Dear Parents,
I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving break. I'd like to thank all of you for making the Feast such a success! We had a wonderful spread of food, and the children all looked darling! Thanks to the MANY parents who helped with that event.
Now...onto a very busy but exciting time in kindergarten as we prepare for our Nutcracker presentation on the 19th, as well as continue with all the academics & seasonal artwork!
Academics
We will have a new letter this week, Vv, and the Alphafriend is Vinnie Volcano. We will also have a new high frequency word, to. We will begin a math topic on addition this week. We will do a lot of manipulative-based activities to build a visual understanding of math facts. Any reinforcement you can provide at home on this would be great, as this is obviously a core concept.
At the side of this webpage, there is a link for kindergarten websites. There is one website, http://www.spellingcity.com/k2grist that I'd like you all to check out with your children. This is a fun way to reinforce both the sight words and short-vowel words that they will be expected to recognize and spell in kindergarten. I have pre-loaded the list of sight words onto Spelling City, but if you want to make your own list of short-vowel words, you can do that, too. In addition to Spelling City, you may also want to check out: www.raz-kids.com Information on how to log onto this site was sent out previously. Please email me if you need help with this.
We will return to centers for the next two weeks, then we take a break from centers again the week of December 14th. Please check the helper schedule.
This week's sharing is Toy in a Bag. Please have your child bring in any toy hidden in a bag, with three clues written about it to help the rest of the class guess what's inside. If children would like to start attempting writing their own clues with single words as prompts (e.g.: furry, brown, cuddly for "bear") that would be great!
Upcoming
Thank you for returning your blue bags last week. If you still have a white envelope, please send it in on Monday. Blue Bags will go home for the next two weeks. They will not go home on December 17th.
On December 17th, we will be having our annual "Nutcracker Hat Party." We need parents to come in straight after the p.m. class's Wacky Wednesday (1:20) to help make all the paper parts of the Nutcracker costumes. Children are invited to play in the classroom while parents create from provided patterns. If all goes well, this will last about an hour: 1:20 to 2:20 or so. Please let us know if you can join!
Looking forward to seeing everyone Monday!
Upcoming Events:
12/17: December's Wacky Wednesday/Nutcracker "Hat Party" (parents come in to help make costume pieces)
12/19: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m. class) & 1:30 (p.m. class)
12/22-1/4/15: Winter Break
1/15: Incoming Kindergarten Parent Info Night @ 6:00 pm
1/19: Martin Luther King Holiday: No School
1/28: January's Wacky Wednesday
