ELA

Kindergarten students will develop learning skills in practicing their proficiency in the phonetic connection between speech sounds and the written symbols that represent these sounds referred to as phonograms. The Spalding program will increase their ability for automatic reading, writing and spelling.

Kindergarten students will be introduced to formulating complete sentence structure by utilizing nouns, verbs, adjectives, capitalization and punctuation. They will learn how to develop interrogative, declarative, informative and exclamatory sentences to begin making a paragraph.

Manuscript writing is taught using modeling, phonetic sounds and specific Spalding writing skills practices daily.

MATH

The Kindergarten students utilize the Saxon math curriculum.  They begin with learning math skills that are advanced by one grade level.  Students learn how to add and subtract up to two digits without regrouping, tell time to the hour and half hour, how to solve daily word problems using addition and subtraction skills,  fraction skills, patterns, number fact practice, decomposing numbers, number bonds, and utilizing odd and even numbers daily.  The Saxon math practices these skills daily throughout the year and continues to build on with new skills that will help review and grow with continued practice.

SOCIAL STUDIES

The Kindergarteners learn skills that will make them productive and supportive citizens within their community.  Students will learn topics such as: Our Community, American Symbols, Citizenship, Times Past and Present, and Economics within our Community. 

SCIENCE

Kindergarten students learn to explore, examine and investigate various science topics.  They will learn to gather information to learn about something that is new or less familiar to them. The topics are fueled by curiosity and a drive to learn and ask questions, manipulate objects and try things out to see what happens.  Some of the topics students explore are:  Seasons and seasonal changes, Types of Weather, Animals and their Habitats, Simple Machines and Tools, The Body and Body Systems, Landforms, Space and the Planets, and Health and the Food Groups.

I have been with Deer Valley Unified School District for the past eight years.  I am originally from the Munster, IN. and there is no going back to the cold and snow!

I have several degrees from Purdue University which are: Early Childhood Education, Early Childhood Education special needs, with additional Kindergarten Endorsements, Special Needs Mild Interventions K-12 and Special Needs Severe Interventions K-12. I have taught preschool, developmental preschool, kindergarten, special needs K-3, and high school special needs mild intervention classroom for 9-12th grade for a total of 38 years. I enjoyed being part of a team and played sports from grade school through college and proceeded to coach throughout the 38 years of teaching.

I have coached high school volleyball (25 years), Jr. High volleyball, coached and played many recreational softball and volleyball leagues, coached softball at all levels  basketball leagues and even cheerleading. I love working with children of all ages and in different learning environments. I enjoy watching them develop in education, athletics, in social settings and being out in the community.

While finding the time to work with children, I also enjoyed working with several different community service organizations as being another outreach within the community to work and help others. I have been at The Traditional Academy at Bellair for the past three years and have greatly enjoyed being back in my favorite grade-kindergarten.  I have enjoyed utilizing the Spalding reading curriculum and watching the students start to thrive with their reading skills.  I also enjoy incorporating art, hands on experiences and technology into our daily learning routines. Afterall, “Everything I learned, I learned in Kindergarten.”