 30
• Matches sets of objects up to 30 with their numeral
• Beginning addition up to 10
• Uses manipulatives to tell stories for beginning addition and subtraction
• Reasonable estimation for numbers up to 30
• Uses comparative language (more/less)
• Uses number sense vocabulary

Measurement

• Uses comparative language (longer/shorter, heavier/lighter)
• Measures in meaningful situations with non standard units

Geometric Sense

• Sorts and classifies real objects as spheres, cylinders and cubes
• Identifies shapes
• Uses spatial vocabulary (curves, corners, right, left, below, above) to describe and compare geometric figures

Probability and Statistics

• Discriminates between impossible, probable, and real world context
• Uses objects to sort and classify data in order to draw conclusions in familiar situations
• Uses objects to build and discuss graphs
• Uses appropriate vocabulary for probability and statistics

Algebraic Sense

• Recognizes and copies patterns using sounds, objects and symbols
• Sorts and classifies objects by common attributes
• Uses objects and numerals to show the meaning of equal and not equal