Demystifying Kindergarten

Information = the best antistresstimine there is. 

When I enrolled my daughter I felt there were details I was missing in the Kindergarten process, and then proceeded to find out slowly that there were a lot of details that many of the parents who also enrolled their kids didn't know about it too. It seems that we all had snippets of the information but enough to actually know what was going to happen.  So I thought posting this online would be a great way to pass it on to people like me who googled the Hawaii Kindergarten process. Naturally my experience comes from Kaleiopu'u Elementary in Village Park on O'ahu, so other schools will have a variation on these processes.

Evaluation Day

You and your child’s first day of Kindergarten is your child’s evaluation day. This day was shrouded in mystery for me so let me demystify it for you. On that first day of school the teachers ask you to drop your child at the door and not come in to the classroom with them. Not an easy thing to do for some of us, but honestly as the days and weeks go on it is a good line to have drawn in the sand. Mommy and Daddy, Uncles and Aunties are not allowed in the classroom. This becomes a hard and fast rule and is easy for a young child to understand. Then those keiki who struggle with separation will know that the rule is the same EVERY day.

On evaluation day there will be multiple teachers in the classroom your child is assigned to, as well as the counselors and others helping to see where each child falls on a social level. This is meant to help the teachers divide kids who are really open and friendly and mix them in with kids who are more shy, thus giving each teacher a balanced classroom. The kids will also be taken either alone or in small groups to be asked to identify letters, numbers, colors and shapes.  This will again allow the teachers to evenly dispurse the kids and give each classroom a few who will be helpers of those who may be a bit behind the others. They call this Heterogeniously grouping them. Meaning to make each classroom function well and progress at roughly the same pace. 

My daughter had never been in a school situation prior to Kindergarten and I was soo nervous she would be so far behind, but as it turns out every kid is unique and my daughter learned soo fast. Her evaluation paper was given to us later in the year and she actually knew quite a bit more than I gave her credit for. Plus I was amazed how well the teachers understood her.

Orientation Day

Orientation day  is refered to as a parent only day. This is important because your  child will find it quite boring yet they will be giving you information you will need. Your child’s class list will be posted and you will finally have a name and get to meet the teacher. After an all Kindergarten parent assembly you will get to go to your child’s new classroom and meet the teacher. He/She will ask you to put away the kids’ school supplies, and make sure everything is labeled and ready to go.  If there was anything on that Massive school supply list you couldn’t find, this is a time when the other parents will tell you where to find it. (HINT:  The glue pen can be found at Don Quijote in Waipahu in the pen and marker section, I looked for that thing everywhere and never thought to check there until I called the school about it.) This is the time you have to ask questions and really get to know what is coming. I went totally blank and couldn’t think of a single question that day. Don’t worry you will also get email addresses and phone numbers to reach the teacher.  In my experience the teacher was really good about reading emails around lunch time and getting back to me. 

If your child is registered at Kaleiopu'u and you want more information about the school and the kindergarten process and experience email us and I'll forward you a special parent to parent "handbook" I wrote, I've submitted it to the school to be given to you, but as usually happens they may not hand it out until that parent day. Not much help on the early days. LOL.