Dear Parents,
Walk-a-thon week is finally here! As you know, this is a very fun family event, and the biggest fundraiser for Alta Vista. We will do our practice laps this week, so when your children check in on Saturday morning, they will already have a foot on their Walk-a-thon lanyard. Please join us for some great exercise, fun, and fundraising!
In class this week, we will be focusing on the letter Mm. We will also have a new sight word, see. We will also begin some Halloween projects. We have a fun book coming up that is about a ghost who changes colors, depending on what he eats. We will have some great discussions about food and colors!
In math, we will start a new math topic tomorrow on numbers 6-10. Please continue reviewing the concept of "more" and "fewer" with your children, as that was difficult for many. Ask how many you would have if you have one more, one fewer, etc.
This week's sharing is Song, Poem, or Nursery Rhyme. We'd like to have your children come up and recite a short song, poem, or rhyme that is familiar. Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, singing the ABCs, singing Twinkle, Twinkle, etc., are all popular kindergarten choices. Another option is to sing one of the Alphafriend songs. They can sing last week's song, Sammy Seal. This is also a great opportunity for children who speak more than one language to bring in a song or rhyme they know in that language. We always really enjoy to hear other languages for this share.
We had our first Cornerstone lesson last Friday with Wendy Rowatt & Jen Lipscomb. Cornerstone is a social skills development program that helps teach children ways to interact with one another respectfully. Thank you Wendy & Jen for volunteering to read the stories and lead the activities that go with this program.
This week, we will begin assessing your children at center time so that we have up-to-date information to share with you at conference time. We will be working with them individually to check them on things such as letter recognition, letter sounds, rhyming, etc. We look forward to sharing this information with you in early November. This of course means that it is also time to sign up for conferences! We will be sending out our conference sign-up sheet this week. Remember that while Mrs. Sheikh & I discuss your child's progress and do report cards together, you will only be meeting with one of us. On the schedule, we have indicated who you will be conferencing with. When you receive the form via e-mail, please select THREE times that are convenient for you, and we will send out a confirmation with your time as soon as we put together our schedule. The sooner you return the form (either e-mail your time preferences to us, or print out the form and send it back to us) the more likely you will get your first choice for a time! Please note that Mrs. Sheikh and I prefer to do one conference per child. In the case of divorced parents, we prefer that we all come together at the same time to hear the same information so that we are all on the same page-- working together to help and support the child's learning. If this is a huge problem, please let us know, but we have found that this has always worked well in the past.
Red bags, with homework folders inside are due tomorrow. Thanks for being so great about returning those!
MONDAY: Centers (Megan & Kristi), Sharing, Library, Red Bags Due
TUESDAY: Centers (Jamie & Wendy), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Red Bags & Wednesday Envelopes prepped (Karla/Angie/Derek), Computers (Matt), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Centers (Arden & Margaret), Sharing
FRIDAY: Sharing, ZUMBA!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Saturday, 10/16: 9:00 am Alta Vista Back Field: Walk-a-thon
Friday, 10/29: 8:15 am: Kindergarten Halloween Parade & Party
Friday, 10/29: 1:00 pm: School-wide Halloween Parade (come back and join us if you'd like!)
Monday, 11/8: Parent-Teacher Conferences begin
Thursday, 11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
Friday, 11/12: No School: Staff Development Day
Monday, 11/22: Thanksgiving Friendship Feast
Tuesday, 11/23: Grandparent's Day, grades K-2
Friday, 12/17: 10:00 am Nutcracker Performance (don't miss this annual kindergarten favorite!)
