Jettin' into Kindergarten! - Little Minds at Work

Even though I was super sad as always to see my class move on to first grade this year…I am beyond excited to start over and meet my new group of kiddos! I am always excited to start off a new year because it always begins as a scattered puzzle….by the end of the year you have put each piece neatly together and that puzzle has now formed into a beautiful picture of the future! At the start of the year I am focused on learning something about each of my students. Within the first week or so you usually have an idea who knows their letters, independently writes their name, and who was socially prepared for the school environment.

This blog post is meant to elaborate on ideas I feel help prepare these little one for Kindergarten- – through the help of parents. This goes for the beginning of the school year or before the school year has actually begun.
I know that Leap Frog Letter Factory has started to gain more popularity so you might already be aware of it. However, I cannot exclude it from this post! I live and swear by this DVD. I have used to for the past two years in my classroom and oh.my.goodness! This video has my students knowing their letters sounds within the first couple of months, if not sooner!After I started using the DVD in my classroom I took over a copy to my then 3 year old niece and within a couple of months she also knew all of her letters and sounds!

I think it would be a stupendous idea for school districts to hand out this DVD at Kindergarten meet & greet/roundup/enrollment. Below I will share with you the free preview. This is the song we listen to each day for the first half of the school year. We actually only go through the entire DVD about 2 times, but listen to the song day in and day out! Below is also a link to the DVD. I am actually a Leap Frog DVD junkie and have all of the DVDs, but this one is by far my favorite!

Being a district that has implemented the Common Core I find it very important that my parents are aware of the standards and what their child will be expected of. I feel that if parents know what will be expected of their children they will usually help to get their child there. I find that if parents are ill-informed of what their child needs to know…they don’t know how to help and simply don’t. At Kindergarten open house/meet and greet I give all of my parents a copy of the user friendly Kindergarten Common Core Standards!
Click below to download the freebie!

Also, this year I will give each of my parents a copy of my Ready, Set, Kindergarten! packet.

I gave all my parents at conferences this past Spring the Ready, Set, First! packet to help prepare their Kinders for fisrt grade.

This packet is designed as a reference for soon to be Kindergarten parents. It is an overview of the important standards that will be expected of their soon to be Kindergartner. Preparing little ones for Kindergarten can be quite a task. This easy to use packet will be beneficial for parents to gain an understanding of the Common Core.

This packet would be great to send Kindergarten meet & greet, Kindergarten round up, open house, etc. Simply print pages 3-19 and you’re done!

A majority of the ELA and Math standards are covered in this easy send home packet.

Standards covered in this packet:
Key Detail in Text RL.K.1 – RL.K.10
Letter Identification & Corresponding Sounds RF.K.1d
Rhyming RF.K.2a
Sight Word Fluency RF.K.3c
Oral Counting K.CC.A.1-2
Number Identification K.CC.A.3
Counting Sets K.CC.B.4
Greater, Less than, and equal to K.CC.C.6-7
Geometry K.G.A.2-K.G.B.6

PREVIEW THE PACKET HERE