Kindergarten
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NOTE: If you are interested in enrolling your student at Pacific School, please complete the appropriate Interest Form. More information about our enrollment procedures is Here.
Kindergarten meets in the mornings from 8:15 a.m. until 12:15 p.m. Independent study students attend school on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays only, while five-day students attend Mondays through Fridays. After School Recreation is available Monday-Friday.
Age Eligibility Kindergarten serves students who turn five years old on or before September 1 of the school year. (Transitional Kindergarten serves students who turn four years old on or before September 1 of the school year.) Teachers
Rachel Paul (Teacher Rachel or Mx. Paul) and Pablo Llano (Teacher Pablo or Mr. Llano) will be the co-teaching team for the Transitional Kindergarten and Kindergarten classes in the 2023-2024 school year. Rachel will take the lead in Kindergarten, assisted by Pablo. The team is excited to reprise their role as the TK/Kindergarten team. Rachel, with six years of classroom teaching experience, is looking forward to bringing their love of art and material exploration into the classroom for their third year teaching at Pacific. Pablo has four years of teaching experience and, having taught in outdoor and nature-based settings, is eager to explore Pacific’s learning garden with the kids. Curriculum Our Kindergarten classroom fosters a creative and joyful environment in which students apply their early learning experiences to mastering subject matter and skills in preparation for their future first grade classroom. The emergent curriculum centers on children’s interests, play, and discovery. We believe that children are naturally curious about their world. Science Children learn experientially through hands-on investigations of the Earth, Life, and Physical sciences in the classroom and garden. Their study of materials, animals, and plants is supported by the FOSS (Full Option Science System) curriculum. Literacy Our literacy curriculum emerges from a text-rich environment in which children seek and engage with books and print as meaningful, useful, and joyful communication. As children recognize letters and sounds, they develop their skills in reading emergent-reader texts and producing responses using writing, drawings and dictation. Children work in an Explode the Code workbook, keep a daily journal, collect high frequency sight words, and engage in activities to decompose and create words. Math Our mathematics exploration begins with guided math talks around numbers and patterns and deepens with children’s play and manipulation of a wide variety of counters, collections, shapes, and blocks. Children practice counting, cardinality, comparison, classification, measurement, and addition and subtraction with written equations. Our year-long block-building curriculum grows children’s understanding of number, physics, size, shape, and balance. Art, Music, and Dance Woven into all of the children’s experiences are rich opportunities to express themselves in the arts through plays, song, dance, paint, clay, sculpture, collage, pastels, pencils and markers. The children study color theory, composition, and expression through a mix of guided and independent work. Community Throughout their day in the classroom, children are taught how to be productive and valued community members and practice the necessary social and emotional skills needed for a school setting. We love to help children form new friendships and support them in resolving conflicts through read-aloud stories, meeting conversations, and restorative circles. We extend our learning beyond the classroom through field trips to our beautiful State Parks and local areas of interest and by inviting community members with experience in many fields to share their passions and interests with us. Daily Schedule
Weekly Activities
Communication Every week we will send out an email newsletter to keep you connected to our curriculum and to keep our communication with you open. In addition, we will contact you with updates about your child through email or at drop-off or pick-up times. Families of enrolled students* can reach us both at: kindergarten@pacificesd.org. Or you can contact us individually:
*To allow teachers to focus on the education of their current students, prospective families are asked to direct all questions to the office, not to teachers. Classroom Wishlist If you would like to support our kindergarten program, consider materials from our classroom wishlist including books for our growing classroom library. |
Rachel Paul, TK and Kindergarten Teacher
Pablo Uribe Llano, TK and Kindergarten Teacher
Teacher Rachel with students.
Kindergarten student at Grandfriends' Tea, celebrating a year of instruction in the school's Life Lab garden.
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