JumpSTART

What can parents do to prepare their child for Kindergarten?
1. Read aloud at least one book a day to your child!
2. Let your child play with playdough of cut pictures from magazines or newspapers to develop fine muscle skills.
3. Show the the pictures on this website of our class and talk about all the fun the children have in kindergarten!

Sending your little one off to kindergarten for the first time often difficult for parents. Thiss little parable was given to Jump Start parents to help them understand the importance of the first days of school. "Quick goodbyes, make dry eyes!" , for both parents and children!

   Once upon a time there was a little boy named Jack who was about to climb his very first beanstalk. He had a fresh haircut and a brand-new book bag. Even though his friends in the neighborhood had climbed this same beanstalk almost every day last year this was Jack's first day and he was a little nervous. So was his mother.

     Early in the morning she brought him to the foot of the beanstalk. She talked encouragingly to Jack about all the fun he would have that day and how nice his giant would be. She reassured him that she would be back to pick him up at the end of the day.

     For a moment they stood together, silently holding hands, gazing up at the beanstalk. To Jack it seemed much bigger than it had when his mother had pointed it out on the way to the store last week. His mother thought it looked big, too. She swallowed. Maybe she should have held Jack out a year...
Jack's mother straightened his shirt one last time, patted his shoulder and smiled down at him. She promised to stay and wave while he started climbing.

Jack didn't say a word. He walked forward, grabbed a low-growing stem and slowly pulled himself up to the first leaf. He balanced there for a moment and then climbed more eagerly to the second leaf, then to the third and soon he had vanished into a high tangle of leaves and stems with never a backward glance at his mother.

     She stood alone at the bottom of the beanstalk, gazing up at the spot where Jack had disappeared. There was no rustle, no movement, no sound to indicate that he was anywhere inside. "Sometimes," she thought, "it's harder to be the one who waves good-bye than it is to be the one who climbs the beanstalk."

     She wondered how Jack would do. Would he miss her? How would he behave? Did his giant understand that little boys sometimes acted silly when they felt unsure? She fought down an urge to spring up the stalk after Jack and maybe duck behind a bean to take a peek at how he was doing. "I'd better not. What if he saw me?" She knew Jack was really old enough to handle this on his own. She reminded herself that, after all this was thought to be an excellent beanstalk and that everyone said his giant was not only kind but had outstanding qualifications.

     It's not so much that I'm worried about him," she thought, rubbing the back of her neck. "It's just that he's growing up and I'm going to miss him."

     Jack's mother turned to leave. "Jack's going to have lots of bigger beanstalks to climb in his life," she told herself. "Today's the day he starts practicing for them... And today's the day I start practicing something too...

.........cheering him on and waving good-bye."

Statement of Need
"Equality of opportunity." The National Institute for Early Education Research states: "Until every child comes to kindergarten properly prepared to learn, America will continue to fall short of one of its bedrock ideals - equality of opportunity."

Jump Start will will increase our students' school readiness, building on the success of past one week kindergarten programs, funded by Title One. The program will target new kindergarten students and their parents to make them "school ready."

1. Students will learn strategies for phonemic awareness.
2. Students will develop a greater understanding of the alphabetic principal.
3. Students will be immersed in a print rich environment to develop awareness of print and written language.
4. Students will develop Concepts About Print (CAP).
5. Parents will receive literacy training, learn kindergarten content standards and become active participants in their child's education to develop home/school connections.
6. Students will become an active member of the kindergarten class community.

Jump Start
Kindergarten

Jump Start Kindergarten 2003 was a summer program created to give upcoming kindergarten students a "jump start" on literacy skills. Jump Start was funded by a $10,000 WVREADS grant awarded by the West Virginia Department of Education. Jump Start provided sixteen morning sessions for children to learn about what school would be like, building a classroom community and early emergent literacy skills.

Jump Start Kindergarten Goals and Objectives

Jump Start Kindergarten provided opportunites for children and families to begin school during a non-threatening summer environment, before the school year began. Students became familiar with their classroom, their school, and their teachers. A college education student mentor, Miss Courtney Vargo, provided small group instruction for students while observing and assisting Mrs. Bowland. A Balanced Literacy Curriculum was used during Jump Start using these five essential components of reading: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Comprehension, Vocabulary and Fluency. Children received a daily snack, and a take-home literacy bag.

Take Home
Literacy Bags

Jennifer Susser of Scott Foresman donated a bag like this for each student.

The bags included a chart from www.readingmatters.com and phonics phone from www.crystalsprings.com and a witchy finger from oriental trading.

The bags included a whiteboard, marker and eraser from www.reallygoodsuff.com and wikki sticks from www.crystalsprings.com. Toothbrush holders from the dollar store were used to store individual sets of wikki sticks.

A can of Magic Dough to use to create alphabet letters.

ABC flashcards and phonics make-a-word cards from Big Lots.

A list of popcorn (high-frequency) words and a word whacker made by cutting a slot in a plastic flyswatter.

Mrs. Bowland made these Parent's Guides to provide instructions for each of the literacy tools and lessons to share together at home.

Here is a picture of our Jump Start college mentor student, Miss Courtney Vargo, an education major at Concord College.

Our teacher's assistant for Jump Start Kindergarten was Mrs. Donna Fllint. She is beginning her 33 year at Scarbro Elementary School in Almost Heaven Kindergarten.

Thoughts from the Bottom of the Beanstalk

Parents were a big part of making our Jump Start Progam a big success! Alayna and her mom share a moment together.