Dear Parents,
We hope you all enjoyed this glorious weekend, and it looks like we're in for continued beautiful weather this week! We wanted to thank everyone for turning in their permission slips so promptly for the upcoming field trip on Feb. 4th. And finally, we wanted to thank all parents and students for having such a great first month of journal entries with the Red Bags! Everyone seems to be letting their children do all their own spelling, and are encouraging them so well in their efforts! I already see improvement in the writing just in this short time. Remember that the focus in kindergarten is giving kids the ability to use their phonics skills to write on their own and get their thoughts down on paper. As they move through the grade levels, spelling will become more of a focus. Right now the focus is the process and applying phonetic sounds so that they have that framework to fall back on whenever they need to write on their own.
Our new letter this week is Ll, and the Alphafriend is Larry Lion. We have a new word this week, is. We will also introduce another vowel sound this week, Ii, and that Alphafriend is Iggy Iguana. We are now half-way through our kindergarten year, as we had our 90th day of school last week!
We are starting a new math topic this week: numbers to 30. Even though we have completed the numbers to 20 topic, many children have more difficulty with the numbers between 10 and 20 than they have with numbers between 20 and 30. Please check in with your children on recognition of numbers below 20. As a reminder, a good reinforcement website for math concepts is the link I've sent you before-- http://www.ixl.com The school paid for this website for the year for all kindergartners to use, so take advantage of it, as the membership will expire in June. The info on how to log in is posted on the right-hand side of this web page, under the tab, "Kindergarten Websites." The ixl website is broken up into all the kindergarten standards, so you can easily choose topics that your child needs more reinforcement on. Check it out!
Much of our art this week is around a penguin theme, which is always fun for the kids. We are also beginning our new Social Studies unit on geography and mapping. We have SPARK P.E. on Friday, so send your children in their sneakers and class t-shirts.
This Wednesday, there is another school-wide Spirit Day. The theme is "Patriot Day." The children may wear red, white, and blue, or they may also wear camouflage gear. Again, these days are entirely optional.
Another fun day to mark your calendars for is 100 day on Wednesday the 2nd. This is an in-class celebration of our 100th day of school. We will have many fun activities for counting out 100. This is another very memorable day for the children. The sharing theme next week, in honor of 100 day, will be a collection of 100 things. This does not have to be anything fancy-- the kids can bring in 100 pennies, Legos, Cheerios, etc. The main thing is that you & your child sit down together to count out the item. You can count them by 1s or put them into 10 groups of 10-- whatever your child prefers. It is a fun activity for them to see the different ways that "100" can look, so start discussing with your children what they'd like to bring in next week.
On Monday, February 7th, mark your calendars for Snow Day!! This is a day when the children come to school all dressed in their snow gear-- whatever items you have. Mittens, knit hats, jackets, snow boots, scarves, goggles, etc. are all welcome! Please do not buy anything special for this day, just use what you have or borrow from a friend. They wear their gear, and then we have a day of snow-themed fun! We will be making snowy pictures and having a "snowball fight" using wadded up recycled paper! It is always lots of fun.
This week's share is Book Share. Please have your child prepared to tell the title of the book, and a few sentences about what it's about. Also, have a favorite page bookmarked. Thanks!
Helpers/Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Red Bags due, Centers (Tammy & Laura), Sharing, Library
TUESDAY: Centers (Wendy & Manami), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Red Bags/Weds. Envelopes prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Sharing, Computers (Margaret), Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Centers (Arden & Kristi), Sharing
FRIDAY: Sharing, SPARK P.E. (Tim, Margaret, Megan/Mark, Angie/Derek)
Upcoming Events:
1/26: Patriot Day (wear red, white, & blue or camouflage)
1/28: Wear class t-shirts & sneakers (SPARK P.E.)
2/2: 100 Day
2/4: Field trip to CA Theater Center to see a play
2/7: Snow Day (dress up in snow gear and have a day of "snow" activities)
Week of 2/20: No School: President's Week
