Play kitchens and mock cash registers are among the wish-list items Southern Lehigh kindergarten teachers have requested as they work to integrate \u201cpurposeful play\u201d into the new full-day kindergarten program that launches next school year.<\/p>\n
Southern Lehigh School District is the last of its Lehigh Valley peers to expand to full-day kindergarten, and registration for next year\u2019s classes opens Sunday.\n<\/p>\n
Teachers and district curriculum leads said the expanded kindergarten day will allow time for unstructured play that builds social skills and helps students regulate their emotions.<\/p>\n
Students need to learn how to problem solve, and play that involves teamwork develops both self control and resilience, said Nancy Smillie, a veteran kindergarten teacher who\u2019s been at Hopewell Elementary for 24 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe critical thinking is important cognitive development, and that\u2019ll help in all the academic areas,\u201d Smillie said.<\/p>\n
Kindergarten teachers from both Hopewell and Liberty Bell elementary schools told The Morning Call that visits to other school districts, including East Penn, have been helpful in understanding how skills that are explicitly taught in teacher-directed lessons can be emphasized through play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe teach these skills, but there\u2019s not a lot of time to practice everything,\u201d Smillie said.<\/p>\n
The transition to full-day kindergarten also means moving third graders to the intermediate school, a change that has motivated some parents to express nerves at school board meetings.<\/p>\n
Southern Lehigh parent Jamie Caverly will see both sides of the transition, with an incoming kindergartner set to start at Hopewell Elementary and a rising third grader ready to transition to the intermediate school.<\/p>\n
Caverly\u2019s emotional investment in her children\u2019s school communities shone through as she talked about the change to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love Hopewell so much \u2014 they are a very close-knit, wonderful school community, so I\u2019m sad that my daughter doesn\u2019t get the fourth year there,\u201d Caverly said, \u201cbut I\u2019m not nervous because my son\u2019s already at the intermediate school, and I know that they\u2019re a great school as well, and they\u2019re preparing very nicely for the third grade to move up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caverly lobbied school board members to switch to full-day kindergarten after realizing her daughter, a second grader with an individualized education plan that supports her special needs, could have benefitted from a longer kindergarten day with more opportunity to build soft skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur school district has always been top-notch with academics, so it just kind of now puts it all together,\u201d Caverly said, calling full-day kindergarten \u201cthe final missing puzzle piece.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caverly has been advocating for the change for two years, but district discussions trace back at least a decade, when Southern Lehigh piloted a full-day program for a limited number of kindergartners who were not meeting learning targets.<\/p>\n
Fellow full-day kindergarten advocate Julie Bird, the mother of a first grader and a fourth grader, said \u201cthe soft skills of life\u201d taught through play are \u201cas important as learning letters and numbers, learning to read.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advantages of full-day kindergarten<\/p>\n