This document provides information about Berewick Elementary School to parents of incoming kindergarten students. It summarizes that Berewick has been open since 2009, has over 700 students from diverse backgrounds in pre-K through 5th grade. It describes the school's focus on student growth, literacy and math instruction, extracurricular activities, and expectations for students to be ready to read and do math by the start of kindergarten.

1. Welcome to Beginner’s Night!
Helping your child become a Bobcat!

2. Berewick Basic Facts
 Opened in 2009 – 4  Variety of student clubs:
years and growing!  Student Council
 725 students  Robotics
 Diverse community  2nd grade book club
 Dance club
 Pre-K to 5th grade
 Girls on the Run
 Demographics:
 Volleyball
 50% African American
 Basketball
 20 % Hispanic
 Technology
 20% White
 Safety Patrol
 10% Other
 Random Acts of
 56% Free/Reduced Kindness
Lunch

3. Our Accomplishments
 Lowe’s Grant recipient to build outside classrooms and
friendship gardens
 Safety Grant recipient – held 1st annual Safety Fair
Feb. 2013
 Resident guest artist worked with 4th grade students –
Native American Beading
 Dance assembly to celebrate African American dance
styles.
 Quarterly Reading Celebrations; 1st Annual Reading
Parade
 Highlight student writing – Studentreasures Publishing

4. Why Choose Berewick?
 Student centered culture
 Focused on improvement and growth
 Teacher’s College partnership to support Balanced
Literacy
 RtI – Response to Instruction
 Working with district leaders in Math Investigations
 MAP testing, Reading 3-D (2013-2014) and Common
Assessments to drive instruction
 Teachers work as Professional Learning Communities
 Plan, discuss student data, and determine student needs
 Utilize Data Wise model – cyclical data process to identify
areas of weakness to strategically plan for improvement
 Talent Development, Exceptional Children, and English
Language Learner push-in model

5. Daily Schedule…
 8:00-3:00: Instructional Day (7 hours)
 2 hours of Literacy: Shared Reading, Writing, Word
Work, and Independent Reading.
 2 hours of math (Investigations and workshop)
 45 min. of Science/Social Studies
 45 min. of Specials: Art, P.E.
Music, Media, Computer
 30 min. of Lunch; 30 min. of Physical Activity

6. 3 Basic Rules
 Be a learner.
 Be safe.
 Be respectful.

7. Ready to Read!
 Before starting Kindergarten in August:
 Write their name
 Identify capital and lowercase letters
 Can read some sounds

8. Learning to Read
 First we learn Letter I.D.  Next we learn the
sounds

9. Learning to Read…
 Then we’ll use the  Over the course of the year we
will be learning many new sight
sounds we’ve learned to words. Sight words are words
blend . your child will recognize
immediately, without having to
sound them out.
cC A N n
a

10. Leveled Readers…
 Leveled readers are books designed
to match a child to the reading level
that suits their ability.
 Each classroom has 2 hours of
literacy per day, where students are
receiving instruction in Balanced
Literacy: Reading, Writing, Shared
Reading, and Word Work.
 No matter where your child
starts, we will meet them where they
are, and go on from there.

11. Leveled Readers…
 Leveled Reader: C is where kindergarten students
are expected to be by the end of the year.
 This type of text has 1-2 sentences per page. The
pages will have a lot of sight words, and then some
words they will need to decode.

12. Stages of Writing…
Scribbling Marks on paper represent an
idea.

13. Stages of Writing…
Letter-like Identifiable picture and letters are
symbols imitated.

14. Stages of Writing…
Strings of Writes some letters, but not
letters matching most sounds.

15. Stages of Writing…
Beginning Uses the beginning sound to
Sounds represent a word. Writes left to
right and often reverses letters.

16. Stages of Writing…
Consonants Include beginning and ending
represent sounds and some vowels. Uses
words sight words correctly.

17. Stages of Writing…
Initial, Middle, Writes more than one sentence
and Final with spaces between words.
Sounds “Readable” writing.

18. Stages of Writing…
Transitional Writing is “readable”. Uses
phonetic spelling for unfamiliar
words. Uses capitals and
periods correctly.

19. Young Mathematicians!
 Before starting Kindergarten in August it would be
helpful for your child to know the following:
 Identify and write the numbers 1-10
 Count from 1-10
 Colors
 Basic Shapes (square, triangle, circle, rectangle)

20. Math Summed Up…
 Our math framework includes five main categories:
 Number Sense
 Patterns, Relationships, & Functions
 Geometry, & Measurement
 Data Analysis
 Numerical & Algebraic Operations

21. Number Sense…
 It’s more then just counting!
 Number relationships
 Ordering numbers
 Count accurately from any starting point
 Counting backwards
 End of Year Expectation: Count, Write & Recognize 1-30
 Count backwards from 10
 Ordinal numbers 1-10 (First, Second, Third, etc…)

22. Patterns, Relationships, & Functions…
 Patterns are something we see in everyday life, and
they help kindergarteners understand the underlying
structure of things.
 Patterns also help us make predictions about what
will come next.

23. Student Patterns…
 AB pattern, where the student  AABB pattern, the top portion
has identified the UNIT in the was completed as a class, the
pattern (the part of the pattern bottom independently.
that repeats).

24. Geometry & Measurement…
 Shape, size , attributes. We are  Measuring and describing in
not only learning about shapes, non-standard units. Here we
but how shapes make up other used snap cubes to measure
shapes, and objects in our ourselves!
world.

25. Data Analysis
 For data analysis, we complete  We also take many
class, and individual graphs. surveys, and create our own to
We also use the calendar collect data on our peers.
throughout the year, and track
the weather.

26. Numerical & Algebraic Operations…
 Students will be able to  We add and subtract in
use various operations traditional, and non-
to solve problems. traditional ways.

27. Staggered Entry
 Days 1-3 (Aug. 26 – 28, 2013)
 Students come to school based on last name
 Assessments given
 Student tour building, learn school-wide procedures
 Day 4 (Aug. 29, 2013)
 Class assignments and rosters are developed based on
data
 No kindergarten students attend school
 Parents notified by teacher phone call of their placement
for the following day
 Day 5 (Aug. 30, 2013)
 All students report!

28. Any Questions?