We are excited to have parent helpers start in the classroom this
week for centers! As
a reminder to center helpers, for the next two weeks, centers run from about 10:30 to the end of
the day (basically). When you arrive, please go to the office to sign
in & get a visitor's sticker (the gates will be locked, and this is how you must enter the campus during the school day). Then just come straight to the
classroom-- enter through the front door (it's propped open partially)
& you will catch my explanation of the center to the children so
that you know what the expectation is. If there is clean-up involved at
the end of centers, if you could stay for a bit afterwards to help with
that so that, I'd appreciate it. Thank you so much-- the schedule for
centers each week will always be posted below, in addition to the link
on the right, "Helper Schedule."
We begin our unit on apples this week. I have heard from a couple of you that you have apple trees. If you could please send in apples that you don't plan on eating any time this week (most of our apple activities will be next week) we'd appreciate it. We'll use those for apple stamping, apple rolling, and apple dissecting. The other apples that we plan on tasting will be purchased with your generous CCP donations. Thank you!
**Remember to send in
your child's Blue Bag on Monday, with the book, reference folder, and its contents inside. Just leave that in there all year long. You will receive a new
book again on Wednesday.
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's letters are Ii and Jj, and our sight word is the. Keep
reading & reviewing the sight word sentences as they come home each
week in the Wednesday envelope. Our books this week will be
about apples, both fiction and non-fiction.
Math:
We
will be 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. Parent tips for this unit can be found here.
Science
We will begin
reading and learning about apples and apple trees.
STEAM/Dot Day (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math)
We will have our first STEAM centers on Friday. Coincidentally, Friday also follows "Dot Day." Dot Day is named in honor of the book The Dot by
Peter H. Reynolds. It is a day "celebrating all that creativity
inspires and invites." In one of our STEAM centers Friday, children will
be designing their own dot and then viewing it using the augmented
reality app Quiver. I will post their images from that project on SeeSaw, which you should've hopefully already joined. We posted another item in SeeSaw last Friday, where children designed a sneaker for Pete the Cat.
In addition to that, children will also be programming a Bee-Bot.
We will be using a number grid to build our familiarity with numbers
while we program the Bee-Bot to go to different numbers on the grid.
We
are incorporating STEAM centers into our program once a week, and we
look forward to much collaboration, innovation, trial & error, and
excitement in the process! For more information on STEM/STEAM (used
interchangeably) in the primary classroom, read this article.
**This is the final week of assessments! Thank you for bringing your children for this-- it is a huge help to me. The link is here to confirm your time.
**There are still a few open spots on the helper calendar, which can be found here.
This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Gomathi & Tiffany H.)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & Marylu)
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., Visit to the Makerspace, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Doreen & Lauren)
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Gomathi & Hema)
Upcoming Events:
Week of 9/16: Classroom Centers Begin
Friday 10/11: YSI Field Trip "Animal Adaptations"
Saturday 10/19: Alta Vista Walkathon
Thursday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party@ 8:30
