Welcome!

Dear Parents,

We'd like to welcome you and your children to our kindergarten class, and we were happy to meet so many of you at the orientation.  

Our primary form of communication is via e-mail, so hopefully, you were able to provide an e-mail address to us at the orientation.  If not, please make sure to do so between now and Back-to-School Night.   We will send a few test e-mails between now and then, too, so look for those in your inbox.

The kindergarten daily schedules are:

• 8:05-11:25 AM Session
• 11:30-2:50 PM Session

For Monday:

• Please arrive on time and have your child ready to enter the classroom at the start time.
• Please say goodbye to your children at the door, rather than following them into the classroom and prolonging the goodbyes. We will both be there to comfort any children who need an extra hug!
• Pack a healthy snack for your child that includes a drink.  If your child is attending day care either before or after kindergarten, it is a good idea to separate the snack items from the lunch items, as kindergartners often get confused and will eat all the food in one sitting!
• We do like your children to have a small backpack. Although it may often come home empty (except on Wednesdays!), we do have a project here and there that we send home during the week. Having a backpack gets the children in an early habit of taking responsibility for their things and putting them all in one place.
• All supplies are provided for your children, but we do appreciate donations of baby wipes, tissues, glue sticks, and dry-erase markers.
• The kindergarten parking lot will be closed this year at 7:45 a.m.  This is a new policy due to traffic congestion problems.  Please plan on walking or parking on Westchester between the hours of 7:45 to 8:15 a.m. AND 2:15 to 3:00.

Next week in class will of course be all about procedures and getting to know the children.  We will be reading the story of the "Gingerbread Man" and decorating some gingerbread cookies of our own.  In years past, those gingerbread cookies have run away and so we have to go on a hunt around the school looking for them!  This is our way of familiarizing your children with the campus, and it is an extremely memorable event for the children-- look forward to them coming home and talking all about the gingerbread cookies later next week.  We will also be enjoying the story, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and doing some fun art projects that go along with that.

Please mark your calendars and arrange babysitters for Back-to-School Night on Wednesday, August 29th.   The schedule is as follows:

• 6:00-6:45 AM Class Presentation
• 6:45-7:15 Home & School Club Presentation
• 7:15-8:00 PM Class Presentation

We will go over our classroom policies and procedures, discuss our curriculum, and answer any questions that you may have. Of course, if you have any questions prior to that, please feel free to ask! We are both very good about responding to e-mails.

At the orientation, we provided you with the Alta Vista Student handbook.  Please look over the handbook with your child this weekend and go over all grade-appropriate rules with your child.  Please return the signature page (last page of handbook) to class as soon as possible.

We are looking forward to an exciting year!