Kindergarten Expectations

My son, Huey started KINDERGARTEN. Seriously...time flies!  Can we stop the time or make it go a little bit slower?!!  My mom, Huey's grandma says, "Time will go even faster as you get older."  Not good news either... 

The good news is that "As learning begins, kids will bloom like a flower."

Huey's school, proudly representing NYC DOE Public School, provided parents with a list of some Kindergarten academic expectations as follows:

English Language Arts: 

• Print upper and lowercase letters
• Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs
• Form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/
• Understand and use question words (i.e. what, who, when, why, how)
• Use the most occurring prepositions (i.e. to, from, in, out, on, off, etc)
• Produce complete sentences
• Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Math:

• Know number names and the count sequence
• Count to tell the number of objects
• Compare numbers
• Understand addition as putting things together
• Identify and describe shapes

As I followed through the list, I thought of some Kindergarten Life Skills Expectations.

Life Skills Expectations:

• Follow the simple step (1-2 step) directions (i.e. (For school) Finish your drawing and put it in your folder; (Home) Find the peanut butter jar in the refrigerator and bring it to mommy.).
• Dress self and manage some fasteners such as velcro, relatively big size buttons, snaps, and zippers.  I do not worry about tying shoes at this age. 
• Open own lunch container.  Many kindergarten kids have hard time opening the school milk cartons because they don't see the same type of milk carton or bottle in the market.  

This is the container that we can easily find in the
supermarket.  

 

This is the milk carton that I usually see in school.  I don't often find this one in the supermarket.  I sometimes see an orange juice container which looks like this and it has a little pre-cut circle for a straw.  

          

• Go to bathroom and manage lower body garments.  Clean-up after the toilet use can be not as clean as a grownup expects them to be, but should be somewhat clean. 
• Say social phrases appropriately such as "Hi", "Bye", "Thank you", "You're welcome." and "Oops", etc.   

I hope this list of Kindergarten Expectations is helpful and useful to parents who have Kindergarteners or younger children at home.  You can help your child's life skills by giving them enough time to manage daily activities by themselves.  Just be conscious of how much you're providing them.  

  

 

Box Font

Are you ready to play this game?

is for the tall letters: b, d, f, h, k, l, and t.

is for the small letters: a, c, e, i, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, and z.

is for the descending letters: g, j, p, q, and y.

List all the words that can fit in the box.

ant

cat

cot

cut

eat

not

net

sit

set

sat

sad

...

Is that all?

Reminder: You can go to the Teachers Pay Teachers webpage and download "Hello Font".  It's free.  Or simply you can just draw the boxes and start playing.  Enjoy~!

Write Your Name in the Box.

This is a writing activity.  There are two ways of doing this activity.

(1) Have your child write his/her name in the box with a dry-erase marker directly on the plastic sheet protector. Each letter goes in each box.  You have to use a fine-tip marker for writing.  You can erase and write multiple times without killing trees.







(2) Make multiple copies of the paper and write on the paper with a pencil.

Surely you can try both or either way.  Here we're working on the writing alignment, letter size, and spacing.

I personally prefer my students to write in pencils because it gives more resistance on the paper while writing.  It means more bio-feedback to their little hands.  Anything more on kinetic sense and sensory feedback will help them with memory and simply better learning.  You can definitely use color pencils for fun.  Using colors in the activity will enhance their learning as well.

Try to stay with your child while he/she is working on this.  Please do not walk away while they are doing this.  Children tend to copy from one above.  It means if they make a mistake on one time, it is highly possible to make the same mistake on the following ones.  They need another set of eyes and praise on their work on-the-go.

How do you make the boxes for other letters??  This is actually a font.  Who could have a clue that boxes for tall letters, small letters, descending letters can be a font style??  Whoever thought of this is a genius.

A wonderful teacher, Ms. Ruiz who I work with this school year told me about this font.  Go on Teachers Pay Teachers website (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com) and search "Hello Fonts".  Download it.  It's FREE!

School Year 2015-16

Time really does fly.  It has been two full months already since this school year started.  I see my students become taller and more mature.  They are different youngsters day by day.  Certainly, they make me rolling and going.  It is truly a blessing to work with them and to learn from them.  

This is my 7th year of working with children in the elementary school.  To be honest, as I get to know each of my students throughout the elementary school period, I often feel my limit.  Most of my students really try their best during OT sessions.  However, their generalization skills or transfer skills are different stories in the classroom.  I am not trying to say that they are not trying their best in the classroom.  It is surely not easy for them to show their full potential in the classroom because of the task setting (i.e. pace of the task), more distracting factors in the big classroom, and so on.    

So I tried to provide therapy strategies and information to parents, caregivers, and guardians by sending school OT & PT monthly newsletters and posting therapeutic fun activities on the blog in previous years.  I believed giving parents therapy information would certainly help their children.  However, I found these are one way communication means. In NYC Department of Education, "parent engagement" is a biggy since last year. I want that "Parent Engagement/ Involvement" in my therapy sessions too.  So, I have met four parents in October.  I see positive signs after having the meetings with parents. Students talk about exercises that they do with mommy and daddy at home. They talk about using pencil grips when they do their homework.  It is exciting to see how parents learn and work with their children.  It will be another great school year!!

Home Activities by Eileen Friedman, OTR/L

Summer Recess is here.  Do you have any plan for yourself or for you kids?  Are you thinking of something fun? I strongly recommend following home activities for the summer time.

The following list of Home Activities is established by my Senior Instructional Therapist, Eileen Friedman.

• Carry heavy items such as basket of toys and groceries.
• Push or pull boxes with books or toys.
• Have pillow fights.
• Pull toys around on a sheet or a blanket.
• Take out the garbage.
• Vacuum, sweep, dust, wipe off the table, make the bed.
• Push/ pull chairs out of and into the table for a meal.
• Have the child push a food shopping cart.
• Use playground equipment.
• While standing, push against the wall for wall push-ups.
• Play tug of war.
• Two children sit on the floor, back to back, with knees bent, feet flat on the floor.  Interlock arms and try to stand up at the same time.
• Open doors for people.
• Animal walks such as crab walks, bear walks, army crawl.
• Play jumping games.
• Play ball or balloon games with arms held over head.
• Play with play-doh.
• Olay with large beads.
• Use an eye dropper filled with water and play games.
• Play pick-up sticks.
• Cooking activities: encourage open / close different packages, ziplock bags, and mixing.
• Squeeze a spray bottle.
• Squeeze out glue.
• Rip or tear paper for projects.