Week of 9/25

Dear Parents,

We had another fun week in K2, culminating in the apple-themed STEAM Day on Friday. I will send out a video of the day-- thank you to Pauline, Ching, and Ousmane for their help with these centers.

This Wednesday is a district-wide "no homework night." The intent of "no homework nights" is that you enjoy some family time, like a game night, an evening walk, etc. If you have older students, nobody should have homework, so I hope you do something fun as a family! Even though our blue bags are not really "homework," we will hold off sending them home for one more day and you will receive them Thursday this week. Wednesday envelopes will go home as usual.

You should all have received your Grasshopper t-shirts on Wednesday in your child's blue bag. From now on, we will try and wear our Grasshopper shirts on Wednesdays for P.E. This is just a fun way to show team spirit, and is totally optional.

Language Arts:
We have been introducing the sight words (also called high-frequency words) for several weeks now. So far, we have introduced I, see, my, and like. This week, we will introduce can. These are words that the children should know instantly, by sight, when the words are shown to them. Many of these words cannot be sounded out. There is a link on this webpage (called "High Frequency Word List") that has the list of sight words so that you can begin practicing with your child. We have also been sending home a list of sentences for your child to read to you that have the sight words. Please listen to your child read these sentences each week when they come home. There are 40 words that we will be covering this year. Words that have an asterisk next to them are words that I've introduced in class. I will be assessing the children on these words each trimester for report card information, and they continue using the sight words in first grade (their list has 100 words), so these are important words to master. If your child has already mastered the 40 kindergarten words, you can find the first grade words here.

We began running all five literacy centers in our "Daily 5" reading program this week. Children will now be meeting with a teacher daily for targeted reading lessons during this time, and will receive differentiated lessons depending on their ability as we continue with this program.

This week's letters are Kk and Ll. We continue to use Heidisongs Singalong Songs for Letters to introduce/review the letters and sounds. If you'd like to offer further reinforcement at home, information on this DVD (it can also be streamed on Vimeo) can be found here.

Our stories this week will center around Johnny Appleseed (his birthday is Tuesday) and books about Trees.

Math:
We are still working our way through Module 1 in Eureka Math, "Numbers to 10." We are in the section "Numerals to 5 in Different Configurations." You can find a link for helping your children at home here.

Science:
We are beginning our FOSS Science unit on trees. The children will be looking at different trees on the Alta Vista campus this week. They will also be learning the parts of trees and talking about how trees change during the different seasons. We will also be putting together some tree puzzles.

STEAM
In this week's STEAM centers, we will be doing some building with KEVA Planks. We will also further our coding skills with a program called Kodable.

Walkathon
I want to remind you again that the Walkathon is coming up quickly on Saturday, October 21st! The children will do a practice lap with me some time before the 21st.  The practice lap will give them a sense of where they will be walking and how big the lap is, and they will also earn their first "foot," which they will receive the Friday before the walkathon. The children will be collecting these plastic feet on a necklace on the day of the event.  Every five laps at the walkathon, they add a foot to the necklace chain. When the children come to school on Monday following the Walkathon, they love to wear the necklace to show-off all the laps they completed!  You can continue registering your children and checking our progress on the walkathon website: http://www.altavistawalkathon.org   I hope you are all planning to come out for the Walkathon-- it is a great community event & your child won't want to miss it.

**Please remember your child's Blue Bag tomorrow.

Helpers & Activities This Week
Monday: Blue Bags returned (Ying), Daily 5, Centers (Camille & Chris H.)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Lawrence & Josie)
Wednesday: Recess 101, Wednesday Envelopes go home, Family Night
Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Tanya & Elena), Blue Bags go home
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Lynda & Jackie)

Upcoming Events:
Saturday 10/21: Alta Vista Walkathon
Wednesday 10/25: Field trip to Spina Farms Pumpkin Patch
Tuesday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party
Monday 11/6: Parent-Teacher Conferences begin
Thursday 11/9: No School: Staff Development Day
Friday 11/10: No School: Veteran's Day
Friday 11/17: Friendship Feast
Friday 12/22: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performances