Dear Parents,
We had a great first week searching for and finding our runaway
Gingerbread Men and getting to know one another, along with beginning
our Language Arts workbook! Right now, our workbook pages are focusing
on a quick overview of the alphabet—one letter a
day, in alphabetical order. We familiarize ourselves with all the names
of our classmates by looking for those letters in each person’s name.
Of course, when we are done with the overview, we will begin a more
intense study of each letter—a week per consonant/vowel,
along with meeting that letter’s “Alphafriend.” The Alphafriends go
along with our reading program and help the children remember letter
names & sounds in a fun & catchy way.
We will also begin our math program this week. Our first unit is on
sorting & classifying. Children will study how things are alike and
different, and sort them accordingly.
In the next few weeks, we will be listening to familiar tales (Three
Pigs, Three Billy Goats Gruff, etc.) and nursery rhymes. Hearing
different versions of familiar tales and rhymes is a fun way to get
children engaged in reading.
During the past week, I have observed that many of the students will
need to work on name-writing skills. One of our kindergarten standards
is writing a name with one capital letter and the rest lower-case. We
will begin practicing this in class by tracing
our names on a worksheet, but I encourage you to reinforce this at
home-- we try and drop the all-capital letter name writing as quickly as
possible. The faster children can write their names correctly, the
easier it is for them to get going on assignments,
as we encourage them to write their names first. We appreciate your
help with this.
In class, your child will be using a program called, "Handwriting
without Tears." This is a wonderful program that really focuses on
correct formation of letters along with correct pencil grip. We find
that it is so important to get in good habits (and in
some cases, break bad habits) with handwriting early on. We have
already begun the basics of this program-- starting with a jazzy song
called "We Start our Letters at the Top"-- and we will use it in
conjunction with our letter program in language arts. When
your child is learning about the letter "s," s/he will also be learning
the correct formation of that letter.
Back-to-School Night is this Wednesday in K2. The schedule for the night is as follows:
6:00-6:45: Mrs. Sheikh's class meets in K2
6:45-7:15: All classes meet in the cafeteria for a Home & School Club presentation
7:15-8:00: Mrs. Grist's class meets in K2
This is a
night for parents only, as I go over our curriculum and classroom
policies. Please make every effort to attend. I cover a lot of
information that night in only 45 minutes, so afterwards, if
you need more information on anything, please don’t hesitate to contact
me. Please also plan on attending the Home & School Club meeting in
the cafeteria. If you are unable
to attend Back-to-School Night, please let me
know so that I can set aside materials for you.
One item I will be covering during our meeting is the Consolidated
Classroom Payment. The CCP is a payment that each grade level at Alta
Vista asks for at the beginning of each year. It is different than a
donation to the Home & School Club, which goes
to school-wide programs such as Art Vistas, Clay, etc. This payment
goes directly to your child. Rather than asking for money and items
every time we have an event, the kindergarten team has totaled up what
our costs will be for the entire year. So instead
of paying for your child's entrance fee each time we have a field trip,
or running out to buy a pillow case when we have our Thanksgiving Feast
(it's part of the costume), we ask for the money for these items up
front. Then we go out and do the purchasing
in bulk, saving you time and money. The CCP for kindergarten this year
is around $65-- I will get the exact total for you before
Back-to-School Night. Please do whatever you can to make this payment,
as it covers the costs of your own child's supplies and
entrance fees and bus fees. Even if you can only make a partial
payment at this time-- every little bit helps. If for some reason we
don’t spend all of the money, it stays with your child and will go
toward their first grade consolidated payment.
It is a lot easier to collect this payment at Back-to-School Night,
so I’d appreciate it if you bring your checkbooks. Plus, there's
usually a school-wide contest to see which class can get their CCP
payments in first, and K2 has won that contest for the
past three years, earning a class pizza party! We would love to win
again! If this payment is a hardship, the Home & School Club does
help supplement the CCP money for our grade level. Thank you in advance
for your support with this payment—it helps us do
a lot of projects and activities that would otherwise not be possible.
Some of you have asked about classroom help. I will put our parent
helper opportunities back out at Back-to-School Night, then make the
final schedule. You will find out which days you are officially helping
after I have a chance to look over all of the
information, and make sure I have coverage for all the activities and
days. If you sign up to help at center time, we will begin centers the
week of September 9th. Thank you to so many of you who signed up to
help at the Orientation—we already have most of
our activities covered!
There is no school this Friday, August 31st, or Monday, September 3rd. Friday there will be a staff development meeting throughout the
district, and Monday is of course Labor Day.
I am looking forward to another fun week with your children, and I am excited to meet and talk with you all Wednesday night!
Upcoming Events:
8/29: Back-to-School Night
8/31: No School: Staff Development Day
9/3: No School: Labor Day
9/7: Alta Vista Movie Night
9/20: Family Science Night
9/26: Wacky Wednesday
9/28: School Picture Day
10/20: Alta Vista Walkathon
