um welcome everybody we are so glad to have you here tonight um I did want to let you know that we are recording tonight's um presentation or our panel discussion because we want to make sure that those that aren't able to um be here can can watch it later um you are welcome to um have your camera on if you would like or you're welcome to have it off um we just ask that all of you um have yourself muted uh so we don't catch any catch any background noise um my name is Jenny hland and I am a parent Family and Child educator through Stillwater ECFE and I'm actually a still graduate too a couple of us were just talking about um how often that seems to happen in Stater I was I attended Anderson Elementary School which was formerly called Bayport when I went to school um I have two children who are 20 and 21 and they are um they went through stowater school Stonebridge um stowater middle school and the high school and they um just had phenomenal experiences with all of their teachers and their schools um and they are just I would say thriving um at college and in life and of course um so much of that has to do with the experiences that they had in school and with their teachers but a really a lot um also has to do with how we were able to support them as parents and so um thank you to all of you um parents for being engaged in your child learning and um coming to take part in this discussion so you can help best support your kiddos um as they make this exciting transition to kindergarten um I am going to go ahead and share my screen and then I am going to introduce you to um one of our guests and I'll introduce you to the rest of them and just a little bit um Chris can you tell me are you seeing the screen as it should be okay wonderful um Chris um Cel is here with us tonight she is our marketing coordinator and she has a couple slides she would like to go go through with us as we um start the night and then we'll move into our um panel introductions and then our panel um questions after that sounds good to Chris um just wanted to thank everyone for being here it's such an exciting time when you have a kindergarten and um I was in your shoes about 20 plus years ago and I have two kids who are now 28 and 25 and they went to ECFE classes at Stillwater they went to L Lake Stillwater Middle School and then graduated from the high school and um I also went to Stonebridge myself um my parents forced me to move to Wisconsin and I didn't like that because I wanted to be a Pony um but I was a Chieftain instead so that was okay but um Pony Pride does Run Deep in this area and you'll you'll feel that a lot whether you're originally from here or um a transplant and we welcome everyone here um and we're very excited for you and especially with the first time right like it's a little bit nervous you don't know what to expect um so we decided to have this meeting because a lot of people have questions um so we will just watch a short little video of what a typical day in kindergarten is like awesome thank you we love kindergarten [Music] I love myself [Music] I love it I love it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] how many more do we need [Music] [Applause] great job you made that way to go [Music] [Applause] wow so cute so one of my favorite parts of my job is to get out and um see all the kids in the classroom and how much they learn is just incredible at that age I and the teachers can tell you more about that but just witnessing it it's quite amazing so um I don't know if all of you have received a packet in the mail from us I'm assuming you did or maybe you heard about this meeting on social media or something but if you didn't get a packet um let us know in the comments and we can get you one um but you should already have this kindergarten checklist um starting this month already and next month there are School tours that the um schools are having on various dates you can find the information on our website if those dates don't work you can always set up your own School tour um and that's where um you can meet with the principal and and get a look around and that's just meant for adults only um January 15th is um when we would like you to enroll by that helps us with our planning for the next year with Staffing and that kind of stuff um and you will need a copy of your birth certificate and many of you have may may have already um submitted your applications but if you haven't done so please do that by January 15th um if you've applied for alternate enrollment and that means if you live in the Stonebridge boundary but you want your student to go to ruford that's called alternate enrollment and so you have to have a special request for that um and and some people may be trying to get into the Spanish Immersion program um if you apply for that um you will be finding out um that as well at the end of January if those requests were to um able to be made and then coming up on April 3rd and fourth will be kindergarten orientation where the students come and they get to meet the teachers and it's a really fun a fun time um for them they get a t-shirt um will say class of 2038 which always makes me feel really old every every year when I order those shirts um it's hard to believe um so that's the kindergarten checklist the next thing um I want to briefly mention is Adventure Club that's our before and after school care program and they are busy planning for next year um next year our school start times are going to be 7:45 is to 2:15 it's still depends on busing um but it should be within five minutes or so um and so if you think you may need before or after school care they want you to fill out an interest form that you can find on our website stillwaters schools.org um and it just gives an indication um whether you may or may not use it it's not tying you to it but if you think you might need it in any way shape or form we highly encourage you to fill that out um and then that will get you on the list for further communication of what you need to do um to get into that program next slide uh also before the first day you want to schedule your Early Childhood screening um that's done at the Early Childhood Family Center um many people probably already have it done we usually recommend starting at age like three and a half we send out postcards to people and that just um is a screen that we do that looks at like eyesight um different hand eye coordination there's a bunch of different stuff that they look at and if they see any um things they might be concerned with they will talk to you and um set up services if you might need that um but that is required by state law to have that done before kindergarten so many of you may have already done that um then there's also a school health exam this isn't just your regular go to the doctor exam it's specifically first school health exam and they will fill out a form that you will need to turn in the doctor can fill it out for you um you'll also need to have immunizations up to date or if you have a waiver have that signed um and you need to submit both the immunization record and the school uh Health exam form at least one week prior to the first day you know if you have it done now turn it in but I know many of you probably don't have all the immunizations done yet so um that might be more of a spring summer thing but um better to get it in earlier than later it just helps us with paperwork and things and then we um have something called Ready set go conferences that are the week before before school actually starts and um you'll be getting more information on that but that's just the time and the teachers can maybe talk more to this but they meet with the student um kind of a do like a brief little assessment get to know him a little bit um get them the kid comfortable and meeting them and it's just kind of a mini a mini check-in with with the teacher before school starts sorry I saw a face I recognized so I was waving I'm not trying to wave you to tell you something oh I didn't even notice um so you can find all this information on our website um or if you have any questions you can email me um at the comments email address or um ask Jenny ask the teachers I'm sure anyone would be happy to answer questions but most of the info you should be able to get at our website there but we're always happy to to go deeper if we need to and just reminder with or a followup to what Chris said if you did not get that kindergarten enrollment packet in the mail um to either put a note in the chat um or you can contact enrollment through our school district and um you know for whatever reason if you didn't get it we it just happened sometimes so um but def definitely let us know so we can make sure that we get that information to you um so thank you Chris for all of that fantastic information um um welcome to those of you that just just hopped on um going to first start by introducing the kindergarten teachers that are here with us tonight um and then I will introduce the parents that are here to um to give some fantastic information as well um now just so you know on on Google meet we can we are we don't have the ability to like change how our name shows up um so you'll see Nick Nicholas Costa um sitting next to his wife bergita they are both kindergarten teachers in our district um bergita Casta is a teacher at a kindergarten teacher at Brookview Elementary School and Nick is a kindergarten teacher at Anderson Elementary School um I am grateful to all three of our teachers that are able to be here tonight but I am especially grateful to the two of them because they have a six-month old baby and they've been teaching kindergarten all day so um just just some show some gratitude to them for for being willing to give a little extra time tonight um our other kindergarten teacher is Kim Nelson who is a kindergarten teacher and um Anderson Elementary School I I'm she's not showing up on my screen right now but I did just see her a minute ago so I know she's here and I really excited um that you'll had a chance to hear from all three of these fantastic teachers tonight um our parent panel the first one is tati um TDY has a daughter at um Lake Elmo yes at the Spanish Immersion amig amig thank you um and then Brandon has a son at Lily Lake and both of those two have kinderart ERS and then Erin I had asked her last year if she could help out with this um but she was going on a fantastic trip at that time so I reached out again I'm like hey even though you have a first grader now and one entering kindergarten next year would you be interested in doing that so aerin is here and has um a a first grader at Stonebridge but then we'll have a kindergartener next year as well um I would like to start with the parents and I think um tddy I will put you on the spot first can you um parents tell us a little bit about your family family's transition to kindergarten hi um my name is tati Smith and I have my little girl uh whose name is Joanna she goes to Lake Elmo Amigos Uno a Spanish imersion uh the transition was amazing for us very positive thanks to Miss Jenny ECF that helped us a lot and then uh we also signed her up for uh preschool so those program helped us a lot and helped my daughter to transition so well to kindergarten so uh preschool uh she did it at um Lake Elmo too so she was very familiar with the school when she started kindergarten she know she knew the playground she knew the whole building and um we also did um met with the principal a couple times we uh met with a teacher and actually couple of her friends from preschool went to uh are currently going to school with her so that helps a lot so her transition I have to say that it was like a positive transition and it was just like for us the parents we were like just it's ready for her to go to school it's time for her to go to school so we were like not nervous at all so it was easier for us yes but it was thank you to miss Janny ECF and for the preschool program too yes thank you how about you Brandon yeah it went pretty smooth for us as well we were lucky because uh our son Julian he went to uh prek at ly lake so he was already familiar with the layout and with the the style of learning and and the teachers and things um so overall it went smooth I think our one challenge that we had for the transition was just that uh when he went into kindergarten none of his friends from prek were in his class and so he had to kind of start uh fresh and so it was a little bit of transition there um but the the teachers were were great um at kind of helping him to uh initiate new friendships and it took a couple of months but um now he comes home all the time talking about all of his friends that he has and so now he has new friends and you know that's helpful to say too because there will be many kids that um didn't go through the the School District Preschool and so just good to know that that there are going to be many kids in in children's classes that that won't know each other and um it's not like they'll all have instant friends right away so thank you Brandon for sharing that Erin how about you how did it go for Otto um it went really good um he is definitely ready to go so that made it easier um he didn't do preschool at Stonebridge he went to the children's farm so that's one thing that I was nervous about was that he wouldn't know the school as well as some kids um but he was able to jump in pretty easy um and all the teachers and the principal especially at Stonebridge is like outstanding knows every single kid's name so that's kind of helped like welcome them into the school um and then like the um kindergarten orientation day was really helpful to into the school the principal did a presentation the kids are kind of off on their own um so got to see where everything is and then the Ready set go also kind of helped get us ready awesome thank you I we had that same experience at Stonebridge um Mr Berg I feel like if my kids walked into there now he would in in and they're 20 and 21 I feel like he would still recognize them and remember things about about them so that's that's pretty special when a principal is able to make those connections with kids um so now we're going to switch over to the kindergarten teachers now I know we got to see that video of what a typical day looks like um so don't feel like you have to repeat all of that but um Nick or Berita would you two start one of you start with um just kind of a typical day um and again if you repeat some of the things in the video that's totally fine sure um so a day who starts with them either showing up for breakfast or showing up and coming straight to the classroom uh if your child does do breakfast they would do it at least at our school they do it in the cafeteria and then they come down the classroom right after that and um then we gather as a class and have a morning meeting which is something based out of responsive classroom which is just a classroom management style that our district follows and so we do a morning meeting which is a time when the kids can kind of if they've had a rough morning or an exting morning or a sad morning or a tired morning they can kind of reset and just get ready for the school day so we greet each other we share something about ourselves we do an activity and we have a morning message that kind of gets us set up to start our day and then in my classroom at least we do literacy after that so um we do a phonics curriculum we do a phic awareness is that what you call it curriculum and then we also do reading after that and then um we head to lunch they have at our school they have lunch first and then they have recess and then they come back to the classroom and typically have a sort of quiet time not a nap but just a quiet time to relax the brain The Sounds might be soothing or the lights might be off they might be doing some sort of coloring or looking at books and then we get back into academics where um in my classroom at least we do um some handwriting and then we do some math and we talk about the calendar the days of the week the months of the year what's coming up in our classroom so this year is really exci or this month's pretty exciting we've got a Culver's fundraiser coming up we've got gingerbread houses that we're making at the end of the month and they were counting down the days and they can see that on the screen we practiced some math skills within our calendar um and then we get into our math lesson and then they will go to some us specialist a specialist means they go to a different classroom in the school and they either have fied music art or uh media which is Library um and they'll do that for 40 minutes and uh with another teacher and then they come back to our room and in my classroom we either are switching off between social studies or science so we the way my team does it we do social studies for a couple weeks and then we do science for a couple weeks um and then in kindergarten I find it's very important and my team finds it's very important that they have time to play and have social interactions problem solving times and things like that so that would be at the end of the day in my room for the last 20 or so minutes they um can play and go to different areas of my classroom and then we have a closing Circle which is another responsive classroom piece just to kind of bring our day to the to an end we might say what was our favorite part we might um share something we liked about the day and pack up and head home all right Nick or Kim anything that you'd like to add yeah I'll just add I saw somebody ask a question in the chat about what time lunch is served and if there's snack between breakfast and um home uh school lunch um lunch is not the exact same for all schools but it is around the same time so at Anderson um the kindergarteners eat lunch at 11 o' we could do recess first so they go to recess at 10:40 and they come back in at 11:00 and eat and I think most schools eat around that time around 11:00 or so um and then just depending on how a schedule works out there is always a snack but they will not always be at the same time so at Anderson we eat our snack around 1:30 1:1 15ish um other schools might do it around 12:15 other schools might do it around two it just depends on how their schedule works out but they do all schools do have a snack time at some point during the day um but otherwise I think beita described it pretty well so thank you anything you'd like to add Kim hear you oh we can't hear you Kim oh oh we can't sorry Kim we can't hear you sorry okay yep you can type it in the chat and we can read it there um let's do one more question um and we'll until um Kim's able to get the sound working does it work now oh yeah yes it does had to click on it yeah found the button well they've described it really well as what as what does happen during the typical kindergarten day so um and as far snacks too that does happen in the afternoon most often with kindergarteners simply because lunch is so early and they do get hungry in the afternoon so we kind of gauge that to about where's the best time and if it doesn't work we might switch it just to make it better for the kids so we are watching what their needs are as well and do you know if um it's been decided what time lunch would be next year with the time change I'm guessing we probably don't know that yet NOP okay okay um so Kim I'll have you start with this one um what will children be learning during their first year in kindergarten yeah well kindergarten year I should say they'll only be in kindergarten one year yeah we start off our year really truly we'll start knowing if they know the alphabet but then the bigger part of our learning and reading skills are learning that they know the sounds that go with the alphabet so that's a really important thing that you can help your child with throughout the summer as well is like they might know a but what's really the sound for a so really encouraging that with the kids so that that is a big building Foundation within kindergarten and then we continue on and we start blending and making words and introducing the great stories and talking about all the different vocabularies as well about different types of vocabulary so don't be afraid to use those big words with your children and explaining what that is because it helps build their foundation for reading as well so and then we continue on where their needs are some kids we have to have small groups to help build where they're at and then we'll continue growing with the other children who might be a little bit more advanced and helping them along for where they're at in their reading so do you want to mention the vessel volunteers at all oh yeah they're wonderful we do have vessel volunteers who come in who are actually been trained here at Anderson we've trained them specifically in the pheic awareness and phonic skills so they have games and activities that they can do and then we help take the children who might need a little bit more extra support and they'll take them and work with them as well with games activities help build their skills so they're really nice integral part of our our program yeah we can go we can't hear you Jenny but we can go um uh so yeah so she covered reading and um I'll share this is the first year that I've had vessel volunteers so uh we also trained them in it's um but it depends on where they are and what the teachers need um that they will help accommodate and help the kids with uh and then like in math they're learning um uh number formation they're learning number sense meaning this group means five this number is five um how do I make bigger numbers how do we subtract um shapes things like that in um science a lot of the units are a big part of the unit is or ma science is uh the weather and predicting the weather and dressing for the weather and what it was it look like outside and how do we prepare for storms another unit is about forces so if I push or pull something how does that change um and then going to uh add social emotional yeah um so going off the academic stuff since they covered most of that we also have a social emotional curriculum that teaches them um a lot about just being being a student and being kind to others in our school um so it teaches them things about like having empathy for others and recognizing what is an accident um how to speak up if they if something is bothering them things like that um it's really helpful for them just to learn um what it's like to be a kindergartener because obviously it's brand new for them um so between that and just our general day of playing and working with others um a lot of the learning that they'll do that's not academic is just learning how to be a student in kindergarten wonderful thank you um we're gonna jump over back to the parent panel and Aon I love how you sneak in behind you um but I'm going to start with you Erin what was your biggest fear and what was the reality um I wrote down a bunch for this one um my biggest fears were would he be ready like the skills kind of what the teachers just talked about um and the teachers kind of met him where he was um and caught him up where he needed to be um would he be able to figure out lunch um and their number and all that um and they gave them a code with their their lunch number on it um so they had that so didn't have to worry about that um how he would survive without eating snacks all day um he survived He adjusted um and then just figuring out the bus too was just another thing I was nervous about but that all all worked out so awesome thank you for sharing that Brandon how about you you know I guess we were kind of Lucky in the sense that we didn't we didn't have too many fears I mean he's our son is usually pretty good about transitioning to new things um and so we didn't have too many big fears I think our biggest one that we did have was just how he was going to behave uh like in his in his prek class he and his friends had very high energy and they bounced off each other and I think that was probably one of the reasons why they split those those guys up which was a good thing we were happy about that um so we just weren't sure how he was going to behave but uh so far all the feedback that we're getting from uh his teachers and others is that he's being very well behaved so um I think that was the biggest thing for us thank you Brandon how about you tddy I think my my husband's fear no he was fine but my fear was uh lunchtime uh what happened at home is because I I was a stay home mom for six years so I was constantly cooking for Joanna all the time and I was thinking oh my gosh now she's going to kindergarten how is she going to eat is she going to eat the lunch from the school so I started the first week I started like make getting up early cooking lunch like good meals right put in her lunch box but she wasn't eating it and I'm like oh my gosh she's like I want to eat lunch from school so I'm like okay and I had to go to work because I went back to work so then I'm like okay I'm going to stop cooking making those nice meals and I'm going to let her eat lunch from school guess what it worked she was like happy telling me all about the lunch meals and and she was like she gets like good meals there fruits vegetables and other Foods you know she's like learning how to eat different foods so she's happy and I'm like don't have to get up an extra hour to make her a lunch like lunch meals yeah so that was the biggest fear for for me she's done she's fine she's happy I love that so often what our fears are end up not not being reality so thank you you three for sharing that we'll do one more question to the parents before we jump back over to the teachers what are some things um and toty will start with you what are some things you did ahead of time to support your child's transition to kindergarten you you mentioned some of these in your first um first response but if there's other things you wanted to add to that too I think again going back to the staying home mom um our schedule was kind of crazy because you know we just got got up all the time got out of bed a little bit later so we have to like work on our schedule getting up early was the biggest transition for us it was hard at the beginning but now we are used to it so I I was told to start like in the summer to change our schedule in the summer like around July August don't wait tooo long so it's recommended and it worked I mean at the beginning was struggle a little bit because me too I had to go to work and I have to get up at certain time everybody got to get ready but at the end it worked out so uh getting ready in the summer is the best thing that you can do just fix your schedule start practicing your schedule like kind of like you're going to be going to school in the summer right but it's just like the practice Yeah the schedule is the one that we work really hard thank you toddy Brandon how about you guys um one thing that we did we we read a lot of books about kindergarten there's there's a bunch of them out there I can't remember them the names off hand but I'm sure if you Google it you can find a bunch of uh books about kindergarten children's books about kindergarten I think there's several at The Still Water Library um so that helped just to kind of get them in the mindset and know what to expect um let's see I wrote down a couple things another thing that we did too is just we try to talk about kindergarten in a positive way um just to explain that this is It's new but it's going to be fun there's a lot of new things that you're going to be doing like like the art class and the music class that's things that he absolutely loves uh and enjoys and um we talked that up and kind of hyped it up a little bit and he was actually excited to go into K kindergarten he absolutely loves all of those classes so that was some of the stuff that we did awesome thank you Brandon how about you Erin yeah we did a lot of the same that Brandon did um just talked about it as much as possible so that he could ask questions if he had them um I think we also had him help pick out like his backpack and lunchbox and kind of make it like special of like he you don't get to use this until school um so he was excited to use that um yeah talked about what he would get to do at school like gym class CL and art class and um all those things that we don't do at home um he's here um yeah I think that's kind of all we did okay wonderful thank you and to kind of uh piggyback off of that to the teachers now and let's start with you Kim um what do you what recommendations do you have for parents to do between now and the first day of school to ensure a smooth transition um to kindergarten sure I think the schedule thing is a very important thing to start establishing within the summer I also feel like the re um Ready set go conferences are really important um it does establish a relationship right away with the teacher and the Comfort level for the first day of school is so much better for the kindergarteners when they've made that connection ahead of time so I think it's really important to kind of look at that schedule and and try to make sure you can try and meet that that um scheduling time to meet with the teacher um I think that's very valuable um some of the other little things would be just make sure that they're comfortable with the bathroom and comfortable with um their their supplies and um maybe even like practicing shoe tying or zipping or some of those things that will help some of the little things too with kindergarten and transition will make it easier for them as well so just some of the little things on that way and reading for sure be reading every day to your children just making that the most important part of the summer I think would be the number one thing it's just making it fun thank you Kim Nick and Berita what would you like to add to that yeah building off Kim's um I think my biggest one kind of builds off her shoe tying and zipping which is just kind of building in Independence for them and pushing for Independence um as much as is appropriate for a kindergarten obviously um because if they're able to do things on their own um it just opens up a ton of other things for them um it helps them get through their day quicker it helps them get to things quicker it just makes the day a lot easier on them when they're able to do certain things like Zip their coats um tie their shoes take their lunch tray to the trash on their own without needing help every day um so anything like that where you can just push for Independence is super super helpful when they actually get into the kindergarten classroom go ahead oh go ahead the the things that I always uh push for are routine and Independence and so like the parents have shared and like Kim has shared um that routine in the morning especially is the hard one right getting out the door and so yeah establishing that Midsummer and then um would be best I think and then the independence and so the things you can work on like Nick mentioned is like making sure they can carry their trays so practice that have them take their dinner from their plate or from the table to the dishwasher or the sink um have them start looking at their shoes if ties are not what they can do because it's just too fine motor then wear zipups or wear velcro or wear slipons there's no rule that says it has to be ties um it's that special time of year where mittens are way cooler than gloves you guys I can't emphasize this enough mittens are so much cooler than gloves um they're warmer and your child can get them on by themselves so if you think about how hectic it can be getting out of your house maybe sometimes just imagine that with 20 I have 21 kids in my class right now and they're all trying to find their things and then they're trying to put them on and if they haven't practiced it slows them down and then they have to wait in line until the one teacher in the room can help each and every one of them so every time they get ready have them try zipping their coat um have them try putting their own snow pants on their own boots on on um if you're going to pack lunches for them make sure it's in containers they can open if they have trouble peeling oranges peel that orange for them and put it in a little container if they having a snack make sure it's something they can open on their own those are all things that um you can kind of help build into their day and build into their repertoire of skills they can do by themselves and it will help them immensely in our classroom space thank you one thing that um is super helpful in homes is and we use this in classrooms too is having a visual schedule for um the morning routine especially um especially if that's going to be a bigger transition for your family now some kids are already used to getting up and out the door pretty early because of child care or preschool um but if that's new to you or it's been a challenge um all I do when I'm creating a visual schedule for for somebody is I go into clip art images and kind of put what I want and then I move it over into a Google doc and just kind of keep adding um print those off cut them up um I tend to laminate them you don't have to um and then just put them in the order that that they need to go and then as the parents um when you're trying to prompt your child to to do what you're expecting them to do at the time you can just say oh check your list um instead of going down did you brush your teeth did you get your shoes on all of that um just checking your list is better for their executive function skills because then they're having to think about it a little bit more and that's going to um get ingrained in their their memory um and be able to have some more independence with that plus children tend to get um verbal reward even if it's negative you know if we're like hurry up hurry up get do this do that like that's negative attention but they don't really care if it's negative or positive so the less words we can use when they're needing prompting to to get things done um the better pair off um that can be for them so something to just let you know of here is we do offer um Family consultations through our ECFE program so if you're ever wanting to meet with somebody it tends to be me um on schedules like say You're really struggling with a transition time in your household um I can meet with you oneon-one to help brainstorm some of that um we also offer some some virtual classes for parents through our ECF program that we kind of talk through some of those things as well so please be watching for that if that you feel like that's something that you'd like some support on um in in these next few months moving into kindergarten or Beyond um so back to um the parents and Erin can I start with you again what was the hardest adjustment for Otto um he did really well I think the hardest was being gone all day um I stayed home with him since was a baby so we kind of are on our own schedule um so for him to go on a bus be at school it's really not all day but it feels like it and then come home um he was pretty exhausted um especially like that first month um so trying so what we did was we didn't sign him up for any other activities um that first semester um and I think that worked out really well um just gave him time to relax after school um but otherwise I think that was about all that he kind of struggled with that is great advice I've heard that so many times from parents that they just even if they were in child care or preschool all day that just the trans it is different um there's they're they're kind of in charge a little bit more of of um having to keep track of things there might be more kids in the class so they do tend to be pretty exhausted so that's great advice to just kind of hold off on on evening activities um that first semester if you're if you're able to Brandon how about you what was the what was the hardest adjustment for Julian if there was there was and and I kind of touched on this earlier I think that it was just uh him trying to to make friends it was he probably went a month and a half or two months where he would come home and he was sad he loved School in general but he just was sad that he didn't have friends um but we spoke to his teacher and and um she actually said that he was really social um in his class so I don't know must have been his perception or something but um like I said she helped to kind of initiate some of those friendships she put them um in like during group time she put them with the kids that he got along with that she saw that he got along with and um now he has a bunch of friends so I think that was the biggest adjustment yeah Brandon thank you for sharing that piece about the perception because I think that can happen a lot of times with kids where kids may not they might have just a a different definition of what a friend is than what the ref rest of us might have and so um if your child is ever saying that they don't have friends it's it's it's okay to check in with a teacher and like hey what are you observing um my son was like that he very much always perceived that he didn't have friends and he did like I we saw it so um just sometimes that's there's just something that that kids have a different a different definition TDY how about you um for Joanna what was the hardest transition or hardest adjustment I think it was getting up early in the morning and then she was coming home um tired at the beginning like the I think it was like the first two weeks it was just hard for her the whole schedule and but she got used to it I mean now she comes home she I let her just do her regular activities like playing on her own sometimes times she just does her I think it it just like it was the struggle a little bit the first two weeks but we we did well after that or she did well yeah yeah well I something that I'm hearing in all three of you too is I think you you three all sound like you have a um some good confidence in your kids that they can be resilient and um I think when we can kind of have that that um belief in them they are more likely to to do that right um especially if and and sometimes we might have to convince ourselves a little bit but um but I do think that that can really really help with kids um one last question for the teachers and then we'll have one more for the parents and then we'll open it up for a few questions um let's start with Nick Ando what else would you like parents to know um so I have two things about that one is uh I think Kim kind of touched on a little bit that you could be practicing letter sounds with your kids and things like that and I will never discourage that um but another thing she touched on is making sure they're comfortable with the bathroom and uh a teacher friend of ours always had this phrase about vowels before vowels so meaning like make sure that they can do that very independently on their own we can't be in the bathroom with them unless you know they're having an emergency we can of course help but in my room the bathroom door locks and I can't get in unless I call a custodian down to help so we want them to be confident and uh be able to do that in that space and not have accidents at school of course they happen every time every now and then but um so that's kind of the one phrase she always said and then the other um thing I wanted to touch on was kind of what each parent sort of touched on the beginning of the year will be exhausting for your child um and that's not out of the norm it's it's the norm that it will be exhausting so the idea of waiting on after school activities I think is great if your family can do that um because we're having like they have to be on if you will for the whole day they have to hold their emotions in check they have to miss their mom quietly they have to do all of these things that the teachers asking them plus they have all these other distractions around them that they're either joining in on or trying to ignore we're pushing academics were challenging their brains and pushing them to do harder and harder things and this is maybe one of the first times that they're doing that for a six-hour stretch and so when they come home they might break down they might be cranky and they might be tired and that's not something that's going wrong that's just them holding it together all day and then hitting that safe space that is their home with their people their grownups their parents their families and all of a sudden they can let it go I've had multiple parents cry when they've talked to me like what is wrong with my child and it's it's not there's nothing wrong they are doing their best and they need to just let it go when they get home so I really like I really want that message to be out there that is going to be tough and exhausting um but that's normal and it's normal for you as parents to also feel those big emotions as well and that's okay especially if it's your first child going through this and never feel afraid to contact your teacher if you have something that you need to talk to them about or concern we're there we'll talk to you about that even if it has to be a quick email we'll contact you and touch base with you and one of the things that Jennifer said is well is your child's coming from a small environment right now with that preschool and then growing into that bigger class that probably double the size they're all brand new faces they're all going to probably be their best friends in about two months but they need that time to connect and figure out what's school about how do I do this how do I walk in a line how do I line up how do I get in a circle what do you mean I need to talk right now I don't want to talk right now they're in that Circle so there's a lot of things that we're pressing them on as well and one of the things that we do have quiet time that brigita and Nick had mentioned as well um and during that time in quiet time they can opt to take a time to just rest on the floor and you can encourage that if they're really tired like just take those five 10 minutes that you have that you can just go rest as well so just connecting with your child seeing how they're feeling and if you have any anxiety about it contact us as well wonderful oh yeah go ahead J one other thing I would say is um just be cognizant kind of what we talked about earlier um what the parents talked about earlier be cognizant of how you are projecting kindergarten with your student because I think the emotions that you give off around kindergarten is how they're going to feel about it so if you are confident in them and you tell them that it's going to be a positive thing and you talk about it about it in a positive way they're going to have a positive experience um I think just have confidence that your child is going to do well and 99.999% of the time they will I mean it's it just it always works itself out it always ends up going well in the end if you're able to have a um a positive experience with it and give them a positive experience before they even start they're going to do really well so that's that's great advice that's something I definitely have observed too through through the years with my own kids but then just working with families and Kim what you said of just being willing to um or being comfortable reaching out to your child's teacher um I that is my I wasn't a Stillwater School employee when my children were going through um elementary school and middle school and it just I was always so received so well when I would just reach out with questions and just um teachers were always very prompt very caring I always felt like they knew my kids really well and um I just I think that it's great because sometimes we we might have a worry about something of what might be going on at school and that worry might it might not match at all what's really happening and so to be able to reach out and like hey this is something they're talking about or this is something I've been worried about what can you tell me and then like oh okay that's all it was um I hear that too is this normal for typical kindergarten yes exactly I help affirm that or let you know that too very much so um I want to take just one minute each for toddy Brandon and Aon you don't have to take the full minute but um do you have what other advice would you offer the parents here today and todia let me start with you I think uh the biggest advice that I can give is to have rules and routines at home read books all the time before your kids go to sleep and and just uh talk about positive about the schools you know talk about that it's going to go well just show them that you are happy that they're going to school just be positive and everything is going to be okay how about Brandon yeah toddy nailed it um that's a big thing um and another thing the the teachers already said this as well but if you're running into any challenges um or have questions just rely on your teachers rely on the the school staff um we we've had to work with our the school psychologist uh or the counselor about different things and and they've just been really super supportive and very helpful and um just help us getting through some of those Challen challenges that are normal so yeah wonderful thank you how about you Aaron yeah I was going to say the same thing about just keeping that communication with the teacher um about any concerns um we yeah we also went through speech um and I just brought up the concern and it was like no big deal sure yep we'll have a speech therapist evaluate it I mean it was just I was worried about it and they just it was no big deal so um yeah any concern or if if he came home talking about so and so was picking on me blah blah blah I could reach out to the teacher and they explained it you know exactly what happened not just from the kids point of view so just kind of helped with the anxiety of things wonderful thank you I have a couple questions coming up in the chat that I wanted to address and Berita Nick or Kim if you see a question in the chat that you want to add to or have an answer to I'm thinking um the question that is on here from Stephanie I wonder if one of you teachers might be able to answer that um and while you're thinking on that I'll answer the transition to K hand out for children with special needs to the best of my knowledge um so typically what what that looks like is the um your kind of goto teacher um in early childhood special Ed will be in communication with the team that the the child would be moving on to at kindergarten now it's going to depend a little bit on their on on the needs that they have right if it's um maybe something um like speech there might not need to be as much communication being passed on but if it's something bigger where they're they're getting maybe multiple Services um it might be a bigger a bigger handoff um what I have heard from families that have done that transition um children with special needs that it has gone very smoothly um our our team at the Early Childhood Family Center um is in close communication with the the special ed teachers um throughout the other buildings um and seem to do that really well um kindergarten teachers do you feel like I'm I'm speaking the truth or what you've experienced to I see Kim na and I see B maybe you want to add about the transition meetings too since you've been a part of those before oh yeah that would be wonderful thank you so they've happened before the school year begins at the end of the year previous and so we will meet the children and talk to the parents about all the special needs that they have and how we what will work for them and what the transitions are and going over the IEPs whatever those needs are so we're fully aware of what's coming in and and then we can have time to process that too and and help your child the best way we can so wonderful we should mention like this is this is for kids who have been identified so if you're if you're child already has that IEP that paperwork um that identification then they would have this these this hand off um if you have concerns and your child is entering but you haven't they haven't been addressed prior then you would the contact would be your classroom teacher that would be who you're talking to first and then we can help you direct you or we can help um like Ain said we can talk to our speech therapist and they can come in and maybe assess and see what's going on um wonderful thank you would one of you be able to um answer the question that Stephanie has in here Kim you were nodding before would you do you want to take that one sure I mean I think the biggest thing about is if you feel your child is bullying it's first reach out to your teacher right away and let them know what's going on because sometimes we're not aware of it we're not where the where it's coming from and so it's good to hear what's happening with your child and then if there's some extra um people who might you come and help with it we will contact those people and we'll do everything we can within our classroom to talk to your child as well to encourage them to come and talk to the teacher we'll work with the students in the classroom um if it's bigger than that we will reach out to other staff members to come in and help too so yeah and I'd say um like an we have something called The Green Room which again is part of responsive classroom and in there either the in my in my school The Green Room paer might come down and and find the child that they need need to talk to or they might go to the green room and have a discussion down there and they would do a problem solving conference they call it so they would be talking with through the help of an adult be talking through the problem finding out what's happening is it truly bullying how can we stop this what is when is it occurring are there any trigger whatever it is they'll they'll try and work through that um but it sounds like you had mentioned like your daughter might not be bringing these things up so if they are coming home and talking to you just like Kim mentioned they might not be talking to us they might not be quite as comfortable so please please please reach out yes thank you um I first of all we have about four minutes left and I want to make sure that um I'm respectful of uh the parents and the teachers time um so we'll answer one more question and then if the teachers need if you the rest of you need to hop off I could stay on to answer more questions if I if I'm able to um but again I just want to again all of you parents on here just hopefully you're feeling gratitude for the teachers that have um taught kindergarten all day and are are giving of their time tonight so um one of you kindergarten teachers would you just talk a little bit more about the social emotional um emotional curriculum that you mentioned yeah and this kind of goes maybe kind of to to Stephanie's question a little bit too um it's called second steps and there's two kind of pieces of it there's a whole part about just being a student so what does listening look like what does um learning look like how am I using my brain to focus how am I challenging my brain and then there's another unit that's specifically around bullying and so this would be where um we work to identify bullying we work how do we respond to bullying and then how do we refuse bullying and so all of those and how do we report it so um all of those things give the students the vocabulary the tools that they need when they're in the classroom and also if they're in such a situation where they see someone being mistreated or they feel like they're being mistreated it also helps give them the vocabulary the understanding of what some different feelings are so we go through naming the feelings what does that look like what does that feel like in your body and what are some strategies for how we can um work through those feelings some appropriate strategies another part of that too is we also do responsive classroom which also what which also encourages all the the positive things like interacting with students and how do we talk to each other and the games and um just that positive piece of trying to build that with children as well with our language and how we interact with each other and how you all mentioned earlier the starting with the morning meeting um when I've observed the morning meeting it very much much feels like a family meal time like you're not eating together at the time but just like that's respectful communication it's it's a time to kind of um feel grounded which um I guess not every family meal feels like that to people but um just kind of that that goal is um grounding and um I very much feel that when I'm able to to observe that um I can start there was another question on here too about um are there opportunities to challenge kids who for examp I already know their ABCs and for sure um I had one of my own kiddos who um didn't know many of his letters honestly when he started kindergarten um and then my other one when she started was already reading and both of their needs were very very much met um we there's been so much training through our school district on differentiating curriculum um and just really meeting kids where they're at and Erin even talked to that as far as um you know she she mentioned that kind of in one way where where her child was met but that's very much met um on the on the opposite end of that Spectrum as well um and so that's a big part of the The Ready Set goal conferences that will be um offered um it's kind of the the week kindergarteners uh I can't remember just you'll sign up for it you'll sign up for it before and it's kind of like a conference but it's it's the a time to for your child to get to know the teacher but also it gives the teachers a chance to kind of assess where your kid is at developmentally um and then they can just kind of jump jump into learning when when they start um I promis you all I would stick to the time and it is nine o'clock so I want to um first of all say thank you very much to bergita and Nick you guys get to go back to your baby now maybe he's already in bed but thank you very much Kim thank you very much it was my first time actually meeting you um today I will see um you three again on Monday night for our in-person session and toddy Brandon and Aaron thank you very much for your time I really appreciate you volunteering to be here um and as we mentioned um well you are all on here so you don't need to watch the recording after but if you're talking to other people in the community that um are disappointed that they missed this maybe they um didn't notice when it was going to be um please let them know that we did record it um Chris where will this be landing I will put it on our YouTube channel great and um probably on our kindergarten page on the website too yeah thank you and if you could send me the link when that is ready then I can I had a couple people email during this time saying that they ended up um not being able to make it on and I can send it to them directly so um thank you all for being on here um I can stay on a couple minutes we can stop recording at this point but I want to um let go of the parents and um the kindergarten teachers so thank you guys