Kindergarten Information

Please visit the Kentfield School District Student Registration page for complete instructions on registering a student in the District. If you have an incoming Kindergarten student, here is a Google Drive folder that contains documents for you to

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Kindergarten is an exciting and important year for the youngest members of our school community. We provide multiple opportunities for our five year olds to experience a meaningful and balanced curriculum through age appropriate activities and learning.

The Bacich Kindergarten program is dedicated to the idea that the child is the most important part of the classroom — a place where they can be comfortable, happy and successful. We are mindful of the four domains of a child’s growth and development: physical, emotional, social, and intellectual. Using a carefully designed curriculum aligned with the California Common Core Standards, our program accommodates a wide range of developmental abilities and interests. We want each of our students to be ready and excited about all the challenges that school has to offer.

The Kindergarten Day

The kindergarten teaching team meets regularly to plan, coordinate and deliver a language rich and hands on program for the students. This is a basic outline of our kindergarten day:

  • Opening Activities — Class meeting, morning message, roll, calendar, news, weather, singing, plans for the day.
  • Whole or Small Group Activities — Children work independently and in small and large groups in activities and centers set up by the teacher. Language arts, math, science, art, and social studies activities include: alphabet and phonics work, children’s literature, writing, recording, reporting, games, sorting, graphing, patterning, domino and dice games, unifix cube math, blocks, and pattern boards are frequent activities. Fine motor skills work with scissors, hole punches, sewing lacing boards, and beading are incorporated into many activities. Art projects include a variety of mediums including watercolors, tempera paint, crayons, collage, sculpture, chalk, and clay.
  • Recess and Snack
  • Literature — Stories, poetry, dramatizations.
  • Choice Time — Students work independently and in small groups on projects they choose. Within this structure, children make decisions regarding their activities parent/teacher facilitation. • Dismissal

During the first month of school your child’s teacher conducts individual assessments that will help guide instruction for each student. Information from these assessments is shared at conference time in the Fall and will assist the teacher in forming small groups for optimum academic instruction. Groupings change during the year based on student development and growth.

Is My Child Ready for Kindergarten? / Is Kindergarten Ready for Your Child?

Kindergarten readiness is an important question for parents to consider as they look to enroll their sons or daughters in school each fall. The issue of whether or not a student is ready for the demands of kindergarten is a decision that can have life long implications for your child and your family. It is a decision to weigh carefully.

Kindergarten is not like it was when parents of today’s school- age children were attending school themselves. California Common Core Standards have set forth a rigorous and full curriculum, which public schools must follow. As a result, the pace of the classroom and expectations for five year olds looks different than they did only a few decades ago.

September 1 is the current cutoff date for kindergarten students. In other words, your child must be five years old by September 1st, in order to be eligible for kindergarten within that calendar year. In any individual kindergarten classroom, we often find that we have students within an 18- month age span. While this in itself does not seem significant, in kindergarten that can mean 20% more in terms of life’s experience and exposure between the oldest and the youngest student in a class.

It is important to note that kindergarten readiness has nothing to do with being bright. A child’s social, emotional and physical maturity play a more important role in whether or not a boy or girl will be successful in the kindergarten classroom than if they already know their numbers or letters on the first day of school.

In considering whether your son or daughter is ready for the challenges of kindergarten, we strongly suggest you take into consideration the following:

  • Listen carefully to your preschool teacher’s recommendation

- Do they feel confident that your child is ready for kindergarten?

  • Listen to your pediatrician’s opinion if she/he knows your child

- Did they reach developmental milestones, such as walking, talking, writing his/her name, and/or recognize letters in name, count to 10, match rhyming sounds, within a reasonable time frame?

- Is my child small in size and stature for a child his/her age?

  • Ask yourself the following questions:

- Does my child have age - appropriate developed small and large motor skills? (Can they hold a pencil? Use a scissors? Jump on one foot? Run in a straight line?)

- Can they follow verbal directions?

- Are they able to separate from their parents and interact with other adults and children?

- Can they control their temper when frustrated or mad? Can they share?

- Can they sit for short periods of time without disrupting others? Do they recognize authority? -Are they independent with basic skills? (Using the bathroom, putting on a jacket or shoes, eating)

- Are they born within the first eight months of the calendar year?

If the answer to any of the above questions is no, we recommend you carefully consider whether you should give your son or daughter the “gift of time”- another year to mature, gain confidence and practice simple life skills. We invite you to discuss your concerns with us if you have them. Our kindergarten team has over 100 combined years of experience working with five year olds. We want each and every one of our students to thrive in their very first real school experience. We are sure that you want the same.

Additional Kindergarten Questions and Answers

"All I ever really needed to know, I learned in Kindergarten." *Robert Fulghum

Q: How will I know that my child is ready for Kindergarten?

A: According to the current Education Code of the State of California, your child must be 5 years old by September 1st. Bacich does not administer tests as a measure for Kindergarten entry. Other than Chronological age, children who are successful in Kindergarten are also able to:

  • Demonstrate self control
  • Separate from parent easily
  • Give full name and birthday
  • Take responsibility for personal items
  • Play appropriately - not aggressively
  • Attend school regularly, with few, if any absences
  • Listen/attend to a story for 15 minutes
  • Follow 2-3 step directions
  • Transition from activity to activity
  • Sustain attention within the framework of a group lesson
  • Dress self; button, snap and zip
  • Show consistency in performance; interested in the completion of an activity • Participate in a group discussion and take turns
  • Retain information
  • Independently uses restroom
  • Familiarity with numbers and letters

Q: How should we prepare for the first day of school?

A: The Kindergarten teachers will host a Sneak Peek Day in May for all incoming Kindergartners. All children are encouraged to attend this event. It gives the children a chance to spend time in one of the Kindergarten classrooms participating in “typical” Kindergarten activities and a chance to connect with the teachers. If you have registered with the office, you will receive an invitation.

You will have an opportunity to join us for a Kindergarten Welcome and Back to School Night in August. This event is just for Kindergarten parents. At this wonderful welcoming and informative event, sponsored by the Bacich PTA, you will be able to network with other Kindergarten parents, PTA members, Kindergarten teachers and Para Professionals, the Superintendent, Principal, members of the Board of Trustees and Kentfield Schools Foundation representatives. You will also have the opportunity to visit your child’s classroom and teacher to learn about the exciting year ahead. This event is for adults only.

You are also encouraged to attend the Bacich Open House in April. Please bring your child with you, as this is an occasion for viewing student projects in all Bacich classrooms.

Q: What can I expect my child to do by the end of the Kindergarten year?

A: The Kindergarten curriculum is developmentally appropriate for your child. The teaching team believes in emphasizing learning behaviors that support a strong sense of community and social awareness. Teachers take into consideration that children learn at different rates. Their ultimate goal is to keep students optimally engaged, while having fun. A well-designed balance between social and academic skills is critical to the development of healthy, well-adjusted children.

Academic standards for the Kindergarten year include the following:

Language Arts:

  • Recognize upper and lower case letters.
  • Demonstrate proficiency in letter-sound correspondence (phonics).
  • Read beginning level reader books.
  • Read sight words and CVC words.
  • Identify the basic facts and ideas in what they have read, heard or viewed. • Listen and respond to stories based on well-known characters, themes, plots and settings. • Speak with a command of standard English conventions.
  • Listen and respond to oral communication and speak in clear and coherent sentences. • Deliver brief recitations and oral presentations about familiar experiences or interests. • Write narrative, informational, and opinion pieces.

Math:

  • Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities.
  • Understand, describe, and solve addition and subtraction.
  • Use estimation strategies in computation and problem solving.
  • Understand the concept of time; understand that objects have properties and that comparisons can be made when referring to properties.
  • Identify common objects in the environment by their geometric features.

Solve math problems and justify reasoning.

  • Count to 100 by ones and tens.

Social Studies:

  • Learn about being a good citizen.
  • Recognize national and state symbols and icons.
  • Match simple descriptions of work that people do and the names of related jobs. • Compare and contrast locations — terminology, use of simple maps, etc.
  • Put events in temporal order using a calendar.
  • Understand that history relates to events, people and places of other times. Science:
  • Observe, measure and predict information related to the properties of materials. • Observe and describe different attributes of animals and plants.
  • Know characteristics of land, weather, and earth resources.
  • Conduct investigations and experiments.

Your child will also participate in regular physical education/health activities, computer-based instruction and a fine arts program, which includes music and art taught by teaching specialists.

Q: What should I do if I feel my child has special needs?

A: If your child has already been identified as qualifying for special education services, a Mann County Office of Education program manager will help you determine the best placement and services for your child.

As part of your registration packet, you will be able to complete a survey, which includes identification of any concerns you have related to your child’s emotional, academic or physical needs. Classroom teachers appreciate knowing your concerns in advance. Often, the teacher will be able to accommodate and intervene without any difficulty.

Occasionally, a teacher and/or parent may notice - after the first few weeks of school - that a student is struggling with his or her social-emotional, medical, physical and/or academic adjustment. At Bacich, we have a process by which the teacher may request a Student Study Team meeting. A Student Study Team meeting involves the parents, teacher, specialist staff, school psychologist and an administrator. Members of the SST will look for ways to support the child. Interventions may include:

  • Strategies for support in the classroom
  • Ideas for the parents to implement at home
  • Recommendation for further cognitive or processing assessments
  • An individualized plan, based on the child’s needs

Q: In what ways can I be involved as a parent?

A: Many volunteer opportunities are available to you at Bacich — volunteering in the classroom, driving on field trips, helping implement special art projects, or helping supervise the playground or parking lot at arrival and dismissal times. You will receive communications about these opportunities.

Parent support is one of the many strengths of this community. The Parent Teacher Association and the Kentfield Schools’ Foundation both do phenomenal jobs of supporting Kentfield schools — in ways that exceed support in most other districts.

The best way to support your child at Bacich, however, is to support your child’s learning, follow-up on school requests, get your child to school on time every day and spend as much time with him or her as possible. In these days of over-scheduled children and parents, we strongly recommend that you take the time to embrace your child’s childhood, by slowing down and having fun.

Please visit the Kentfield School District Student Registration page for complete instructions on registering a student in the District.