I hope you are enjoying a nice long weekend. We had a lot of fun this past week with a few STEAM activities around some fairy tales and nursery rhymes. See the email link for pictures of these activities!
Language Arts
We will begin launching the Fundations program in the upcoming weeks, which is a language arts program that we've been using for the past few years. A big focus of this program is learning the correct formation of letters, hand-in-hand with learning their sounds. Handwriting serves to link visual processing with motor experience, facilitating subsequent letter recognition skills. The expectation is that by the end of the first trimester (early November) students know all their letters & sounds. Every week, I will link a parent support letter with ideas on how to reinforce what we're learning at school at home.
We will begin launching the Fundations program in the upcoming weeks, which is a language arts program that we've been using for the past few years. A big focus of this program is learning the correct formation of letters, hand-in-hand with learning their sounds. Handwriting serves to link visual processing with motor experience, facilitating subsequent letter recognition skills. The expectation is that by the end of the first trimester (early November) students know all their letters & sounds. Every week, I will link a parent support letter with ideas on how to reinforce what we're learning at school at home.
We will also continue with our drawing unit this week. The kindergarten team started using this program a few years ago, and we found that by teaching students how to draw, their written stories for the entire year were so much better. Often, we ask children to map out their stories first by drawing. If they get stuck in the drawing step, they can't fully express themselves in writing. Studies show that explicitly teaching drawing in conjunction with writing contributes to better literacy skills.
Math
After a brief overview of shapes last week (we will return to shapes in Module 2 of our math program) we started Module 1: Counting and Cardinality. This module includes counting experiences that integrate the four parts of the number core: number sequence, cardinality, one-to-one correspondence, and written number symbols. Students connect sorting a group into parts and decomposing numbers. A "Family Math" letter accompanies each topic in the module, and these will be sent home in your child's Wednesday Envelope.
Social-Emotional Learning
This week, we will be discussing "Zones of Regulation." We'll talk about how at different times, we feel different ways, but that all feelings are ok. We'll also discuss how if we get in the "red zone" (angry) or "blue zone" (sad) or "yellow zone" (silly) that our goal is to get back to the "green zone" as soon as we can. Again, it is ok to be in other zones, but we want our body to be feeling good in the green zone. At the end of the week, your children will be bringing home a poster with these 4 zones/feelings illustrated on the poster. I'd love if you'd have them hang the poster somewhere in your house and use the same language at home. For example: "It looks like you're in the red zone. It's ok to be mad, but we can't be mean. What would bring you back to the green zone?" By working together and using a common language, I think it will help the students get a handle on their range of emotions and more easily be able to get back to the green zone.
Wednesday Envelopes
This Wednesday, you will receive your child's first "Wednesday Envelope." Since most communications from the school are now online, and most work in the classroom is hands-on, this will often only contain a few items of completed work from the classroom. It will also contain the parent letters from our math program, with great ideas for games and activities to do at home to help your children build their math skills and increase their mental math abilities. Please look over the items and work in the envelope to see any areas where your child may need additional support. Every Thursday, please return the empty envelope to school so that we can send their work home each Wednesday in that envelope. There will be a basket on the picnic table on Thursday morning where your children can return their envelopes each week.
Enrichment/Classroom Help Update
Help is still needed for the schoolwide enrichment programs! Thank you to all our volunteers for the Art Vista program-- we are all set there. However, we only have one volunteer for the Clay program, and we critically need a lead for clay. There are only two clay projects per year, and they are already pre-selected in kindergarten. There are four clay events, because each project has a glazing date as well as the date when the project is created. If you can help with the clay program, we need you! The training sessions will be coming up soon, so if you are thinking about signing up, you will be fully trained. We also need party leads for Halloween, the holiday party, and the end of year. Please follow the link here to sign up.
Soon, I will also send out a Sign Up Genius for library helpers. Library visits start on Wednesday the 11th. Our library time is every Wednesday, from 9:10 to 9:30. We will have sign-ups for both a check-out person and a story reader. I hope to see many of you in the library! It's a fun way to help out with a very small time commitment. Remember that if you plan on helping at all this year, the Volunteer Code of Conduct must be filled out at least two weeks in advance of the first time you help. It is best to just fill it out right away so that you are all set for the year, since this only needs to be filled out once per school year.
Thank you also for your continued donations to the C.A.G.E. drive to support our enrichment programs. If you haven't had a chance to donate yet, please consider donating by going to this link: https://altavistahsc.
Upcoming Events
Monday, 9/2: No School: Labor Day
Thursday, 9/12: Be Seen & Heard Assembly
Tuesday, 9/24: Picture Day
