Capistrano USD holds a Kindergarten roundup in the Spring.  Orientation meetings for the parents of the next year’s kindergarten classes are held at Bathgate Elementary in Mission Viejo. At the initial meeting, held during the school day from 9:00-10:30am, the principal and his Powerpoint presentation provide information about school registration, on-site daycare and the PTA. One kindergarten teacher comes in from the classroom to explain readiness in social skills, personal autonomy, fine and gross motor development, phonemic awareness, name writing,  counting and numeral recognition. After the presentation, the parents are invited to tour the classrooms during recess and they are also encouraged to attend a 2-hour Kindergarten Readiness Boot Camp on an evening in May at the YMCA.

Kindergarten Boot Camp in May
The parents register ahead of time so  materials can be prepared. A small fee is charged for babysitting children, with a scholarship provided for families who cannot afford their fee. Translators are available. Parents listen to a 20 minute overview about the importance of working with their child between spring and fall of the kindergarten year, to prepare their potential kindergartner for school.  The kindergarten teachers set up four stations in a multi-purpose room where the parents rotate to learn about the program. Forty minutes are allotted for the total time for rotations, or ten minutes per station. To facilitate the crowd, colored stickers are placed on the parents’ name tags so they can attend the teacher directed stations.

1. The Pre-reading Station consists of showing the parents alphabet games and read-aloud strategies. The teachers’ literacy focus is on the alphabetic principle, sight word recognition, nonsense word fluency games, rhyming and word family activities, segmentation skills and pre-reading games.

2. At the Fine Motor Station, parents are shown how children develop fine motors skills, including fine muscle building exercises such as using play dough to strengthen the hand (a prerequisite to writing), how to hold scissors and tear paper, and ways of finger painting.

3. Writing. Parents learn how children can roll playdough over models to practice correct letter formations. They are given paper as a guide for the children to practice their names and alphabet letters. A recipe for playdough is provided.

4. The Math Station is designed for parents to see how common food and household objects become math manipulatives. Parents make examples for counting, sorting and numeral recognition with beans, noodles, cereal, tabs on bread loaves, popsicle sticks, etc. Math games using playing cards, dominoes and found household objects are practiced.

Fall Follow-Up Boot Camp
Since Back-to-School Night is so short and many parents have to divide their time with other grade levels, the kindergarten team holds a Fall Boot Camp too. This evening is held in the classrooms of each individual teacher. The YMCA provides babysitting. A packet of photocopied games and activities is provided and parents are given articles about literacy to
read in preparation for conferences.