Some of the most exciting days of kindergarten are when your child gets to be "helper of the day". Now that the children are having their second turns at this, we thought we would take a minute to explain the different jobs, and the teaching that goes with each one.

While the children are not expected to know the names of the twelve months, we do use the names of the months to teach, in a contextual way, letters and sounds. For instance, October lends itself to discussing the two sounds for O. November is a time to reinforce the sound of N, and also to segment the word to find the familiar "No" at the beginning. We also work to increase the children’s phonemic awareness that words can be segmented into individual sounds. Since we review the name of the month once or twice each day, we would expect your child to remember it, or be able to use the letters in the name to figure it out.

You may have heard your child singing our "Super Duper Day" song and "Today is Monday". These songs reinforce the order of the days of the week. Again, we use the days to teach letter names and sounds. Since we have done this since the first day of school, we would expect that your child either remember the day, or be able to figure it out by going through the order. We would also expect by now that your child knows what letters the days begin with and the sounds they say when they see these letters.

We actually construct a calendar each month by adding one day at a time. This practice reinforces the order of the numbers, an important math skill. By this time of the year your child should be able to state the next number in order, or use a counting strategy to figure out what number comes next.

Pattern is at the core of mathematics, and the precursor of algebra. We start developing the children’s ability to recognize and extend simple patterns such as AB, ABB, ABC, during calendar time. We do this by using different icons, such as bears, pumpkins, shapes, etc. Your child should now be able to tell what icon will come next and even make predictions for days further along in the month.

A weather report is given based on observations on the way to school and/or a quick peek out the window. We use this time to introduce many weather words and concepts, such as overcast, chilly, mild, blustery, frigid, foggy, etc. Your child should be able to adjust our weather chart for each weather condition to read Yes or No. As your child gives today’s weather report, we emphasize the need to speak in an audible voice. (Speaking skills)

In order to reinforce the patterns of our base ten number system, and begin to introduce the concept of place value, we have been writing one number each day on our kindergarten "time line" and/or filling in our 100 chart since the first day of school. We also circle in red every "ten day" (10,20,30,etc.). The children know that when we have been at school for 100 days we will have a big celebration, and they love watching this number line and/or 100 chart grow, and look forward to counting on it every day. This strengthens their counting skills. The helper tells the teacher what number comes next. Sometimes the helper knows immediately, and other times he/she may have to start counting back at a number they know or ask for a clue about yesterday’s number. The helper also leads the class in counting to this number using an abacus or the number chart.