Riverside School Board Booklet for Parents Dear Parents / Guardians, Welcome to Riverside School Board! Kindergarten is the springboard to future learning and is a very special time in the lives of both children and parents. It promotes the development of children and the acquisition of knowledge, as well as the ability to form relationships with other children and adults. It is also a place where children discover themselves as individuals and begin developing the ability to interact harmoniously with others. Kindergarten provides intellectual stimulation, allows children to explore and also encourages children to discover and become passionate about learning. A positive experience in our Kindergarten classes lays the foundation for future success in school and continued lifelong learning. This explanatory document, which may also be found on the Riverside website, www.rsb.qc.ca, is designed to assist you in preparing your child for entry into Kindergarten. It provides an overview of the Kindergarten Education Program and will help you better understand the educational goals pursued in your child’s class. The document also contains concrete suggestions that you can use at home to help your child reach the goals set at school. Riverside School Board is committed to helping each student achieve his/her potential and values a close partnership with parents in the education of their child. Everyone at Riverside is extremely pleased that you have decided to register your child in one of our schools. We wish you and your child an enjoyable and successful time at Riverside. Yours respectfully, The Riverside Team TABLE OF CONTENTS The Preschool Education Program ....................................................... 1 Introduction ........................................................................... 1 Program Highlights ................................................................... 2 Developmental Activities ..................................................... 2 Pedagogical Practices ......................................................... 3 Curricular Orientation ......................................................... 4 Connections Among the Competencies ........................................... 5 Information.................................................................................... 6 Preparation For School ................................................................ 6 Admission.......................................................................... 6 Medical Concerns ................................................................ 6 Communication Between The School And You Building A Relationship With The School ..................................... 7 Report Cards ...................................................................... 7 Guidelines For Addressing Concerns .......................................... 7 Volunteering ...................................................................... 7 Preparing Your Child For School ........................................................... 8 Take Every Opportunity To Talk With Your Child ................................. 9 Take Every Opportunity To Read With Your Child ................................ 11 Take Every Opportunity To Write With Your Child ............................... 13 Take Every Opportunity To Show Your Child How Math Relates To Our Daily Life .......................................... 14 Take Every Opportunity To Move With Your Child ................................ 15 Annex A (Libraries) ......................................................................... 16 Annex B (Bookstores) ....................................................................... 20 THE PRESCHOOL EDUCATION PROGRAM INTRODUCTION Kindergarten marks the beginning of learning in a formal educational setting. Your child arrives in Kindergarten with various skills and aptitudes. For that reason, Kindergarten has a threefold mandate: 1. To provide an environment that gives your child a liking for school; 2. To nurture your child’s awareness of his/her abilities and interests; and 3. To prepare your child for future learning. Kindergarten is a special place. In that environment, your child is provided with the opportunity to acquire new learning strategies and to form relationships with both peers and professional educators. The social experience enables your child to discover himself/herself as an individual and to gradually increase his/her autonomy. As a place of intellectual stimulation, Kindergarten is the venue where your child discovers the pleasure of learning that can remain for life. The richness and variety of experiences give your child an increased understanding of the world and foster his/her self-perception as an active creator of that understanding. The curriculum gives him/her initial exposure to what will be offered in the elementary grades that follow. The overall objective of the Kindergarten program is to provide the conditions so that 4- and 5-year-olds develop physically, emotionally and intellectually. With the support of the teacher, your child will take part in learning situations drawn from his/her world of play and from life experiences. The underlying intent of the program is to prepare your child to be an active and thoughtful learner in formal educational contexts and beyond. 1 PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Developmental Activities Activities related to your child’s concerns, interests and stage of development are by nature cross-curricular. They are rooted in his/her everyday life and define who he/she is. These activities give your child the opportunity to discover various means of creative expression and to become aware of the different languages that support and construct knowledge. In addition, the activities foster the development of knowledge, behaviours and attitudes that help your child to organize his/her thoughts and actions and to exercise forms of critical judgement. Play has a central place in preschool education. It makes a major contribution to your child’s overall development. In play, your child expresses and experiments with thoughts and develops his/her view of the world. Through play activities, your child learns to be himself/herself, to interact with others, and to solve problems. He/she develops imagination and creativity. Spontaneous activity and play are the main means through which your child interprets his/her reality. 2 Pedagogical Practices In a global sense, the teacher’s professional practice in the Kindergarten classroom is centered on the children, their needs and their interests. In this context, the teacher strives to: 1. Give each child the means to become autonomous learners; 2. Respect individual rates of learning and take into account what each child already knows; 3. Create opportunities for discovery and provide appropriate challenges; 4. Stimulate each child’s desire to learn by capturing their interest; 5. Support the development of each child’s learning strategies by giving them opportunities to draw on their knowledge; 6. Help each child to expand their knowledge through experimentation as well as through observation, questioning and reflection. All children have specific needs related to cognitive, behaviour or psychomotor development. Pedagogical practices are adapted to address these needs by having the children engage in activities such as the following: Listening to records and tapes; Playing with educational and board games; Role playing; Experimenting; Cutting, doing crafts, drawing, finger painting, shaping/modeling clay; Miming, dancing, singing, playing with puppets, acting out short plays; Racing, jumping, gymnastics; and Participating in outings. In Kindergarten education, evaluation is an important component of pedagogical practice. Evaluation is an interactive process that involves children, their peers, the teacher and the parents. Observation is the favoured means of evaluation; observation fosters and respects the learning process and focuses on the children’s attitudes, behaviours, and achievements. Through observation, evaluation is integrated into the children’s regular activities within the teaching and learning context. 3 Curricular Orientation The Kindergarten classroom is organized to encourage your child’s active participation in his/her learning. In such an environment, your child may observe, explore, manipulate, reflect and imagine. It provides the opportunity for your child to exercise memory, plan projects and assess capacities. The curriculum stimulates his/her curiosity and enables him/her to explore various bodies of knowledge, namely: languages, the arts, mathematics, the social sciences, science and technology. To develop motor skills, your child is encouraged to take part in various activities particularly in the gym and in the schoolyard. Culture involves both self-construction and encounter with civilization, knowledge, art and literature. The Kindergarten curriculum is designed to sensitize your child to the immediate culture, that of the environment in which he/she lives, and to lead him/her to discover other cultures. Exposure to a variety of cultural products of high quality enriches your child’s life experience and broadens his/her view of the world. 4 CONNECTIONS AMONG THE COMPETENCIES Figure 1 Taken from Québec Education Program: Preschool Education (2001, p.53) Competencies are the overall skills and abilities your child will be developing in preschool and in future grade cycles. Competencies develop along a continuum and pave the way for success