General Kindergarten Information

 

General Kindergarten Information

 

The ALA Kindergarten Program consists of 4 All-day classes and 2 Half-day classes. 5 teachers teach these 6 classes: Mrs. Brough, Mrs. Graham, Mrs. Mather, and Mrs. Phelps teach the All-day classes, Mrs. Whitehead teaches the two Half-day classes. 

The All-day and Half-day curriculum is the same; just with more time to teach the subjects and gain a deeper understanding in a subject in the All-day classes. We teach the Utah State Standards; focusing on letter learning, beginning reading, and numeracy. These standards can be viewed by going to the following website: https://www.uen.org/core/   We expect that all kindergarteners will be reading by the end of the school year. We will also be teaching them to write their name with a capital letter  at the beginning by holding their pencil with the correct pincer grip and to speak clearly and audibly by giving them the opportunity to present things to the class.

The guidelines for the kindergarten daily schedule no longer include nap or rest times. If your child still takes a daily nap, you may want to consider the half-day class for them instead of the all-day class. 

The homework that can be expected for your kindergartner is reading 15 – 20 minutes each night. This reading is you reading to them at first, your child helping you read by following along and reading an occasional familiar or known word next, then finally, them reading to you for part of the time. Some additional homework will be practicing assigned sight words and occasionally some math that didn’t get finished during the day. Half-day classes will have math homework every night because they don’t have the time to do it in school.

Attendance is important in Kindergarten because this is the year that  they are setting a strong and solid base for the rest of their academic career. It has been proven that if a student doesn’t succeed in Kindergarten and 1st grades, they are set to fail or really struggle with school for the rest of their years. Out of the 365 days in a year, we are only in school for 147 days. That leaves 218 days for fun and vacations. Please try to plan your vacations during the summer or the longer breaks in school like Christmas Break or Spring Break. 

Even though attendance is important, a child’s health is even more important. If a child is sent to school that doesn’t feel well they won’t be able to concentrate on what is being taught nor learn anything. The State Health Department recommends that a student stays home for 24 hours after a child has no fever, throwing up, or diarrhea without taking any medications.

Although the classroom teachers may vary a bit in their expectations and management of the students in their classroom; kindergartners are still expected to follow the same school rules as the rest of the school. The school rules can be viewed and printed by going to the following two links.

School rules: https://americanleadershipacademy.org/policies-and-procedures/3000-students/

For a printable copy of the guidelines: https://americanleadershipacademy.org/student-handbooks/ 

The kindergartners also follow the same dress code as the rest of the school. Below is the link to view the full dress code. Please note that it says that shoes should not have lights or wheels. They also should not have movie or t.v. characters on them. Coats that are worn outside can be any color or design, but jackets or sweaters that they want to wear in the classroom have to be solid shirt dress code colors.

Dress Code: https://americanleadershipacademy.org/2018-19-ala-dresscode/

Kindergartners arrive and depart from the school by carpool the same as the others. They are dropped off in front of the school. On nice weather days, they go inside the small inner playground to play while waiting for their teacher to pick them up. On really cold, bad air, or rainy/snowy days they will go inside the elementary gym to wait for their teacher.  At the end of the day the kindergartners will stay in their classroom with their teachers until an older sibling or parent/guardian comes to the classroom to pick them up. They will not be let out of the classroom before 3:30 unless they are checked out of school through the school secretaries. At 3:40, any kindergartners that haven’t been picked up will be walked out to the front of the school where they will wait with the teacher and look for their ride. The morning half-day kids will do the same as the all-day. They will be taken out to the front of the school by their classroom at 11:30. The afternoon class will go into the classroom when they arrive and be picked up from the classroom by siblings and parents the same as the all-day kids.

Parents of students attending ALA are asked to volunteer 40 hours each school year. These 40 hours can be done at school by helping in the child’s classroom or in any other part of the school or function that the school is hosting. The teachers love to have parents come in and help in the classroom whenever they can. It shows your child that you really care about their schooling. The volunteer hours can also be done at home by doing things for the teachers at home and by purchasing items for the school or donating money. You would earn 1 volunteer hour for every $7.50 you spend on things for the classroom or donate to the school.  

Parents will be asked to donate some supplies at the beginning of the school year. A list will be in the teacher packet that you will receive at the Check-In Fair that is held approximately a week before school starts. 

Some items that are usually on these lists are: 

    • 2 boxes of 24 Crayola Crayons
    • pack of 6 Black Expo Dry Erase Fine Point Markers
    • pack of 6 glue sticks
    • 2 boxes of facial tissues
    • 3 containers of Disinfectant Wipes
    • 1 bottle hand sanitizer
    • white card stock paper
    • colored card stock paper
    • colored copy paper

Save the receipt from purchasing these supplies to turn in for volunteer hours.