Ms. Urrutia’s Kindergarten Class!

Welcome!!!

         This week your child will complete one of the most important milestones in his/her life - the first day of school! I understand that you and your child may have met this day with excitement or apprehension (or a little of both) and I hope that this letter will help you to know what to expect in kindergarten this year and answer any questions you may have.  I would like to take this time to introduce myself.  My name is Ms. Morena Urrutia. I graduated from Cal State Los Angeles and received my Bachelors of Art in Child Development as well as my Teaching Credentials. I received my Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction, through Concordia University. I have worked here at Salem for 9 years but I have worked as the Kindergarten teacher for 6 years.  

         I am excited about beginning a new year with your child. Kindergarten is a special time for children. This is time when children learn to become independent from parents.  As the school year goes by we will work of social skills, on literacy skills, and math readiness skills.  We will work on these skills naturally throughout the year, not isolated and in drill. It will be fun and play like.

         I develop my lessons around themes.  These are the themes for the month of September and also for part of October. The theme for Language Arts is about school.  We will be reading books that talk about school settings and the children will also learn to identify print and book features. They will also learn how to use comprehension strategies of asking questions and predicting.

         The theme for science is about watermelon. We will be planting watermelon seeds and doing art projects.  For Bible we will begin learning how God created the world according to His perfect plan and the children will learn their memory verse together as a whole class.  The theme for social studies is about woodland animals and their environment. We will be doing art projects around this theme.  Along with the social studies lesson I teach about Johnny Appleseed and apples.  We also do activities around these lessons.

          I also have a lesson on manners and I continue this throughout the year reminding children to be kind, polite, to learn how to share etc. For math the children will be exploring pattern blocks, teddy bear counters, graphing etc.  We also do a math meeting and during the math meeting the children will develop knowledge of the calendar as well as skills in counting, sequencing, and patterning. The math meeting will change at the beginning of each month.

         I hope that this gives you and idea on what your child will be learning for the first month and a half. I will be sending you a weekly newsletter, which it will be more in depth.

I am looking forward to working with your child this year and helping him/her to achieve his/her full potential!!!