Week of 2/5

Dear Parents,

We had a fun-filled week last week with Global School Play Day, Art Vista Fish Prints, and 100 Day! Wow! Thank you for all the wonderful projects & collections you helped your children prepare for our 100 Day sharing this week. It was fun to see the many different ways 100 could look.

Looking ahead to this week, we have our second Clay lesson this Wednesday the 8th. We need a lot of additional helpers for this lesson. Please contact Asma if you are able to help.

Language Arts:
This week's word families will be et/en/eg. As part of our lessons on word families, we have been showing the children word family videos on YouTube by an educational company called Little Fox. The students have been enjoying these videos, and they are easy to find online if you'd like to provide additional reinforcement at home.

Our story this week is The Mitten by Jan Brett. We will be focusing on different animals in this story, especially the hedgehog, to also do some non-fiction writing and reading.

Our sight word this week is here. This word is often confused with last week's word, have, because they both start and end with the same letters. Keep reinforcing the sight words at home to work toward greater reading fluency.

The sharing this week is Toy Share. Please have your children hide a toy in a bag, prepare three clues about it, and practice their presentation.

Math:
We will continue working on number bonds and ten frames to familiarize ourselves with fact families to 10.  We are also moving into story problems. Parent tips for helping your child with this unit can be found here. Please continue reinforcing the concept at home using apps on iPhones & iPads or logging into their ixl.com account.  Although ixl isn't a "game," it does provide solid reinforcement of the facts & concepts covered in kindergarten.  If you need a reminder of how to log into your child's ixl account, please email me.

Social Studies/Homework:
We will have a special homework project coming home this week. In honor of President's Day, we will be doing a very simple report honoring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The children will complete and color a timeline for each president. There are two timelines, one for Abraham Lincoln, and one for George Washington. Children have to put historical events that happened during these presidents' lifetimes in order. On the back of each of these timelines,  your child is to write one or two sentences about each President. The children will present these facts next week for sharing. It is always fun when the children bring in little-known facts about the Presidents, so do a little research on the web and see what you can find! Of course, it is also okay to stick with basic facts such as "He was the first President." and "He was the sixteenth President." This is their first exposure to doing an oral report, so it is most important to choose a sentence that you think your child will be able to remember and present on his/her own. You do not need to have your child complete a journal entry in the upcoming week since children will be writing about the presidents instead. I do, however, want you to read the book in the bag with your child.

Please send in your child's blue bag on Monday. Enjoy Super Bowl Sunday!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Blue Bags returned (Hosun), Centers (Annie & Minna), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Ann-Marie & Chris), Sharing
Wednesday: Clay (Asma & ????), Recess 101, Blue Bags go home

Thursday: Centers (Claire K. & Alison), Cornerstone (Claire K. & Alison), Sharing
Friday: STEAM Centers (Marylu), Story Time with Grandma Gail, Sharing

Upcoming Events:
Friday 2/10: Alta Vista Family Valentine's Dance
Tuesday 2/14: Valentine's Day celebration
2/20-2/24: President's Week Vacation
Thursday 3/2: Read Across America Day
3/9-3/17: Spring Conferences
Saturday 3/18: Alta Vista Hawaiian Luau/Auction