Welcome Message

June 2023

Dear Families,

Welcome to Kindergarten at St. Francis de Sales Catholic School!    We are gearing up for a wonderful year.  I have been making many preparations and wanted to take the time to welcome you all and let you know a little about me and our coming year.

For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Kathleen Hall.  I am extremely honored to have been chosen as the first Pre-K 4’s Teacher at SFdSCS and now after 12 years I have finally moved the the next grade level to become the Kindergarten teacher.  I have worked here at SFdSCS for 16 years, 12 of those years teaching in the Pre-K 4’s classroom.  Before coming to St. Francis, I was a Teacher at Asbury Child Development Center for 3 years.

I have big plans for our Kindergarten class this year.  We will be using a reading curriculum this year from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt called Into Reading.  We will also use a new curriculum for phonics and spelling from Sadlier called from Phonics to Reading.  Our math curriculum, Sadlier Math, will be the roadmap that we will use for our math this year.  Math will be a hands on experience with math workshops where we will practice and understand math concepts.  Our science curriculum is based on the Next Generation Science Standards.  We will explore the big ideas within the disciplinary core in exciting investigations.  Our Social Studies curriculum will focus on social emotional concepts and how to relate these concepts to our daily lives.  We will be going to P.E. class twice a week.  We will also be going to foreign language class to learn Spanish and I will be teaching sign language as well.  I have integrated technology into our day and love to show off how tech savvy we can be at 5 years old.  We will have homework each night beginning after our first parent/teacher conference.  The homework is a choice board that will come home at the beginning of each month.  The board will offer ideas for important concepts for Kindergarten that you can practice at home.  The expectation is that families are able to work on homework together.

We will be sending some important information to you in August so please keep an eye on your email.  If any information has changed since you filled out your application, please contact the school office.  My email address is khall@sfdscs.org.   The school office phone number is 410-749-9907.

I am looking forward to a wonderful year.  Thank you for giving us the opportunity to teach your child/children.

Thank you,

Mrs. Kathleen Hall

Teachers Bio

Kathleen Hall is the Kindergarten teacher and the Kindergarten Religion teacher. She has 19 years of experience teaching and holds two Bachelor of Science degrees from Salisbury University. She also has a certification in early childhood education.

She has taught at SFdS for 16 years and uses problem-based and purposeful play-based learning in her classroom to prepare students for 1st grade. Problem-based learning helps students learn in a group or individually to do things for themselves. Purposeful play teaches the many social and academic skills needed to become readers and mathematicians.

Each student’s progress is measured through a variety of assessments and observations and each student is encouraged to become independent thinkers with the use of hands-on educational materials.