We have an exciting week ahead of us with the field trip Wednesday, Halloween Thursday, and no school on Friday. Due to the shortened week and Halloween excitement, we will not be doing Blue Bags this week, but Wednesday envelopes will go home as usual.
Curriculum
We are not going to be introducing a new letter this week due to the shortened week, but we will cover a new word, it. We have begun doing a lot of blending exercises during our opening. This is an important pre-reading skill. We say words with the beginning sound separated, for example, b-ath for bath or f-ox for fox. We ask the children to guess what the word is if they put it back together. This is a great game to play in the car, etc., and really helps them start to learn how to blend isolated sounds into words.
Our sharing this week is Homemade item. Children who normally share on Friday can share any other day this week.
In math, we are wrapping up our unit on 2-dimensional shapes. The children are doing very well with identifying a square, rectangle, circle, triangle, and hexagon. They are also able to tell the features of those shapes, such as a circle is round and has no corners.
Field Trip
A few reminders again about the field trip-- First, it is a Wacky Wednesday for the p.m. class. Both a.m. & p.m. students need to arrive promptly at the start of the day (8:05 & 10:00) or they may miss the bus. Please send your children in their class t-shirts, with a fully disposable snack (please avoid lunch boxes and reusable water bottles on this day as we don't want to have things left behind on the bus). Please try to have the class t-shirt visible-- if your child wears a long-sleeved shirt for warmth, please have it UNDER their class t-shirt so that we can quickly see who is in our group.
Halloween
All Kindergarten children should arrive dressed up in their costumes. The morning class/school-wide parade is at 8:30, between the primary playground and rooms 7, 8, and 9. The afternoon class parade is at 1:00 on the kindergarten playground. Remember that if the costume has a weapon with it (pirate sword, Star Wars lightsaber, etc.) to please leave those at home. No gory costumes/fake blood allowed either, although that's not usually a problem in kindergarten :) Parties will immediately follow the parades. Parents are welcome to attend.
November Events
While on the subject of classroom events, and to give you an opportunity to plan ahead, we have another big event coming up in November. On Friday the 22nd, we have our Thanksgiving Feast. If you can take some time off work to join us, this is a pretty fun and special event. We ask each family to send in a dish for the event-- either a traditional Thanksgiving dish or a dish from your family's cultural background. We always enjoy the wonderful mix of foods that we get. Both K1 & K2 kindergartners come together for this event. The children from our class will be dressed as Pilgrims, and the children in K1 will be dressed as Native Americans. No need to provide any costumes-- we have some special costumes made out of pillowcases that a few parents have offered to cut for us in the upcoming weeks. This event is definitely a great photo-op!
Conferences
I am looking forward to meeting with each of you beginning November 14th for your child's conference. Conferences will be held in the library (a.m. class conferences) or the office conference room (p.m. class conferences) since the kindergarten classes will be in session during most conference times. The conference room is located in the main office, 2nd door to the right after you walk through the swinging half-door. The library is the building directly behind the kindergarten building. If you are unsure of your conference time, please e-mail me. Thanks!
Upcoming Events:
10/30: October's Wacky Wednesday & Field Trip to see a play
10/31: Halloween Parade & Celebration 8:30 & 1:00
11/1: Staff Development Day: No School
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/14-11/22: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/20: November's Wacky Wednesday
11/22: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m. class) and 1:30 (p.m. class)
12/20: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m. class) & 1:30 (p.m. class) 10/31: Halloween Parade & Celebration 8:30 & 1:00
11/1: Staff Development Day: No School
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/14-11/22: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/20: November's Wacky Wednesday
11/22: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m. class) and 1:30 (p.m. class)
