Anticipating your child’s first day of kindergarten can be full of excitement and butterflies. Knowing what to expect can help settle nerves and reassure everyone that it’s going to be great. Let’s take a peek inside a day at our tuition-free kindergarten class.
Kindergarten Morning Routine
Each and every student is greeted at the door by their teacher, with a warm smile and the child’s preferred way of being greeted–some choose a fist bump, others a hug and some a high five. You’ll notice that even our youngest students wear uniforms, unless it’s Friday, then you might notice Kindergartners wearing their brightly colored spirit gear.
As we welcome everyone to our day, students begin working on small group or individual activities with the help of an instructional assistant. Routine is important in Kindergarten, and by the end of the first month of school, our students are well-versed in going about their routine independently.
Next, we all move to the carpet for our morning meeting. This is a chance to come together and share about our upcoming day, chat about events and celebrate (especially if someone lost a tooth last night!). We also complete our class calendar and discuss the day’s weather. This time may look informal, but very important vocabulary and community building is happening during morning meetings.
Daily Subject Learning
After the morning meeting, we transition to subject area learning. Our native-Spanish speaking teachers teach through Spanish for 80% of our day, which means that all Kindergarten subjects, except Language Arts and PE, are taught in Spanish.
Language Arts is taught by a specialist teacher who visits our classroom, but we travel to the gymnasium for our 30 minutes of daily PE. Art is integrated into our classroom activities and we get to visit our beautiful library, as well.
We know that great learning involves lots of movement, singing, rhyming and play and we incorporate these principles into the day to make learning fun and authentic. Students rotate between a variety of small and large groups, activities and project time. We keep our youngest learners moving and engaged and our Kindergarten classroom is a lively and fun place to learn!
Everyone’s Favorite: Lunch & Recess
All this learning works up an appetite. Kindergarteners enjoy a daily hot lunch (or sack lunch) in our classroom. We also break for snacks during the day–5 year old tummies are small! After a nourishing meal, students head outside for 20 minutes of recess to burn off extra energy and breathe in the fresh air.
Closing the Day
As our day winds down, we begin our end of day routine. Students have a rotation of classroom jobs to help develop responsibility and pride in our school. They clean the classroom, pack their own backpacks and say goodbye to teachers and friends.
Kindergarten pick up is earlier than the rest of the school to help provide the additional time our youngest students need to wrap up their day. We also notice that a slightly shorter day is a wonderful transition to full-time school for both students and families.
We can’t wait to welcome you to Kindergarten. If you haven’t yet enrolled, you can check out our enrollment page or chat with our office staff to learn more. Hope to see you soon!
About Arco Iris
Arco Iris Spanish Immersion is a small tuition-free public charter school providing a rich, immersive Spanish language experience and robust academics in a true multicultural setting. Centrally located off 217, between SW Portland and Tigard, we serve K-5 students in the greater Beaverton area to become bilingual and biliterate leaders of the future. We’re enrolling for Fall 2024-25.