Kindergarten

Kindergarten is an important foundational year when children aged 5-6 are curious about the people and things around them and enjoy discovering new things!  Kindergarteners need and enjoy a lot of play time, both alone and in small groups, to practice their social skills and problem solving skills.  Parents play an important role in their child’s kindergarten educational journey as supporters and reinforcers of behaviors and academics at home.

Social and emotional strategies/skills include:

• Following directions
• Getting along with others at school and home
• Making and keeping friends through conversation and play
• Identifying emotions in self and others
• Using age appropriate strategies to regulate behavior and resolve conflict

Foundational English Language Acquisition(ELA) Skills include:

• Letter identification/sound recognition
• Print upper and lower case letters
• Blending/segmenting simple words
• Identification of high frequency words Fry's First 100 Words List
• Writing a simple sentence.

Foundational Math Skills include:

• Write and use drawings to represent numbers up to 20 
• Count to 100 by 1’s and 10’s
• Understand place value from 11-19
• Compare numbers up to 20 using less than, greater than, or equal to
• Solve addition problems up to 10
• Subtract by 5
• Identify 2D shapes (circle, triangle, square, rectangle, hexagon)
• Identify 3D shapes (sphere, cube, cone, cylinder)

Tips for Parents of Kindergarten Students:

• Talk with your child daily about the school day (friendship, activities, books, etc)
• Read together everyday
• Practice listening and following directions
• Sing songs, read rhyming books, notice rhyme in everyday language
• Use chalk, paint, other materials to practice letters while talking about sounds
• Use countdowns for birthdays, holidays, etc
• Play number guessing games up to 20 (how many candies in the bowl, how many minutes to do a task, etc)
• Ensure 9-12 hours of sleep per day by instituting regular bedtime routines.

First Grade, typically for students aged 6-7 years old, is the first required year of school for students.  First graders build on and refine the skills that are taught in kindergarten.  Students in this grade will develop more independence academically and socially but still require emotional support and approval.  First graders enjoy being a part of decision making, whether at home or school.

Social and emotional strategies/skills include:

• Follows directions with two steps
• Enjoys routines, rules, organized schedules with time frames
• Gets along with others at school and home
• Begins to understand that friendships are not controlled completely by them
• Uses age appropriate strategies to regulate behavior and resolve conflict
• Enjoys encouragement for positive behavior
• Begins to see other points of view

Foundational English Language Acquisition(ELA) Skills include:

• Identification of high frequency words Fry's First 100 Words List, CVC List, and Consonant Digraph Words
• Read 60 words per minute
• Discuss story elements such as plot, character, events, and setting as well as main idea and details
• Differentiate between fiction and non-fiction stories
• Write 3 sentences with capitalization, phonetic spelling, periods.
• Beginning comprehension of character, setting, problem, events, solution

Foundational Math Skills include:

• Count and write to 100 by 1’s and 10’s
• Add and subtract double digit numbers
• Compare place values through 100
• Find missing addends through 20
• Solve simple word problems

Tips for Parents of 1st Grade Students:

• Talk with your child daily about the school day (friendship, activities, books, etc)
• Read together everyday and encourage your child to point to the words
• Practice listening and following directions for 2-3 step tasks
• Encourage responsibility and independence
• Create a list of rhyming words
• Use a family calendar to organize the week and include your child in planning
• Ensure 9-12 hours of sleep per day by instituting regular bedtime routines.

Second grade is a wonderful year wherein your child will become more independent socially, emotionally, and academically. Children of this age (7-8) are more likely to begin to understand the concept of fairness, even though it may mean that they don’t get what they want.  

Social and emotional strategies/skills include:

• Understands and respects the rights of others
• Follows home and school rules independently
• Shows empathy and caring for others
• Uses words to reason and resolve conflict, seeks adult assistance when necessary
• Chooses materials and activities and participates respectfully
• Appears confident and comfortable around other children and adults
• Can sustain attention to work for 8 minutes 

Foundational English Language Acquisition(ELA) Skills include:

• Read 90 words per minute with expression
• Meet Basic Phonics Skills Assessment Test Standards
• Write a 5 sentence paragraph on topic using capitalization and ending punctuation
• Recognize parts of speech (verb, adjective, noun)
• Ask and answer questions to show understanding of literature and informational text
• Demonstrate comprehension by predicting outcomes of books and movies.
• Summarize the important details of stories.

Foundational Math Skills include:

• Read, write, and count within 1000
• Understand place value through the thousands place
• Compare 3 digit numbers using <, >, =
• Add and subtract 2 and 3 digit numbers with and without regrouping within 1000 to solve word problems
• Work with equal groups of objects to gain foundations for multiplication
• Measure using inches, feet, centimeters, and meters
• Identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes
• Tell time to the quarter hour

Tips for Parents of 2nd Grade Students:

• Be a role-model, especially when faced with challenges and conflict.
• Talk with your child daily about the school day (friendship, activities, books, current events, etc)
• Read together everyday and take turns reading to each other
• Give your child the opportunity to make choices for their behavior that have consequences and abide by the consequence. 
• Praise your child for positive behaviors, making good decisions, and outcomes
• When other adults are present, ask your child questions that they know the answers to and enjoy discussing
• Use a family calendar to organize the week and include your child in planning
• Ensure 9-12 hours of sleep per day by instituting regular bedtime routine

Third grade is a year of great change for kids!  They are full of energy and are often in a hurry!  Their enthusiasm is magical and contagious!  Third graders play hard, but tire easily and can often be overzealous, taking on more than they are able to handle.  At this age(8-9), students learn well by doing, for example, with manipulatives and other hands-on activities.  Exaggerated story-telling using elaborate words is typical of this age group.

Social and emotional strategies/skills include:

• Works collaboratively in groups and contributes to the group effort.
• Explores fairness and justice with differences of opinion
• Adjusts better to change, showing signs of an easygoing personality
• Takes more risks and recovers from mistakes or problems more quickly
• Enjoys friendship groups with mostly same gender friends. 

Foundational English Language Acquisition(ELA) Skills include:

• Answer inference questions from text 
• Use text evidence to support statements
• Write multiple (3 or more) well formed paragraphs on a topic with sensory details and transitions, correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar
• Identify main idea, theme, message, and purpose with text evidence for fables, legends, myths, poems, and non-fiction reading
• Identify expository text features (e.g. table of contents, glossary, index, captions, maps, diagrams, etc.)

Foundational Math Skills include:

• Read, write and say numbers up to 100,000
• Memorize multiplication and division facts through 12
• Understand, solve, and explain 2 step word problems using all four operations
• Understand the foundational skills of fractions using multiple representations
• Compute multi-digit addition and subtraction problems up to 10,000
• Understand the attributes of shapes in different categories
• Use measuring tools to calculate length, width, height, area, and volume
• Tell time to the nearest minute

Tips for Parents of 3rd Grade Students:

• Give praise and recognition to your child
• Set aside time for your child to talk and explain their ideas
• Encourage your child so socialize in groups as feasible
• Encourage cooperation over competition in group tasks
• Help your child compartmentalize stressful things like school tests
• Write directions out for your child to follow (eg morning/bedtime routines)

La Rosa School is committed to student needs. Our Care Counselor, Veronica Mentar works with students’ emotional and social needs. She is dedicated to helping our young students develop a secure self-concept and positive relationships with other students and staff.

Students may request to see the counselor during the school day to help resolve issues. Students may also be referred to the counselor at the request of a parent or staff member. If a family situation may be causing difficulties at school, parents are urged to contact the teacher for an appointment.

Contact Ms. Mentar at vmentar@tcusd.net

The Instructional Resource Center at La Rosa School includes a library, literacy lab, computer lab, and Teacher's Resource Room. Our IRC offers a variety of educational resources and technology to enable students to achieve success in their future as role models.

The Instructional Resource Center is the hub of the school where the teachers and students receive resources and services to ensure student achievement.