Kindergarten Tea

Kindergarten Tea

Our Kindergarten Tea is scheduled the day before school starts each year. This is an opportunity for the new students and parents to see their new school, classroom and meet their teacher. We have found that it makes the first day of school easier for all. The principal meets with everyone in the auditorium for a short orientation of Village View and introduces all of the Kindergarten teachers. Then the parents and students are dismissed to visit the classroom.

Some of the things that are planned for that short visit are:

1. Reading The Kissing Hand After the story is read to the children with the parents there, each child is given a heart sticker for them to bring to school on the first day. Other activities are planned the first day of school using The Kissing Hand story. We also have a "Chester" raccoon puppet that we share with the children. He is a great hit with the kids!

2. The first day of school procedures are very briefly discussed and a clipboard is passed for parents to record information on how their child will get home the first day of school. The form also has a place to indicate if the first day of school will be different than other days. A packet of information is given to each parent with a peel off name tag for their child to wear the first day of school. The name tag also has information at the bottom to help us know how the child will be going home. We have children going to three different day cares, baby sitters, parents and riding the bus! This helps us to make sure that each child gets home safely.

3. Thoughts at the Bottom of the Beanstalk is read to the parents. Please click here to read a copy of this story: .

4. The ABC packet is passed out along with other hand-outs. The information that is included in these papers is listed on this web site. There are separate listings to explain the VIP, Sharing, Birthdays, etc. We work very hard to keep parents informed. Click here for a copy of the ABC hand-out.

5. The last thing that we do is some type of scavenger hunt. This allows the children to take a look at the room and find out where things are prior to the first day. Some years we do a Blue's Clue hunt and put paw prints around the room for the children to find. They have a check list to check each location that they find. This is done with the parent. This gives us an opportunity to answer any questions and keeps the kids busy! The PTA also provides punch and cookies for the children.

6. We try to have a volunteer there to take pictures of each child with their parent for scrapbooks. I usually ask a parent from a previous year or PTA member. I use these to post them on the door or bulletin board for September.

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