Full Day Kindergarten

Seattle Public Schools offers full-day kindergarten, which provides young learners the time they need to engage in learning and build the social and academic skills they need to support learning throughout their education. Research shows that children participating in developmentally appropriate, full-day kindergarten make greater gains both socially and academically.

Seattle Public Schools participates in the state WaKIDS program which provides a state subsidy to finance Full Day Kindergarten. Part of the WaKIDS program allowed Seattle Public Schools to offer teacher-family visits in September to every kindergarten family in the district.

In the 2017-2018 school year, these “Family Connections” visits were 30 to 40 minute meetings which provided one-on-one time for the teacher to learn more about the family and child. These conferences were scheduled on the first three school days (for grades 1-5) in September so Kindergarten students did not start school until Monday, September 11.

More information about Kindergarten and Early Learning in Seattle Public Schools.

More information about WaKIDS.

After School Care in Northeast Seattle

Wallingford Boys & Girls Club
(View Ridge, in basement of Sandpoint United Methodist Church)

4710 NE 70th
206-523-8447

Kids’ University/YMCA at Magnuson
(district transportation provided from school)

6344 NE 74th St., Bldg 406
206-985-0075

Kindergarten Curriculum

Seattle Public Schools recently adopted a new K-5 Language Arts Curriculum: Center for the Collaborative Classroom (CCC) Collaborative Literacy. The Collaborative Literacy program integrates social development with academic content and has 3 parts: Being a Reader, Making Meaning, and Being a Writer. Being a Reader includes whole class shared reading, small group reading lessons, handwriting and word work. Making Meaning focuses on comprehension strategies, independent reading skills and vocabulary. Being a Writer develops the skills to write clearly, creatively, and purposefully for sustained periods of time; and a familiarity with the crafts and conventions of writing in the major genres.

We use the district-adopted Math in Focus curriculum. MiF uses a concrete-pictorial-abstract approach to understanding math concepts. Concepts and skills taught include counting and number recognition, beginning addition and subtraction, measurement, solids and shapes, and graphing.

We are using Amplify Science and the K curriculum focuses on three units: Needs of Plants and Animals, Pushes and Pulls, and Sunlight and Weather.

In Social Studies, the goal is to understand the purpose of rules at school and in the classroom, understand and create personal timelines, and retell and explain personal history. Social Studies themes are also woven into reading and writing through thematic units.

We have specialist teachers for Kindergarten for music, art and physical education.

Students attend library class and check out books once each week. The first half of the school year kindergarteners are taught about book care, how to browse the shelves, and the basic sections of the library: everybody fiction, chapter book fiction, and nonfiction. The second half of the year we participate in the state-wide Washington Children’s Choice Picture Book Award. Students read the 20nominated titles and vote on their favorite book.