We had a great first week of centers and sharing! Thanks so much to all our center helpers. I appreciate your diligence in coming on time, working with the children, and finding substitutes when you are unable to come. All went very well last week!
Remember to send in your child's Blue Bag on Monday, with the homework folder inside. No need to pull the homework folder out and turn it in separately-- I have several parent helpers who will go through all the bags and pull out the homework. You will receive a new book and some new homework again on Wednesday.
We have an assembly this week called "Be a Hero," followed by "Character Day" on the 22nd. Character Day is a global initiative that Alta Vista is becoming a part of this year. For more information about it, go to the website here.
Alta Vista's Walkathon is coming right up, and I hope to see everyone out there! The students had a kickoff assembly this past Friday (kindergarten didn't attend due to STEAM centers) and we will be talking to the kindergartners this week about this amazing school-wide event. Please mark your calendars for Saturday, October 15th, and plan to come out for this great community-building day-- your child won't want to miss it!
Language Arts:
Our "Daily Phonemic Awareness" activities have been focusing on many different skills. We've been breaking apart compound words and putting them back together. We've been deleting parts of words and stating what is left. We have also been identifying beginning and ending sounds, and working on rhyming.
This week, we will be reading the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. In this book, the main character is teased because of her long name. By the end of the story, she learns to be proud of her name and its meaning. We will do some fun activities around the story, and for homework, the children will be comparing their own names to Chrysanthemum's in various ways.
We will be focusing on the letters Ii and Jj and our sight word this week is like.
This week's share is book share. Remember, if you ever forget what the share topic is (or I forget to mention it), it is marked on the calendar on our web page. For book share, I'd like the children to come prepared with this general script:
1) My book is called:______________
2) It is about: ___________________
3) My favorite page is: (have favorite page bookmarked)________________
We will continue looking at numbers to 5 and begin decomposing numbers. We will play some fun math games while we will look at combinations that make up a number. For example, 5 can be 1 & 4, 2 & 3, 5 & 0. Obviously, this sets them up for pre-addition skills. We will also be learning some counting skills so that children can count one-to-one, no matter what the arrangement of the items is (scattered, in a circle, in a grid, etc.)
Science:
We will wrap up our apple study this week, and begin our FOSS science unit on Trees & Leaves at the end of the week.We will be studying different types of trees, deciduous trees vs. evergreen trees, and taking a close look at parts of a tree. FOSS science units provide fun, hands-on lessons for the kids.
STEAM:
This week's STEAM centers will be apple-themed, and our Alta Vista STEAM TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment) Ms. Puliese, will be leading these exciting investigations. We will be building structures with apple pieces & toothpicks, investigating whether apples sink or float, dissecting apples, and seeing how far apples roll! Last week, we had a ball investigation, where we looked at different types of balls and made predictions about which bounced the highest, which rolled the farthest, etc. We also programmed our Bee-Bot again, this time writing the code on a whiteboard. Finally, we used Osmo again, but this time we did some elementary physics using the Newton kit.
Please note below: we have set the dates for the Friendship Feast & the Nutcracker performance-- mark your calendars-- you won't want to miss out :)
This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags (Asma), Centers (Marylu & Minna), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers cancelled due to "Be a Hero"Assembly, Sharing
Wednesday: Recess 101 with Coach Sierra, Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: STEAM Centers (Anna G. & Claire K.), Global Character Day, Sharing
Friday: Centers (Gus), Sharing
Upcoming Events:
Tuesday 9/20: "Be a Hero" assembly
Thursday 9/22: Character Day
Friday 9/30: Picture Day
Monday 10/10: Field trip to see a play
Saturday 10/15: Alta Vista Walkathon
Friday 10/28: Halloween Parade & Party
Monday 10/31: No School: Staff Development Day
Friday 9/30: Picture Day
Monday 10/10: Field trip to see a play
Saturday 10/15: Alta Vista Walkathon
Friday 10/28: Halloween Parade & Party
Monday 10/31: No School: Staff Development Day
11/1-11/10: Parent-Teacher Conferences
Friday 11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
Friday 11/18: Friendship Feast
11/21-11/25: Thanksgiving Vacation
Friday 12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performances
