Kindergarten School Year Program

Ms. Lindsay Thompson graduated from Wright State University in 2006, with a Bachelor's Degree in Early Childhood Education, Ohio Teaching License Pre-K through 3rd. She has been with Bright Beginnings since 2000 and has been the Kindergarten Teacher since 2008. Ms. Thompson is responsible for teaching the academic portion of your child's day, which includes: reading, writing, math, social studies, and science. In her spare time, Ms. Thompson is the Director of the Beaverettes Dance Team and enjoys spending time with her family and friends.

 

Ms. Karaline Hassell graduation from Wright State Univeristy in 2005 with her Bachelor's Degree. She also holds an Ohio Department of Education Teaching License and is a certified trainer for 4C for children. She has also started her Master's Degree in the Fall of 2011 for Intervention Specialist. She has been with Bright Beginnings since 1998 and also serves as a Director. Ms. Hassell teachers part of the Co-Curricular Program, which has included Art, Spanish, and Physical Education. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family and watching a good movie.

 

 

 

 

 

Ms. Bridget Alley graduated from Wright State University in 2002, with her Bachelor's Degree and also holds an Ohio Department of Education Teaching License. She has been Bright Beginnings since 2001 and also serves as Director. Ms. Alley teaches part of the Co-Curricular Program, which has included Music, Sign Lanugage, Technology, Character Education, and she also serves as a liason to Beavercreek City Schools. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family, watching her son, Devyn, play sports and they are looking forward to their newest addition-expected July 2nd!

 

 

 

The two classes of ten children came in this fall with an overwhelming eagerness to learn how to read! Bright Beginnings assess each child in the beginning of the school year to find out what skills they have using the DIBELS system, reading records and informal assessments. These assessments help me place students in reading, writing and math groups and inform me what they need to focus on in their year in Kindergarten. Throughout the whole year, we have “reading meetings” where we work individually with each student at their own pace on their personal reading level, making notes as they read. These notes help me decide which reading strategies they need to focus on to help them become better readers. Then we decide together when they are ready to move on to the next reading level. Most of our students will be reading at or above a First Grade level by June. Yeah!

Our reading program is The Letter People and a letter person visits us every week! They are so excited to see who is coming to our classroom. Every letter person comes with a theme that incorporates all learning subjects, which are reading, writing, and science. We focus on the sound of the Letter Person and each unit comes with a book or two that we use in Guided Reading that features the week’s sight words and other decodable words so that each child feels confident that they are a super reader! They love taking their books home and showing Mom and Dad what a great reader they are!

Having the Letter People program makes it easy to integrate other subjects. Ms. U just visited us and we talked about what was “up, up, up in the sky”! This incorporated our science unit about space. To help us learn what was in the solar system, each class made a 3-D project of the solar system and each child was in charge of a planet. They researched one interesting fact about their planet at home and brought it in to share with the class. Kindergarten Red class made a 3-D solar system out of fruit to show the actual sizes of the planets. Kindergarten Blue class made a 3-D solar system out of Styrofoam balls that they painted to show the different colors of the planets and are currently hanging in our classroom!

We follow the Beavercreek Public Schools curriculum and the Math program we both use is Houghton Mifflin Math. We are learning many concepts such as number identification through 30, writing numbers, measurement, volume and capacity, money, fractions, probability, geometric shapes, addition and subtraction. We are moving swiftly through our money unit and we even have a class store set up in our room. The children love to go to the store and use real money to buy items and work the cash register. This helps us use math concepts in real life situations, which is very important.

One of our big projects in Social Studies is the Flat Stanley project. We read Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown and we make our own Flat Stanley’s to send all over the world to help us learn about maps. The Flat Stanley’s visit a family member or friend for a few weeks and send us back all different kinds of things that tell us about where they live. We get so excited when we receive “mail” because we know a Flat Stanley is here! We really enjoy seeing all the things our friends and family have sent us and get to experience different parts of the world right here in our classroom.

 

2011-2012 Kindergarten Supply List

Supply List

8 Basic Washable Markers

1. Box of 24 crayons
2. 3 large Glue Sticks
3. Blunt End Fiskar Scissors
4. 1 Pack of mechanical Pencils*
5. 2 Pink Block Erasers
6. 1 spiral notebook
7. 2 white 1 inch binders
8. 2 dispensers of scotch tape (small enough to fit inside the supply box of the student)
9. 3-5 Pack of Expo Dry Erase Markers with Eraser

(individual Dry Erase Boards will be available for student use)

1. Standard Clip Board
2. 1 pack of Lysol Disinfectant Wipes*
3. $1.00 in Change – an assortment of coins*

The coins will be used for various activities throughout the year. At the end of the year, it will be used for a class pizza party.

*items that will be shared with the class

1. You do not need to purchase a supply box. We will be providing them for the students.
2. We will provide students with calculators and rulers.
3. You may bring your child’s supplies to Kindergarten Orientation Tues. August 16th to be put in their supply box.
4. Please label your child’s supplies with his/her name or initials with permanent marker or name labels.

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