Kindergarten

Mr. Ferreiro

Jesse Ferreiro received his Bachelor's degree in Speech Language Pathology and Audiology at Ithaca College in 2011. In the summer of 2014, he received his Master's degree in Early Childhood Education and Special Education. Throughout his master's program, he interned within the Bedford Central School District in Westchester, New York where he taught in kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. He has taught Kindergarten here at East Elmhurst Community School for the past 8 years.

He believes that as an educator, it is vital to the growth of our students that we continue to question at a high level, treat each individual student truly as an individual who has very specific needs and abilities, and continue to assess in an authentic way that enables students to make real life connections to the content that is taught to them.

Email: jferreiro@ps329q.com

Ms. Moise

Ms. Moise has completed her Bachelor's Degree in English from Hunter College. After which, she received her Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education, Teaching Students with Disabilities Birth to 2nd grade, from Touro College. Early on in her educational career she knew that helping others is a necessity. Ms. Moise started her teaching career at an Early Intervention Program geared toward helping children with developmental delays. After working there for 4 years it was time to grow even more as an educator. Now Ms.Moise is enjoying all the adventures of teaching Kindergarten ICT at East Elmhurst Community School and loving every minute of it. She understands that a classroom setting should be filled with love, structure, humor and music. She is a firm believer in education being a major tool in changing the world.

Email: jmoise@ps329q.com

Ms. Ortiz

Mr. Quito

Mr. Quito obtained his first Bachelor's degree in film studies from Hunter College. His growing passion for the field of education drove him to pursue a second Bachelor's degree in sociology and obtain a Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education from Queens College. Mr. Quito is currently completing a bilingual extension. He believes that early childhood care and education should embrace the holistic development of a child's social, emotional, cognitive, and physical needs. Mr. Quito enjoys working with families in his community to build a solid educational foundation for his students and encourage them to be lifelong learners.

Incoming Kindergarten Information!

As you and your child prepare for their academic journey at East Elmhurst Community School, it is highly suggested that you work with your child over the Summer and throughout the school year to promote their success.

We recommend reading with/to your child. Discuss the pictures and story and ask questions for understanding. Questions might include: Where is this story taking place? Who are some of the characters in the story? Why do you think he/she did that? What is happening in the beginning/middle/end?

Sight Words are a huge part of the foundational reading skills that your child will learn in Kindergarten. Try to familiarize your child with common sight words. (a, me, the, like, my, at, look, see, here, is, this, can, and, do, to) Helpful websites and resource materials can be found and explored with your child on the Kindergarten Virtual Classroom website.

We also encourage you to count with your child. Having them become familiar with numbers 1-10, then challenge them, can they count to 20? What about 50? Count everyday household objects, steps to your refrigerator, a handful of cereal.

Click Here for the Kindergarten Virtual Classroom

Preparing for Remote Learning Possibility in the 2020-2021 School Year

As you know these are uncertain times, and the city-wide Department of Education has not confirmed procedures for the upcoming academic year. While we work to solidify an appropriate plan, we are preparing for a situation in which we will need tools to facilitate remote learning. We recommend you download and familiarize yourself with the following applications.

ClassDojo- an app/website to connect your child's classroom teacher, receive important updates, and view child's points for behavior.

Seesaw- An app/website that teachers will be using to send assignments.

Google Classroom- Platform the school uses to share resource and notifications. Classroom assignments will be given once your child's classroom is confirmed.

Epic!Reading- Students can read grade-level appropriate texts through this platform.

Zoom Platform for conducting live meetings with the class.

Reading

We use the Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project Curriculum. Students learn to love reading and use "the power of the pen" to put their voices out into the world.

Students in Kindergarten should be reading at level D by June. We provide small targeted group work to support our readers to be the best they can be!

Month	Reading	Writing
Sept-Oct	We Are Readers	Launching the Writing Workshop
Oct-Nov	Emergent Reading: Looking Closely at Familiar Texts (If...Then...)	Looking Closely: Observing, Labeling, and Listing Like Scientists (If...Then...)
Nov-Dec	Super Powers: Reading with Print Strategies and Sight Word Power	Writing for Readers
Jan-Feb	Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles	How-to Books: Writing to Teach Others
Feb-Mar	Growing Expertise in Little Books: Reading for Information (If...Then...)	Persuasive Writing of All Kinds
April-May	Becoming Avid Readers	All About Books (If...Then...)
May-June	Readers Are Resourceful: Tackling Hard Words and Tricky Parts in Books (If...Then...)	Crafting Stories Using All We Know About Narrative Writing Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Grade K

A Workshop Curriculum

By Lucy Calkins, Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University, Natalie Louis,Amanda Hartman, Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University, Elizabeth Franco,Katherine Wears, Rebecca Cronin, Angela Báez, Marjorie Martinelli, Christine Holley, Elizabeth Moore,Teachers College Reading & Writing Project

The first unit in the kindergarten units begins by helping students build foundational reading skills, including print and phonemic awareness. In the second unit, the youngsters learn “super power” strategies that help them search for meaning and use picture clues. Unit 3 invites children to attempt more difficult books and work on fluency, and by Unit 4, kindergartners begin to establish their identities as readers in Becoming Avid Readers.

About the Kindergarten Units

In kindergarten, your students begin to establish their identities as readers while they build the foundational skills for reading. In the first unit, We Are Readers, children will develop concepts of print, phonemic awareness, phonics, and the knowledge necessary to use story language to support their approximations of reading. The second unit, Super Powers: Reading with Print Strategies and Sight Word Power, glories in children’s love of play as they learn “super power” strategies that help them search for meaning, use picture clues, work on fluency, and communicate meaning. In the third unit, Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles, children attempt more difficult books with greater independence and use reading strategies to read with more accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. The last kindergarten unit, Becoming Avid Readers, helps youngsters role-play their way into being the readers you want them to become. They pay close attention to characters, setting, and plot while reading fictional stories, become experts in nonfiction topics as they read together in clubs, and play with rhyme and rhythm while reading poetry

About the Series

Drawing on learning gleaned from decades of research, curriculum development, and working shoulder-to-shoulder with students, teachers, and school leaders, Lucy Calkins and her colleagues at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project have developed the Units of Study for Teaching Reading. Designed to meet ambitious 21st century global standards, this reading series offers grade-by-grade curricula rooted in the Project’s best practices and newest thinking. It includes state-of-the-art tools and methods for teaching reading skills and strategies, grounded in the Project’s learning progressions for narrative and informational reading.

(Information on Units of Study directly from TCRWP https://www.heinemann.com/products/e07693.aspx#fulldesc)

Dual Language: Estrellita

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkPcQqrFOZw

The Estrellita K-1 Reading Program is a Spanish Reading curriculum that is designed to effectively teach children how to read in Spanish. It supports current scientific research and extensive classroom Bilingual reading strategies and Developmentally Appropriate practices.

The program is structured, systematic, cumulative, and entertaining. Lessons include direct phonics instruction coupled with opportunities to engage in multi-sensory activities. The Estrellita K-1 program efficiently breaks down the complex process of reading into manageable ‘bite-sized’ skills, which in turn, allows students to rapidly achieve success one step at a time.

The main components of the program are Beginning Sounds, Blending, and Writing. The Beginning Sounds
are taught using Sonidos Iniciales. Students quickly learn all the initial sounds through a picture-to-sound
chanting method. The Estrellita K-1 program also provides an individualized management system (SIMS )
designed to accelerate each student through the process of learning the initial sounds.

The program is structured so that students apply the same pattern that was established in learning the beginning sounds to learning the blending process. The Blending Component includes lessons and activities to teach students to blend letters into syllables. Students learn how to manipulate syllables to progressively make up words, sentences, and then short stories. Children soon gain fluency with the use of mini-books and home study materials. Students’ progress continues to be monitored using a daily assessment or observations.

Phonics

East Elmhurst Community School is now using Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.

The new Units of Study in Phonics:

provide a lean and concise instructional pathway in phonics that is realistic and doable, and that taps into kids’ skills and energy for tackling the fabulous challenge of learning to read and write
introduce high-leverage phonics concepts and strategies in a way that keeps pace with students’ reading and writing and helps them understand when, how, and why they can use phonics to read and write
offer delightfully fun and engaging storylines, classroom mascots, songs, chants, rhymes, and games to help students fall head over heels in love with phonics and to create a joyous community of learners
align with state-of-the-art reading and writing workshops for a coherent approach in which terminology, tools, rituals, and methods are shared in ways that benefit both teachers and kids

Overview of Grade K Units

Unit 1: Making Friends with Letters

Over the course of this unit, you’ll immerse your children in letters and sounds, rhyme and word play. Your kids will grow in leaps and bounds. This unit supports a variation of Patricia Cunningham’s beloved “Star Names” unit. On almost every day throughout the unit, the class will study another name. You’ll use your children’s names, and the letters in those names, to teach phonics concepts. Over the course of the unit you will build a name wall which will eventually contain all of the names in your class.

Unit 2: Word Scientists

In this unit, you will focus on letter knowledge and letter-sound correspondence, phonological awareness, and high-frequency words. You’ll work with kids to study the alphabet chart, to use the alphabet to write, and to study and use high-frequency words to read and write. In each bend, you’ll introduce songs, games, poems, and nursery rhymes that you’ll revisit again and again to support phonemic awareness and early reading concepts.

Unit 3: Word-Part Power

You’ll start this unit with a bend that help all your students make that giant step from writing labels to writing sentences. In Bend II, kids learn to use word-part power to grasp the power of phonograms. We also introduce the word wall to support kids in learning a growing number of high-frequency words. In Bend III, students learn that the words at, in, it, and an have word power and can be made into lots of other words. We introduce digraphs (sh, th, wh, ch) and use them with word parts to make even more words.

Unit 4: Vowel Power

At the start of this unit, we add a new super power: vowel power! You will introduce new high-frequency words, am and did, that further students’ study of short A and short I. As the first bend gives way to the second bend, you’ll continue the puzzling work of distinguishing short-vowel sounds from one another. In the third bend, students will study vowels in words that are longer than CVC words. You’ll teach children how knowledge of CVC words is foundational to writing any words they choose.

Unit 5: Playing with Phonics

This unit is designed to be whimsical, experimental, joyful and most of all, fun, as students are introduced to blends and think about not only what sounds letters make, but the instances in which those sounds are changed, muted, or manipulated by neighboring letters. This unit challenges students to to tackle longer words and to begin thinking about the sounds that they hear in word parts or phonograms. The unit culminates with phonics projects that draw on all the phonics work children have engaged in during their kindergarten year.

(Information from TCRWP website.)

Phonics Scope and Sequence.pdf

Phonics Units of Study Overview.pdf

How Can I Support My Child in Phonics?

Study the ring book every night. This will greatly help your child as they will have a deeper understanding of letter sounds, which will open the doors to countless learning opportunities in reading and writing.
Read with your child.
Stretch out words you hear in everyday reading and conversation. You may ask your child "What sounds do you hear? What letter makes that sound?

Helpful Websites for Extra Learning

Here's a list of some fun, educational, and safe websites for your child to visit to continue their learning at home!

SwitcherooZoo

watch, listen, and play games to learn all about amazing animals.

Starfall

Practice your phonics skills with these read-along stories.

StorylineOnline

Have some of your favorite stories read to you by movie stars!

Sheppard Software

Headed by Brad Sheppard, Sheppard Software hosts hundreds of free, online, educational games for kids. The site organizes its games into categories, which allow students and teachers to easily navigate by subject area and find a suitable game that caters to either an instructional need or a child’s sense of curiosity and thirst of knowledge and challenge.

PBS Kids Games

PBS KIDS creates curriculum-based entertainment. The games site hosts a number of browser-based gaming experiences based on popular literary and media franchises such as The Cat in the Hat, Curious George, Sesame Street, and more. Games are organized by subject-type, which includes math, healthy habits, science, reading, and teamwork.

Mr. Nussbaum

Created by Greg Nussbaum, a Virginia public school teacher, Mr. Nussbaum boasts over 3,500 content pages with a wide variety of learning games organized by content type and grade level. This site is also optimized for use on a tablet and an interactive whiteboard.

National Geographic Kids

The world-famous National Geographic hosts over 100 fun, engaging, and interactive science, action, adventure, geography, quiz, and puzzle games. For a free game hub, the production quality on games or interactives such as Wildest Weather, On the Trail of Captain John Smith, and The Underground Railroad: Journey to Freedom is truly remarkable.

Funbrain

Funbrain, created for kids ages preschool through grade 8, offers more than 100 fun, interactive games that develop skills in math, reading, and literacy. Plus, kids can read a variety of popular books and comics on the site, including Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amelia Writes Again, and Brewster Rocket.

BBC Schools: Games

The British counterpart of our PBS, the BBC, offers interactive digital games and activities involving subjects such as literacy, numeracy, history, mathematics, music, and the arts. The games are also categorized into age ranges. The cartoon graphics are very appealing for children, but the content is stellar for teachers and parents that want children to play to learn.

Primary Games

With games and activities that meet curriculum needs for math, science, language arts, and social studies, Primary Games houses over 1,000 game titles. The site includes curriculum guides for teachers to use in conjunction with the games.

ABCYa.com

This game site offers teacher-created and approved educational computer games for elementary students to learn math and language arts on the web. Featured by The New York Times, Apple, and Fox News, ABCYa.com provides young children well-crafted games and activities.

Arcademic Skill Builders

Arcademic Skill Builders are online educational video games that offer a powerful approach to learning basic math, language arts, vocabulary, and thinking skills. Arcademic games challenge students to improve their scores through repetitive, timed learning drills that provide immediate feedback.