Dear Parents,
We have an exciting week ahead of us with Open House on Wednesday. The kids are very excited to show off their
work and art projects, so please plan on coming-- the whole family is
welcome! Open House is at 7:00 to 8:00, following a 6:30 Home &
School Club meeting to approve the 2014-15 Home & School Club board.
We have another review week covering several consonants this week (Dd, Jj, Nn, Ww).
All letters have now been introduced, so please work on practicing
both writing and reading consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words. Your
children should be able to read all of those types of words using their
letter sounds and blending skills-- cut, bus, rat, sip, hot, etc.
This is a really important skill to work on now and through the
summer, as this is something your children will be expected to do
proficiently in first grade. Books such as the leveled Scholastic
Readers, Bob Books, I Can Read Books, and Ready to Read Books are great
for reinforcing blending skills and practicing fluency. Please keep
your children reading 20-30 minutes daily now and through the summer.
Also, continue working on the sight words. They need to know all 40,
and in first grade, the list increases to 100 words. That list can be
found on the first grade page here: http://www.unionsd.org/cms/lib07/CA01001465/Centricity/Domain/97/100_Sight_Words.pdf: I can't
emphasize enough that the best way to help your child become a
successful reader is to offer plenty of opportunity for practice.
Speaking of plenty of practice-- the Alta Vista Book Fair is a great source for new books for your children, and it is open through this Thursday the 22nd. It will also be open during Open House, if you'd like to make purchases at that time. Stop by & check it out!
This is our last week of centers! I'd like to thank all of the volunteers
for their commitment to coming in weekly to help us in the classroom.
This was an amazing year for classroom help-- whenever somebody was
unable to come in, someone else stepped right up as a sub. That
small-group instruction time is so important, and without all of the
helpers, it would not have been possible. Thank you, thank you!
The
upcoming final 18 days (can you believe it??) will be devoted to
reviewing concepts that we have learned in kindergarten. We will introduce our final two sight words, by and his. I have also been and will continue to be administering the final round of assessments to evaluate
your children for the 3rd trimester report cards. Those report cards
will come home with your children on the last day of school.
We are also continuing our animal unit in science. We studied our goldfish & guppies this past week, and next week, we will be looking at worms! We were excited to see most of our caterpillars go into chrysalids last Friday. The children are really enjoying this hands-on opportunity to take a closer look at several different species.
Please send in your Blue Bags tomorrow. You will no longer see the Blue
Bags! Please use the extra time in the upcoming weeks to do "virtual
homework assignments." I would like to see the children spending at
least 15 minutes a day on either Lexia or ixl.com for the next few
weeks. I have not confirmed whether or not Lexia will be available
through the summer, so please make use of it in these final weeks while
you still definitely have access to it. The ixl.com membership is only
for 30 days-- please take advantage of it. I would also encourage using
the extra time to read, read, read!
Upcoming Events:
5/21: Open House 7:00-8:00
5/27: In-class presentation from YSI, "Life in the Pond"
5/28: May's Wacky Wednesday
6/5: Art Vista's Art Show 5:30-8:00
6/10: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony-- 8:30 (a.m.) and 1:00 (p.m.)
6/11: June's Wacky Wednesday & Olympic Day
6/12: Last Day of School: all students come from 8:05-11:25
