PK-K
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Pre-Kindergarten to Kindergarten includes transitioning from home or daycare to a formal school setting
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Parent Tips for Preparing for Pre-K
- Discuss what to expect in a school setting with your child. Practice daily schedules and school preparation
- Adjust your child's bedtime routine a few weeks before school begins
- Attend the summer orientation for your child's school
- Have your child practice their full name and address
- Incorporate reading and counting into daily activities to expose your child to letters and numbers
- Read books together daily
- Practice fine motor skills, i.e. coloring, writing and opening food packages
- Practice self-regulation and other social/emotional skills with your child. Discuss emotions and feelings
- Provide opportunities for problem solving
- Discuss before and after school care program options with your school division
- Let your child's teacher and school nurse know of any allergies or special needs
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Ways to Support Your Student During Pre-K
- Attend the Open House for your child's school
- Reinforce letter and number recognition
- Continue to read books together daily
- Check your child's take-home folder daily
- Read all materials sent home by your child's school to stay up to date and informed
- Update your child's school on contact information changes as soon as possible
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Programs to Monitor Student Progress
- Review your child's nine week checklist
- Check for strengths and weaknesses by setting aside time each evening to share your child's day or see if they brought home any papers to review
- Check your letters to parents containing information about your child's PALS/VKRP assessments
Significant Events to Prepare for:
- Summer Orientation
- Bus Transportation
- VKRP- Child Behavior Rating Scale (Twice a year)
- VKRP - Early Mathematics Assessment System (Twice a year)
- PALS Assessment (Three times a year)
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How to Communicate with Your Child's School
- Attend the Open House for your child's school
- Attend all Parent-Teacher Conferences
- Sign-up for the class communication app
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How to Support Your Child's Social/Emotional Learning
- Read books with your child about characters beginning school and discuss feelings the characters may experience throughout the stories
- Talk with your child daily about their day
- Play games with your child that teach students how to take turns and how to win or lose
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Behavioral Support Tips for Parents
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Play the waiting game - Students are transitioning from home to a daycare, where they may be accustomed to having more attention than the typical classroom due to the teacher-student ratio. Not all requests can be handled timely. Have student wait and increase time in small increments. Provide specific verbal praise when they are waiting appropriately.
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Focus on increasing their time to sit and attend to a task. Start with something they like to do, present the task (puzzle, book, letter blocks, snack etc.) while seated at the table, and gradually increase the time on the task in small increments. Always provide specific verbal praise and high-5's/fist bumps for on-task behavior.
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Play games incorporating items in the home using numbers and letters, e.g. treasure hunts using letter sounds "Find something that begins with the sound /b/", or use numbers, "Bring me 6 grapes"
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Use visuals paired with words to increase vocabulary
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Read with and to your child to increase familiarity and extend love for books
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Allow your child to help with activities around the home such as creating a grocery list, locating items around the home or in the store, or reading simple recipes
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Play games to teach turn-taking and appropriate social interactions.
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Talk about emotions. Talk about how to identify those emotions (e.g.the physical responses in your body that help us know what we are feeling), give that emotion a name, identify triggers (environmental events that can trigger these emotions), and coping skills for negative emotions.
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Review with students the expectations for early childhood classrooms to include: 1. Following adult directions 2. Remaining in area 3. Keeping hands and feet to self 4. Sharing Most classrooms will have some variation of these as classroom norms/rules/expectations
- Allow children to assist with simple cooking activities, especially ones where they will need to measure if you have a thermometer, talk about the temperature, and compare the previous day's temperature using mathematical concepts.
- Teach time and place. There is a time and a place for everything. Review the appropriate times and places for various activities with your child.
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Positive Behavioral Intervention Strategies
- Discuss classroom rules and expectations with your child
- Discuss division-wide rules and expectations with your child
- Set expectations for after-school activities, i,e, homework first, hen play or take a break for a set period of time)