Dear Parents,
Of course, the main "business" of this week is all things Nutcracker! We will be practicing daily this week, so I am canceling centers. We do not have a new letter or any new sight words. Therefore, there will also be no homework/red bags this Wednesday. Enjoy a stress-free week to focus on your holiday preparations!
Please be sure to check the "Helper Schedule" link on the website for the schedule for the next trimester. Let me know if there are any problems. Thanks!
We will be doing some reinforcement pages on addition this week, as we finished the chapter last Thursday. Many students had a difficult time with the chapter test on addition, so this is definitely a concept that needs continued reinforcement at home as well. This week's share is Song, Poem, Nursery Rhyme. Children can choose a song or poem that they are familiar with, or sing an Alphafriend song or a color song that we've learned in class. Songs and poems in other languages are always welcome, too!
We have a Wacky Wednesday this week for the p.m. class, and then afterward, at 1:25, we will be having a costume-making party in K1. We are asking a few parents from each class to come in and help us make the paper costume pieces for the Nutcracker. We have patterns for everything, and it shouldn't take too long. Kids are welcome to play in the room while we work. Thanks to those who have volunteered to come in!
Please continue e-mailing the room moms to let them know what you can bring for our Nutcracker post-party. We will really need everyone's help with a little something for this party-- thanks so much!
A reminder about clothing for the Nutcracker: please remember to dress your children in the clothes suggested in the letter sent home last week. Children should come to school dressed in these items. Girls can wear something over the top of their leotards when they arrive and change into their ballet shoes for the performance. As a reminder, here is the list:
FRITZ: Bathrobe & slippers
NUTCRACKER/SOLDIERS/RUSSIAN DANCERS: White Shirt & Dark Pants w/ dark shoes
MICE: Dark Shirt & Dark Pants & dark shoes
SUGAR PLUM, RIBBON CANDY, FLOWERS: Light colored leotard/light colored tights/ballet slippers or light colored shoes-- leotards with tutus are fine & encouraged for Sugar Plum Fairies & Flowers, especially.
ARABIAN: Light colored fitted shirt w/ leggings OR leotard (we provide the Harem pants)
CHINESE DANCERS: Shirt doesn't matter so much (will be wearing jacket we provide) dark pants.
Please borrow whatever you need to borrow-- we don't intend for anyone to have to buy anything.
Please arrive promptly in the cafeteria for the Nutcracker, as we intend to start the show right on time. We want everyone to enjoy the performance, so please refrain from standing and blocking the aisles as much as possible. Thank you!
Remember to bring your blue bags tomorrow. Starting in January, a journal will be added to the blue bags so that your children can write a response to the book in the bag each week. No blue bags this Wednesday, but there will be Wednesday envelopes. Please return those on Thursday so that they don't get lost over the long holiday.
Happy Holidays!
Upcoming Events:
12/14: December's Wacky Wednesday & Nutcracker Paper Party @ 1:25 (Parent Help Needed!!)
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 1:30 (p.m.)
12/19-1/2: Winter Break
1/16: MLK Holiday
1/25: January's Wacky Wednesday
2/20-2/24: President's Week Break
2/29: February's Wacky Wednesday
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Week of 12/4
Dear Parents,
I will be letting your children know about their Nutcracker parts this week! You will be receiving a notice regarding your child's part, and what s/he should wear on the 16th in this week's Wednesday envelope. Please let me know if there are any problems with gathering up the various clothes needed-- most girls (not all) will be wearing leotards, and most boys will be wearing dark pants and either a light or dark shirt. Hopefully, if there is a clothing item you do not have, you can borrow it, as I do not intend for you to have to buy anything. Again, the performance of the Nutcracker will be at 1:30 on the 16th. Get there a little early (the invitation we are sending home this has a time 10 minutes before the start) so that you can be seated when the performance begins. You won't want to miss it!
Next Wednesday the 14th at 1:20, we will have the "Paper Party" for the Nutcracker costume pieces. I would love to have parent helpers from our class join helpers from all the other kindergarten classes to cut and prepare the paper costume pieces for the Nutcracker performance, using patterns, samples, and materials that we will have ready to go. We will be meeting in K2 to work for no more than an hour on all the bits and pieces.
This week's letter is Cc, and the Alphafriend is Callie Cat. We have two new sight words this week: that and at. We will be continuing with our math unit on addition.
This week's sharing is Letter of the Week share. Please have your child bring in something that starts with Cc. Please write clues and hide it in a bag.
Blue Bags are due tomorrow, and will go home again this Wednesday the 7th. That will be the final Blue Bag before the holidays. When we return from Winter Break, the journal component will be added to the Blue Bags. Your children will be asked to use a page from the journal to respond to the story they read. We would like them to write a sentence about what they liked about the book, and draw a nice picture to go along with it. More details will follow in the Blue Bag on the week of the 2nd.
See you all tomorrow!
Upcoming Events: 12/14: December's Wacky Wednesday & Nutcracker Paper Party @ 1:20 (Parent Help Needed!!)
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
12/19-1/2: Winter Break
1/16: MLK Holiday
1/25: January's Wacky Wednesday
I will be letting your children know about their Nutcracker parts this week! You will be receiving a notice regarding your child's part, and what s/he should wear on the 16th in this week's Wednesday envelope. Please let me know if there are any problems with gathering up the various clothes needed-- most girls (not all) will be wearing leotards, and most boys will be wearing dark pants and either a light or dark shirt. Hopefully, if there is a clothing item you do not have, you can borrow it, as I do not intend for you to have to buy anything. Again, the performance of the Nutcracker will be at 1:30 on the 16th. Get there a little early (the invitation we are sending home this has a time 10 minutes before the start) so that you can be seated when the performance begins. You won't want to miss it!
Next Wednesday the 14th at 1:20, we will have the "Paper Party" for the Nutcracker costume pieces. I would love to have parent helpers from our class join helpers from all the other kindergarten classes to cut and prepare the paper costume pieces for the Nutcracker performance, using patterns, samples, and materials that we will have ready to go. We will be meeting in K2 to work for no more than an hour on all the bits and pieces.
This week's letter is Cc, and the Alphafriend is Callie Cat. We have two new sight words this week: that and at. We will be continuing with our math unit on addition.
This week's sharing is Letter of the Week share. Please have your child bring in something that starts with Cc. Please write clues and hide it in a bag.
Blue Bags are due tomorrow, and will go home again this Wednesday the 7th. That will be the final Blue Bag before the holidays. When we return from Winter Break, the journal component will be added to the Blue Bags. Your children will be asked to use a page from the journal to respond to the story they read. We would like them to write a sentence about what they liked about the book, and draw a nice picture to go along with it. More details will follow in the Blue Bag on the week of the 2nd.
See you all tomorrow!
Upcoming Events: 12/14: December's Wacky Wednesday & Nutcracker Paper Party @ 1:20 (Parent Help Needed!!)
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
12/19-1/2: Winter Break
1/16: MLK Holiday
1/25: January's Wacky Wednesday
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Week of 11/27
Dear Parents,
I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving break. I'd like to thank all of you for making last Monday & Tuesday such a success! We had a wonderful spread of food at the feast, and the children all looked darling! Thanks to the MANY parents who helped with that event. Also, Grandparents' Day was another great event. It was wonderful to see so many Grandparents & friends in our room that day. We had a fun time!
Also, thank you to the parents who sent in glue sticks before the break. If you were able to pick any up while you were out and about the past few days, we can always use more!
Now...onto a very busy but exciting time in kindergarten as we prepare for our Nutcracker presentation on the 16th, as well as continue with all the academics & seasonal artwork!
We will have a new letter this week, Vv, and the Alphafriend is Vinnie Volcano. We will also have a new high frequency word, to. We will begin a math topic on addition this week. Any reinforcement you can provide at home on this would be great, as this is obviously a core concept.
If you look to the right on this web page, there is a link for kindergarten websites. I link a website, http://www.spellingcity.com/k2grist that I'd like you all to check out with your children. This is a fun way to reinforce both the sight words and short-vowel words that they will be expected to recognize and spell in kindergarten. I have pre-loaded the list of sight words onto Spelling City, but if you want to make your own list of short-vowel words, you can do that, too. These are just extra tools to reinforce learning.
We will return to centers both this week and next week, then we take a break from centers again the week of December 11th. Please check the helper schedule below, as well as on the website.
This week's sharing is Book Share. Please send in a book with your child, with a favorite page bookmarked. Children should be prepared to tell the title of the book & a bit about what it's about.
Thank you for returning your blue bags last week. They will go home again this Wednesday as well as the following Wednesday. They will not go home on December 14th.
REMINDER: There is a Wacky Wednesday this Wednesday the 30th. The p.m. class runs from 10:00 to 1:20.
Looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!
Upcoming Events:
11/28: Alta Vista Star-Gazing Night on Upper-Grade Blacktop @ 6:30 p.m.
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
11/30: Dining for $ @ Armadillo Willy's 5:00-9:00 p.m.
12/14: December's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
12/19-1/2: Winter Break
1/16: MLK Holiday
1/25: January's Wacky Wednesday
I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving break. I'd like to thank all of you for making last Monday & Tuesday such a success! We had a wonderful spread of food at the feast, and the children all looked darling! Thanks to the MANY parents who helped with that event. Also, Grandparents' Day was another great event. It was wonderful to see so many Grandparents & friends in our room that day. We had a fun time!
Also, thank you to the parents who sent in glue sticks before the break. If you were able to pick any up while you were out and about the past few days, we can always use more!
Now...onto a very busy but exciting time in kindergarten as we prepare for our Nutcracker presentation on the 16th, as well as continue with all the academics & seasonal artwork!
We will have a new letter this week, Vv, and the Alphafriend is Vinnie Volcano. We will also have a new high frequency word, to. We will begin a math topic on addition this week. Any reinforcement you can provide at home on this would be great, as this is obviously a core concept.
If you look to the right on this web page, there is a link for kindergarten websites. I link a website, http://www.spellingcity.com/k2grist that I'd like you all to check out with your children. This is a fun way to reinforce both the sight words and short-vowel words that they will be expected to recognize and spell in kindergarten. I have pre-loaded the list of sight words onto Spelling City, but if you want to make your own list of short-vowel words, you can do that, too. These are just extra tools to reinforce learning.
We will return to centers both this week and next week, then we take a break from centers again the week of December 11th. Please check the helper schedule below, as well as on the website.
This week's sharing is Book Share. Please send in a book with your child, with a favorite page bookmarked. Children should be prepared to tell the title of the book & a bit about what it's about.
Thank you for returning your blue bags last week. They will go home again this Wednesday as well as the following Wednesday. They will not go home on December 14th.
REMINDER: There is a Wacky Wednesday this Wednesday the 30th. The p.m. class runs from 10:00 to 1:20.
Looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!
Upcoming Events:
11/28: Alta Vista Star-Gazing Night on Upper-Grade Blacktop @ 6:30 p.m.
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
11/30: Dining for $ @ Armadillo Willy's 5:00-9:00 p.m.
12/14: December's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
12/19-1/2: Winter Break
1/16: MLK Holiday
1/25: January's Wacky Wednesday
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Week of 11/20
Dear Parents,
We have a fun & memorable two days this week with the Feast on Monday and Grandparents' Day on Tuesday. Due to the short week & special activities, there will be no homework, no sharing, and there will be no new sight words or letters. This is a review week.
Tomorrow, please join us for the Friendship Feast with K1. Our class will be dressed as Pilgrims and K1 will be dressed as Native American Indians. You will not want to miss this great photo-op! Besides, you will want to join in on all the great food being brought by all the kindergarten families! Thanks to everyone for volunteering a dish to bring. Please remember to send it in in the morning so that we can set it out, but if it's a hot dish and you prefer to bring it ready-to-go, just let us know that so that we leave some room on the table :) If you volunteered to help with the costumes or the art project, please come in at the designated times. Thank you!
On Tuesday, we will have Grandparent's Day. If you did not have a chance to RSVP, please e-mail me so that we will have enough chairs. There are plenty of grandparents to go around, so if your child is not having a guest, one of the grandparents will be happy to assist him/her with the project. Please remember also that if your children would like to share photos or memories of grandparents who are not able to visit, that they are welcome to do so. There is a school-wide reception at 10:30 to 10:50, then the grandparents are invited into the classroom after that. The children will introduce their grandparents/guests to the class. I'd like them to tell which side of the family the grandparents are from (mom's, dad's, or both) and where they live (grandparents can help with all of this) and one thing that they like to do together. If the grandparent(s) want to share one thing that they remember about kindergarten, they may do that. After that, we will do an art project with the grandparents-- the "Hands & Foot Turkey" and the grandparents can take that project home with them. It should be a fun but busy morning!
Looking ahead on your calendars at this busy time of year, I wanted to make sure that you are all marking your calendars for Friday, December 16th-- our annual performance of The Nutcracker. This is something that you will not want to miss. To help you clear your calendar, the kindergarten teachers have decided that this year, we will do our class holiday party and the Nutcracker performance all on the same day. In the past, we haven't done this and some parents were torn between taking time off for the holiday party or the performance. We will have a big "cast party" after the performance this year so that we can send the kids off on a great holiday break!
Please remember your child's blue bag tomorrow. We will have no homework or white envelopes this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but on Tuesday, your child will be bringing home several art projects. Please be sure they have backpacks or a bag that day.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
Upcoming Events:
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/14: December's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
12/19-1/2: Winter Break
1/16: MLK Holiday
1/25: January's Wacky Wednesday
We have a fun & memorable two days this week with the Feast on Monday and Grandparents' Day on Tuesday. Due to the short week & special activities, there will be no homework, no sharing, and there will be no new sight words or letters. This is a review week.
Tomorrow, please join us for the Friendship Feast with K1. Our class will be dressed as Pilgrims and K1 will be dressed as Native American Indians. You will not want to miss this great photo-op! Besides, you will want to join in on all the great food being brought by all the kindergarten families! Thanks to everyone for volunteering a dish to bring. Please remember to send it in in the morning so that we can set it out, but if it's a hot dish and you prefer to bring it ready-to-go, just let us know that so that we leave some room on the table :) If you volunteered to help with the costumes or the art project, please come in at the designated times. Thank you!
On Tuesday, we will have Grandparent's Day. If you did not have a chance to RSVP, please e-mail me so that we will have enough chairs. There are plenty of grandparents to go around, so if your child is not having a guest, one of the grandparents will be happy to assist him/her with the project. Please remember also that if your children would like to share photos or memories of grandparents who are not able to visit, that they are welcome to do so. There is a school-wide reception at 10:30 to 10:50, then the grandparents are invited into the classroom after that. The children will introduce their grandparents/guests to the class. I'd like them to tell which side of the family the grandparents are from (mom's, dad's, or both) and where they live (grandparents can help with all of this) and one thing that they like to do together. If the grandparent(s) want to share one thing that they remember about kindergarten, they may do that. After that, we will do an art project with the grandparents-- the "Hands & Foot Turkey" and the grandparents can take that project home with them. It should be a fun but busy morning!
Looking ahead on your calendars at this busy time of year, I wanted to make sure that you are all marking your calendars for Friday, December 16th-- our annual performance of The Nutcracker. This is something that you will not want to miss. To help you clear your calendar, the kindergarten teachers have decided that this year, we will do our class holiday party and the Nutcracker performance all on the same day. In the past, we haven't done this and some parents were torn between taking time off for the holiday party or the performance. We will have a big "cast party" after the performance this year so that we can send the kids off on a great holiday break!
Please remember your child's blue bag tomorrow. We will have no homework or white envelopes this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but on Tuesday, your child will be bringing home several art projects. Please be sure they have backpacks or a bag that day.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
Upcoming Events:
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/14: December's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
12/19-1/2: Winter Break
1/16: MLK Holiday
1/25: January's Wacky Wednesday
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Week of 11/13
Dear Parents,
We hope you were able to enjoy a nice long weekend as we head into a busy week & a half before Thanksgiving!
I have enjoyed meeting with many of you so far during parent-teacher conferences, and have gained some great insights on your children from you. Thank you for meeting with me and being such active participants in your children's educations. I look forward to meeting with the rest of you this week in the office conference room.
We will still be taking a break from centers this week while we continue with parent-teacher conferences, and they won't resume until after Thanksgiving. Then we will start back up with centers for the two weeks before winter break. Last week, I mentioned that I will be working on the helper schedule for 2012 in the upcoming weeks. Please let me know if any changes need to be made to your schedule or if you'd like to be added to the schedule. I will let you know when I post the schedule.
Our new letter this week (and next) is Hh. The Alphafriend is Hattie Horse. Our new sight word is a. We continue on our math topic of more, fewer, and equal. We will also continue with our Social Studies unit on "Times Past."
This week's sharing is Toy in a Bag. Please work with your child to think of three clues about the item that they can recite for the class. There will be no sharing next week due to the shortened week and all the special activities.
We have a Clay glazing lesson this Friday. On Wednesday, there is another school-wide Spirit Day. This one is called "Dress Alike Day." Pair up with some friends and dress in a similar outfit. Or, you can wear your class t-shirt and dress like many others in our class. On Friday, we will have SPARK P.E., weather permitting.
This week, we will also be taking a closer look at the Pilgrims & Native Americans as we talk about the first Thanksgiving. We will be preparing for our upcoming feast on Monday the 21st. If you haven't had a chance to send back the paper regarding the feast (how you can help/what dish you can send) please do so ASAP. If you will not be in town for the Feast, let me know that, too, if you haven't already. It would be great if each child has a parent in attendance. This is a fun time for the kids, as they love to show off their costumes and enjoy the meal with their families. Thanks to those who have already signed up. It looks like we will have plenty of help and many delicious dishes coming our way! Also, if you are still cutting costumes for us, we will need those by the end of this week. Thank you so much!
Next Tuesday the 22nd, we have Grandparents' Day at school for grades K-2. There is a reception in the cafeteria from 10:30-10:50, and then they will come into the classroom with their grandchild and participate in a fun art project called the "Hands and Feet Turkey." The grandparents will be tracing children's hands and a foot to make a cute turkey! The grandparents will get to take this turkey home as a keepsake. If your child does not have a local grandparent, feel free to send an aunt, uncle, special friend, etc. Also, the grandparents that come are always great about taking on additional "grandchildren," so don't worry if you don't have someone available. A form went home about Grandparents' Day in last week's Wednesday envelope. Please let me know if your child has a grandparent(s) coming, and how many will attend so that I can plan for extra chairs.
The Blue Bags will go home again this Wednesday, and then the following week, there will be no homework due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Enjoy all the fun in the next week and a half!
Upcoming Events:
11/14-11/16: Parent-Teacher Conferences Continue
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/14: December's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
We hope you were able to enjoy a nice long weekend as we head into a busy week & a half before Thanksgiving!
I have enjoyed meeting with many of you so far during parent-teacher conferences, and have gained some great insights on your children from you. Thank you for meeting with me and being such active participants in your children's educations. I look forward to meeting with the rest of you this week in the office conference room.
We will still be taking a break from centers this week while we continue with parent-teacher conferences, and they won't resume until after Thanksgiving. Then we will start back up with centers for the two weeks before winter break. Last week, I mentioned that I will be working on the helper schedule for 2012 in the upcoming weeks. Please let me know if any changes need to be made to your schedule or if you'd like to be added to the schedule. I will let you know when I post the schedule.
Our new letter this week (and next) is Hh. The Alphafriend is Hattie Horse. Our new sight word is a. We continue on our math topic of more, fewer, and equal. We will also continue with our Social Studies unit on "Times Past."
This week's sharing is Toy in a Bag. Please work with your child to think of three clues about the item that they can recite for the class. There will be no sharing next week due to the shortened week and all the special activities.
We have a Clay glazing lesson this Friday. On Wednesday, there is another school-wide Spirit Day. This one is called "Dress Alike Day." Pair up with some friends and dress in a similar outfit. Or, you can wear your class t-shirt and dress like many others in our class. On Friday, we will have SPARK P.E., weather permitting.
This week, we will also be taking a closer look at the Pilgrims & Native Americans as we talk about the first Thanksgiving. We will be preparing for our upcoming feast on Monday the 21st. If you haven't had a chance to send back the paper regarding the feast (how you can help/what dish you can send) please do so ASAP. If you will not be in town for the Feast, let me know that, too, if you haven't already. It would be great if each child has a parent in attendance. This is a fun time for the kids, as they love to show off their costumes and enjoy the meal with their families. Thanks to those who have already signed up. It looks like we will have plenty of help and many delicious dishes coming our way! Also, if you are still cutting costumes for us, we will need those by the end of this week. Thank you so much!
Next Tuesday the 22nd, we have Grandparents' Day at school for grades K-2. There is a reception in the cafeteria from 10:30-10:50, and then they will come into the classroom with their grandchild and participate in a fun art project called the "Hands and Feet Turkey." The grandparents will be tracing children's hands and a foot to make a cute turkey! The grandparents will get to take this turkey home as a keepsake. If your child does not have a local grandparent, feel free to send an aunt, uncle, special friend, etc. Also, the grandparents that come are always great about taking on additional "grandchildren," so don't worry if you don't have someone available. A form went home about Grandparents' Day in last week's Wednesday envelope. Please let me know if your child has a grandparent(s) coming, and how many will attend so that I can plan for extra chairs.
The Blue Bags will go home again this Wednesday, and then the following week, there will be no homework due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Enjoy all the fun in the next week and a half!
Upcoming Events:
11/14-11/16: Parent-Teacher Conferences Continue
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/14: December's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Week of 11/6
Dear Parents,
We have a 4 day week this week with Veteran's Day on Friday. Enjoy your 3-day weekend! Also, don't forget to "Fall back."
We begin Parent-Teacher conferences this week, through next Wednesday. Remember that conferences will be held in the Office Conference Room. Walk past Miss Vicki's desk to the 2nd door on the right. Please e-mail me if you need to confirm your time. Also another reminder that the p.m. class schedule will remain the same-- 11:30-2:50-- for the next 2 weeks.
We have no centers for the next three weeks due to Parent-Teacher Conferences and Thanksgiving. However, I will still need help on Wednesdays with Computer Lab & prepping the Wednesday envelopes. We will also continue with SPARK P.E., weather permitting. Centers will resume the week after Thanksgiving. There are a few projects that I may need some help on in class in the upcoming weeks. I will try to send out an e-mail for those projects to see if anyone may be available.
This week's letter is Nn, and the Alphafriend is Nyle Noodle. We will introduce two new sight words, with and be. Our share this week is Homemade Item. Please send in an item that your child made or mostly made at home, a crafting place, party, etc. No need for clues or bags! As always, Friday kids can share any day this week due to the Friday holiday.
Our math topic on comparing numbers continues this week. Children should understand the terms fewer, greater, and equal.
We will begin our Social Studies Unit on Times Past this week. We will be comparing and contrasting modern times to times past.
Please remember to send in your child's Blue Bag, with the homework folder inside, tomorrow. We will not have any homework or Blue Bags this Wednesday due to the long weekend :) Please continue sending in your forms for the Friendship Feast. We need many helpers and plenty of food to make this a success. We are looking forward to a fun event!
I am going to start putting together the helper schedule on the website for 2012. Please e-mail me if any changes need to be made/you need to switch days/etc. If anyone new would like to be added to the schedule, please let me know. Thanks so much to everyone for your generosity with your time-- centers and all enrichment activities have run SO smoothly this year!!
Upcoming Events:
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
12/17-1/2: Winter Break
We have a 4 day week this week with Veteran's Day on Friday. Enjoy your 3-day weekend! Also, don't forget to "Fall back."
We begin Parent-Teacher conferences this week, through next Wednesday. Remember that conferences will be held in the Office Conference Room. Walk past Miss Vicki's desk to the 2nd door on the right. Please e-mail me if you need to confirm your time. Also another reminder that the p.m. class schedule will remain the same-- 11:30-2:50-- for the next 2 weeks.
We have no centers for the next three weeks due to Parent-Teacher Conferences and Thanksgiving. However, I will still need help on Wednesdays with Computer Lab & prepping the Wednesday envelopes. We will also continue with SPARK P.E., weather permitting. Centers will resume the week after Thanksgiving. There are a few projects that I may need some help on in class in the upcoming weeks. I will try to send out an e-mail for those projects to see if anyone may be available.
This week's letter is Nn, and the Alphafriend is Nyle Noodle. We will introduce two new sight words, with and be. Our share this week is Homemade Item. Please send in an item that your child made or mostly made at home, a crafting place, party, etc. No need for clues or bags! As always, Friday kids can share any day this week due to the Friday holiday.
Our math topic on comparing numbers continues this week. Children should understand the terms fewer, greater, and equal.
We will begin our Social Studies Unit on Times Past this week. We will be comparing and contrasting modern times to times past.
Please remember to send in your child's Blue Bag, with the homework folder inside, tomorrow. We will not have any homework or Blue Bags this Wednesday due to the long weekend :) Please continue sending in your forms for the Friendship Feast. We need many helpers and plenty of food to make this a success. We are looking forward to a fun event!
I am going to start putting together the helper schedule on the website for 2012. Please e-mail me if any changes need to be made/you need to switch days/etc. If anyone new would like to be added to the schedule, please let me know. Thanks so much to everyone for your generosity with your time-- centers and all enrichment activities have run SO smoothly this year!!
Upcoming Events:
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
12/17-1/2: Winter Break
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Week of 10/30
Dear Parents,
Happy Halloween! Tomorrow is our Halloween party. Kindergarten children should arrive to school dressed up in their costumes. Remember that if the costume has a weapon with it (pirate sword, Star Wars lightsaber, etc.) to please leave those at home. No gory costumes/fake blood allowed either, although that's not usually a problem in kindergarten :) The afternoon kindergarten will begin heading over to the school-wide parade at about 1:00. The parade starts at approximately 1:10. Afterward, we will return to the classroom for some fun Halloween activities.
Thank you again to the many volunteers who are cutting costumes for our Thanksgiving Feast. There are still many more parents who have also offered to help, so if you have had enough cutting, please feel free to pass the shirts/apron/collars onto another group of parents. Thanks again for all the help.
So that you can plan ahead, we have two big events (back-to-back!) in November. On Monday the 21st, we have our Thanksgiving Feast. If you can take some time off work to join us, this is a pretty fun and special event. We ask each family to send in a dish for the event-- either a traditional Thanksgiving dish or a dish from your family's cultural background. We always enjoy the wonderful mix of foods that we get. Both afternoon kindergartens come together for this event. The children from our class will be dressed as Pilgrims, and the children in K1 will be dressed as Native Americans. No need to provide any costumes-- this is what parents are preparing for us right now out of pillow cases and sheets. The event will be at 10:15 for the morning class, and 1:30 for the afternoon class. We hope to see you there!
The next day, Tuesday the 22nd, we have Grandparents' Day. This is an event for grades K-2, so there is a general reception held in the cafeteria at 10:30. After that, they come into the room. The kids can briefly introduce their grandparents and tell whose parents they are (mom's, dad's, or both sets) and then the grandparents will join us for a fun art project. We hope that all grandparents can join us, but if distance, etc., makes this impossible, the children can also invite another special adult to join in (uncle, aunt, special neighbor, even mom or dad). Also, children are welcome to bring in pictures of grandparents who are too far away to make the trip.
Our letter this week is Bb, and our Alphafriend is Benny Bear. Our sight words this week will be like and can . In math, we are introducing a new unit on Comparing Numbers: 0-10. Again we will be comparing numbers to identify which numbers are more than each other, less than each other, and equal. We will also be ordering numbers.
We have begun doing a lot of blending exercises during our opening. This is an important pre-reading skill. We say words with the beginning sound separated, for example, b-ath for bath or f-ox for fox. We ask the children to guess what the word is if they put it back together. This is a great game to play in the car, etc., and really helps them start to learn how to blend isolated sounds into words.
Our sharing this week is Letter of the Week sharing. Please have your child bring in something that starts with Bb, in a bag, with three clues about it.
We will be doing some Fall/Thanksgiving art projects this week-- Indian corn, cornucopias, turkeys and totem poles are all in the plans! We will also begin our Social Studies unit on Times Past. This is our last week of Centers before we put them on hold for the next 3 weeks due to parent-teacher conferences and Thanksgiving week.
We are looking forward to meeting with each of you beginning next Monday the 7th, for your child's conference. Conferences will be held in the office conference room. The conference room is located in the main office, 2nd door to the right after you walk through the swinging half-door. If you are unsure of your conference time, please e-mail me. Thanks!
Finally, please send in the Blue Bags tomorrow in the midst of the Halloween excitement!
Upcoming Events:
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
Happy Halloween! Tomorrow is our Halloween party. Kindergarten children should arrive to school dressed up in their costumes. Remember that if the costume has a weapon with it (pirate sword, Star Wars lightsaber, etc.) to please leave those at home. No gory costumes/fake blood allowed either, although that's not usually a problem in kindergarten :) The afternoon kindergarten will begin heading over to the school-wide parade at about 1:00. The parade starts at approximately 1:10. Afterward, we will return to the classroom for some fun Halloween activities.
Thank you again to the many volunteers who are cutting costumes for our Thanksgiving Feast. There are still many more parents who have also offered to help, so if you have had enough cutting, please feel free to pass the shirts/apron/collars onto another group of parents. Thanks again for all the help.
So that you can plan ahead, we have two big events (back-to-back!) in November. On Monday the 21st, we have our Thanksgiving Feast. If you can take some time off work to join us, this is a pretty fun and special event. We ask each family to send in a dish for the event-- either a traditional Thanksgiving dish or a dish from your family's cultural background. We always enjoy the wonderful mix of foods that we get. Both afternoon kindergartens come together for this event. The children from our class will be dressed as Pilgrims, and the children in K1 will be dressed as Native Americans. No need to provide any costumes-- this is what parents are preparing for us right now out of pillow cases and sheets. The event will be at 10:15 for the morning class, and 1:30 for the afternoon class. We hope to see you there!
The next day, Tuesday the 22nd, we have Grandparents' Day. This is an event for grades K-2, so there is a general reception held in the cafeteria at 10:30. After that, they come into the room. The kids can briefly introduce their grandparents and tell whose parents they are (mom's, dad's, or both sets) and then the grandparents will join us for a fun art project. We hope that all grandparents can join us, but if distance, etc., makes this impossible, the children can also invite another special adult to join in (uncle, aunt, special neighbor, even mom or dad). Also, children are welcome to bring in pictures of grandparents who are too far away to make the trip.
Our letter this week is Bb, and our Alphafriend is Benny Bear. Our sight words this week will be like and can . In math, we are introducing a new unit on Comparing Numbers: 0-10. Again we will be comparing numbers to identify which numbers are more than each other, less than each other, and equal. We will also be ordering numbers.
We have begun doing a lot of blending exercises during our opening. This is an important pre-reading skill. We say words with the beginning sound separated, for example, b-ath for bath or f-ox for fox. We ask the children to guess what the word is if they put it back together. This is a great game to play in the car, etc., and really helps them start to learn how to blend isolated sounds into words.
Our sharing this week is Letter of the Week sharing. Please have your child bring in something that starts with Bb, in a bag, with three clues about it.
We will be doing some Fall/Thanksgiving art projects this week-- Indian corn, cornucopias, turkeys and totem poles are all in the plans! We will also begin our Social Studies unit on Times Past. This is our last week of Centers before we put them on hold for the next 3 weeks due to parent-teacher conferences and Thanksgiving week.
We are looking forward to meeting with each of you beginning next Monday the 7th, for your child's conference. Conferences will be held in the office conference room. The conference room is located in the main office, 2nd door to the right after you walk through the swinging half-door. If you are unsure of your conference time, please e-mail me. Thanks!
Finally, please send in the Blue Bags tomorrow in the midst of the Halloween excitement!
Upcoming Events:
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Week of 10/23
Dear Parents,
It was GREAT to see so many of you yesterday at the Walk-a-thon! Almost our entire class participated, and it looked like much fun was had by all. Thanks for coming out and supporting the school, and hopefully, it was the beginning of many Walk-a-thons to come for all of you! Tomorrow, send your children with their walk-a-thon necklaces so that we can all celebrate the laps that we walked! And if you didn't have a chance to check out the Book Fair yesterday, it runs through Thursday of this week, before school (for the big kids), at noon, and after school.
We have a busy week this week with all the regular activities, plus Red Ribbon Week, plus an Art Vista lesson, along with a WACKY WEDNESDAY for the p.m. class (10:00 to 1:20)!!
Our letter this week is Tt. The alphafriend is Tiggy Tiger. We have a new high frequency word, my. We will be finishing up our math unit on numbers 6-10. Your children should now be able to count, compare, and write numbers 6-10.
The sharing this week is song, poem, or nursery rhyme. Kids can sing a song they know, recite a short poem, or even recite/sing one of the Alphafriend songs. This is a fun one to do because it also allows children who may speak another language to do a poem or song that they know in that language. We always love what we hear for this one-- just help your child choose something that s/he is comfortable with. It can be as simple as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to a poem with several verses to a song that they love on the radio-- just discuss the selection with your child so that s/he knows what to do :)
Red Ribbon Week is this week. In kindergarten, we do not get into a big discussion about drugs, as that is typically way over their heads. We try to keep the focus on positive choices-- things to do to keep their bodies healthy. We talk about eating right, getting enough sleep, and getting exercise. Sometimes smoking and alcohol do come up, as these are things the children have seen. We will talk about those things if they come up. but mostly we like to keep the focus on "what TO do" rather than "what NOT TO do." There are some theme days that go along with Red Ribbon Week. These are entirely optional. Sometimes the kindergartners do get a kick out of these days, especially if they have older siblings at the school. They are:
Finally, thanks to the many parents who have volunteered to cut pillowcases for us for our Friendship Feast outfits. Many parents collected bags at the Walkathon, but we do have a few left. I have brought my pinking shears to school for someone to borrow. Pop in on Monday and I will give you a bag. Thanks again to all of you for making my job so much easier by offering your time, help, and support.
Please remember to send in your child's blue bag tomorrow in the midst of all the craziness this week.
It was GREAT to see so many of you yesterday at the Walk-a-thon! Almost our entire class participated, and it looked like much fun was had by all. Thanks for coming out and supporting the school, and hopefully, it was the beginning of many Walk-a-thons to come for all of you! Tomorrow, send your children with their walk-a-thon necklaces so that we can all celebrate the laps that we walked! And if you didn't have a chance to check out the Book Fair yesterday, it runs through Thursday of this week, before school (for the big kids), at noon, and after school.
We have a busy week this week with all the regular activities, plus Red Ribbon Week, plus an Art Vista lesson, along with a WACKY WEDNESDAY for the p.m. class (10:00 to 1:20)!!
Our letter this week is Tt. The alphafriend is Tiggy Tiger. We have a new high frequency word, my. We will be finishing up our math unit on numbers 6-10. Your children should now be able to count, compare, and write numbers 6-10.
The sharing this week is song, poem, or nursery rhyme. Kids can sing a song they know, recite a short poem, or even recite/sing one of the Alphafriend songs. This is a fun one to do because it also allows children who may speak another language to do a poem or song that they know in that language. We always love what we hear for this one-- just help your child choose something that s/he is comfortable with. It can be as simple as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to a poem with several verses to a song that they love on the radio-- just discuss the selection with your child so that s/he knows what to do :)
Red Ribbon Week is this week. In kindergarten, we do not get into a big discussion about drugs, as that is typically way over their heads. We try to keep the focus on positive choices-- things to do to keep their bodies healthy. We talk about eating right, getting enough sleep, and getting exercise. Sometimes smoking and alcohol do come up, as these are things the children have seen. We will talk about those things if they come up. but mostly we like to keep the focus on "what TO do" rather than "what NOT TO do." There are some theme days that go along with Red Ribbon Week. These are entirely optional. Sometimes the kindergartners do get a kick out of these days, especially if they have older siblings at the school. They are:
- MONDAY: Wear red (Red Ribbon Week)
- TUESDAY: Wear crazy or mismatched socks (Sock it to drugs)
- WEDNESDAY: Wear a baseball cap (Put a cap on drugs)
- THURSDAY: Wear a sports team jersey/shirt (Team up against drugs)
- FRIDAY: Wear some clothes backwards (Turn your back on drugs)
Finally, thanks to the many parents who have volunteered to cut pillowcases for us for our Friendship Feast outfits. Many parents collected bags at the Walkathon, but we do have a few left. I have brought my pinking shears to school for someone to borrow. Pop in on Monday and I will give you a bag. Thanks again to all of you for making my job so much easier by offering your time, help, and support.
Please remember to send in your child's blue bag tomorrow in the midst of all the craziness this week.
Upcoming Events:
10/26: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
10/26: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Week of 10/16
Dear Parents,
We have a lot of exciting things going on this week, starting with our field trip on Monday. We will be seeing a live performance of The Little Mermaid at the Sunnyvale Community Center. REMEMBER THAT THE P.M. CLASS IS ON A WACKY WEDNESDAY SCHEDULE. Morning class schedule remains the same. Please send your children in their class t-shirts. Also please pack a fully disposable snack so that we don't have to worry about forgetting special water bottles or lunch boxes on the bus.
Our next big event is the school book fair starting this Thursday. You may check it out in the morning, at lunch, or after school with your children. There are many great offerings, and a percentage of every dollar you spend there will go toward our school library. So please check it out!
Finally and perhaps most importantly, it's Walk-a-thon week!! We did our first practice lap last week so that the kids had an idea of the lap length and what to expect. We will do another lap this week. On Friday, the kids will get a peek at their special necklace that they will get at check-in. Every 5 laps, the kids get a different plastic foot on the necklace. The kindergartners get a special foot already on their necklace for the practice laps that they've done. These plastic feet are very motivating for the children! You will see them walk many more laps than you ever thought they could walk, all for a plastic foot! :) There are also treats every few laps and plenty of other fun things on campus like face painting and a crazy hair booth. The walk-a-thon runs from 9:00 to 3:00, but you can arrive and leave any time that fits with your schedule-- don't worry about needing to check in at the start. Even if you can only come for an hour or so, please join in for a fun day that supports all of the enrichment programs at our school!
This week's letter is Rr. The Alphafriend is Reggie Rooster. We have a new high frequency word, in. Additionally, in the next two weeks, we will have our first kindergarten writing assessment. The scores are not reported at the District level at this time (but will be in the Spring) but they are something that we will be sharing with you at your Parent-Teacher conference in November. We will be looking for things like detailed & colorful pictures, the use of some of our high-frequency words, attempts at spelling using phonetic spelling ("kat" for "cat", etc.), proper use of spacing between words, etc. This is more of a practice test than anything else, so do not worry if your child is not capable of these skills at this time.
We will continue with our math topic on numbers 6-10. We will be counting, comparing, and making numerals from 6-10. We will also be looking at combinations that build 6-10, which is often featured in the homework pages. Remember that we are looking for different combinations each time in these pages (1 and 5, 6 and 0, 2 and 4, etc.) and same colors should be kept together when doing these pages for homework-- 4 reds on one side and 2 yellows next to them to show 4 and 2 makes 6. Please do not have your child color patterns on these pages (red, yellow, red, yellow, etc.). That's a different math unit down the line. The idea for the upcoming pages is to help the children visualize number combinations that make a bigger number.
Also on the homework cover page, please be sure that your children are coloring all things that start with the sound. Check the directions at the bottom of each page, as sometimes they vary. This past week, the children had to finish the pictures that were missing something, as well as draw something new that starts with Mm on the table on the back. Remember to try and have children choose something that's not already on the page, so that they are showing you that they can isolate the sound and think of some things that start with it on their own. Thanks again for all your support with homework & for sending in the Blue Bags each Monday. I appreciate it!
The share this week is back to book share. Please bring a favorite book and be prepared to tell the title, a bit about the book, and show a favorite page. Monday kids can share any other day this week due to the field trip.
Thanks to everyone for scheduling your conferences with me so quickly. Confirmations will be sent out this week if you haven't already received one.
We are in need of cardboard egg cartons. We have a project coming up this week where we use sections of egg cartons for eyes and a nose. If you have an empty cardboard egg carton at home that you can send in, I'd appreciate it.
Finally, it is hard to believe that we are already talking about Thanksgiving, but we need to start planning for our Friendship Feast on November 21st. Our class will be Pilgrims this year, and they will wear these great costumes that we make out of pillow cases. To avoid having to dye the pillow cases, I have found black pillow cases for a very good price at IKEA. If anyone is heading out that way in the next few weeks, I'd love it if you could pick these up for us, and I will reimburse you. Please send me an e-mail if you happen to be making a trip there. I will also need some volunteers to cut the pillow cases using pinking shears (the zigzag scissors). If you have pinking shears and can help us out, I'd appreciate it. I also have one pair of my own that I can loan out to someone.
Despite all the excitement with the field trip, please try and remember your blue bags tomorrow :)
Upcoming Events:
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule for p.m. class
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/26: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
We have a lot of exciting things going on this week, starting with our field trip on Monday. We will be seeing a live performance of The Little Mermaid at the Sunnyvale Community Center. REMEMBER THAT THE P.M. CLASS IS ON A WACKY WEDNESDAY SCHEDULE. Morning class schedule remains the same. Please send your children in their class t-shirts. Also please pack a fully disposable snack so that we don't have to worry about forgetting special water bottles or lunch boxes on the bus.
Our next big event is the school book fair starting this Thursday. You may check it out in the morning, at lunch, or after school with your children. There are many great offerings, and a percentage of every dollar you spend there will go toward our school library. So please check it out!
Finally and perhaps most importantly, it's Walk-a-thon week!! We did our first practice lap last week so that the kids had an idea of the lap length and what to expect. We will do another lap this week. On Friday, the kids will get a peek at their special necklace that they will get at check-in. Every 5 laps, the kids get a different plastic foot on the necklace. The kindergartners get a special foot already on their necklace for the practice laps that they've done. These plastic feet are very motivating for the children! You will see them walk many more laps than you ever thought they could walk, all for a plastic foot! :) There are also treats every few laps and plenty of other fun things on campus like face painting and a crazy hair booth. The walk-a-thon runs from 9:00 to 3:00, but you can arrive and leave any time that fits with your schedule-- don't worry about needing to check in at the start. Even if you can only come for an hour or so, please join in for a fun day that supports all of the enrichment programs at our school!
This week's letter is Rr. The Alphafriend is Reggie Rooster. We have a new high frequency word, in. Additionally, in the next two weeks, we will have our first kindergarten writing assessment. The scores are not reported at the District level at this time (but will be in the Spring) but they are something that we will be sharing with you at your Parent-Teacher conference in November. We will be looking for things like detailed & colorful pictures, the use of some of our high-frequency words, attempts at spelling using phonetic spelling ("kat" for "cat", etc.), proper use of spacing between words, etc. This is more of a practice test than anything else, so do not worry if your child is not capable of these skills at this time.
We will continue with our math topic on numbers 6-10. We will be counting, comparing, and making numerals from 6-10. We will also be looking at combinations that build 6-10, which is often featured in the homework pages. Remember that we are looking for different combinations each time in these pages (1 and 5, 6 and 0, 2 and 4, etc.) and same colors should be kept together when doing these pages for homework-- 4 reds on one side and 2 yellows next to them to show 4 and 2 makes 6. Please do not have your child color patterns on these pages (red, yellow, red, yellow, etc.). That's a different math unit down the line. The idea for the upcoming pages is to help the children visualize number combinations that make a bigger number.
Also on the homework cover page, please be sure that your children are coloring all things that start with the sound. Check the directions at the bottom of each page, as sometimes they vary. This past week, the children had to finish the pictures that were missing something, as well as draw something new that starts with Mm on the table on the back. Remember to try and have children choose something that's not already on the page, so that they are showing you that they can isolate the sound and think of some things that start with it on their own. Thanks again for all your support with homework & for sending in the Blue Bags each Monday. I appreciate it!
The share this week is back to book share. Please bring a favorite book and be prepared to tell the title, a bit about the book, and show a favorite page. Monday kids can share any other day this week due to the field trip.
Thanks to everyone for scheduling your conferences with me so quickly. Confirmations will be sent out this week if you haven't already received one.
We are in need of cardboard egg cartons. We have a project coming up this week where we use sections of egg cartons for eyes and a nose. If you have an empty cardboard egg carton at home that you can send in, I'd appreciate it.
Finally, it is hard to believe that we are already talking about Thanksgiving, but we need to start planning for our Friendship Feast on November 21st. Our class will be Pilgrims this year, and they will wear these great costumes that we make out of pillow cases. To avoid having to dye the pillow cases, I have found black pillow cases for a very good price at IKEA. If anyone is heading out that way in the next few weeks, I'd love it if you could pick these up for us, and I will reimburse you. Please send me an e-mail if you happen to be making a trip there. I will also need some volunteers to cut the pillow cases using pinking shears (the zigzag scissors). If you have pinking shears and can help us out, I'd appreciate it. I also have one pair of my own that I can loan out to someone.
Despite all the excitement with the field trip, please try and remember your blue bags tomorrow :)
Upcoming Events:
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule for p.m. class
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/26: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Week of 10/9
Dear Parents,
Last week, I sent home an envelope with all the information about the walkathon. The envelope is what you will use for collecting donations. On the day of the walkathon, you DO NOT bring your money. You just bring the envelope with your sponsor information/amounts, and the walkathon committee will figure out how much you owe after your child completes his/her laps.
The children all seem very excited about the walkathon, so I hope to see you all there on the 22nd! Not only does it help raise money for all of the wonderful enrichment programs at our school, but it is a great community event. There is so much to do besides the walking! Come out and enjoy the day.
And...since I've seen many of you on the soccer fields, I wanted to let you know that if you have to leave for a soccer game (or come a little later because of soccer) please let the people at the check-in desk know. Your child gets some lap credit for soccer games or other outside sports obligations that they have.
Along with the Walk-a-thon, the Scholastic Book Fair also begins on Thursday the 20th. It will be open in the morning (8:00-9:00) at lunch (noon) and after school (2:00-3:30). It will also be open during the Walk-a-thon. Check it out-- there will be some great selections there, and a percentage of the sales goes to support the Alta Vista Library.
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 Letter of the Week sharing again-- this time for the letter Mm. This is a change from what was on the calendar, but it is great to give the children an opportunity to think about things that start with the letter of the week. Three clues about what is inside the bag is appreciated. If your child shares on Friday, s/he may share any other day this week due to the Friday inservice day.
This week, I will begin assessing your children at center time so that I have up-to-date information to share with you at conference time. I will be working with them individually to check them on things such as letter recognition, letter sounds, rhyming, etc. I 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! I will be sending out my conference sign-up sheet via e-mail this week. When you receive the form, please select THREE times that are convenient for you, and I will send out a confirmation with your time as soon as I put together my schedule. The sooner you return the form (either e-mail your time preferences to me, or print out the form and send it back to me) the more likely you will get your first choice for a time! Please note that I prefer to do one conference per child. In the case of divorced parents, I 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 me know, but I have found that this has usually worked well in the past.
Just a reminder that our first field trip is also coming up on Monday, October 17th. Since we have Friday the 14th off, we really need you to mark your calendars and remember that the afternoon class is on a Wacky Wednesday schedule that day. All children need to arrive promptly, as we will depart immediately on the bus. Please have children use the restroom at home/daycare right before coming to school. Children also need to wear their class t-shirt. This helps me keep track of the children, as they are easy to spot in their same-colored t-shirts. If it is chilly that day, please wear a long-sleeved shirt UNDER the class t-shirt so that I can still see it. Thank you everyone for filling out the permission slips for the trip-- we will be heading to the Sunnyvale Community Center to see a live theater performance of "The Little Mermaid."
Blue bags, with homework folders inside are due tomorrow. Thanks for being so great about returning those!
Upcoming Events:
10/14: No School, Staff Development Day
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/26: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
Last week, I sent home an envelope with all the information about the walkathon. The envelope is what you will use for collecting donations. On the day of the walkathon, you DO NOT bring your money. You just bring the envelope with your sponsor information/amounts, and the walkathon committee will figure out how much you owe after your child completes his/her laps.
The children all seem very excited about the walkathon, so I hope to see you all there on the 22nd! Not only does it help raise money for all of the wonderful enrichment programs at our school, but it is a great community event. There is so much to do besides the walking! Come out and enjoy the day.
And...since I've seen many of you on the soccer fields, I wanted to let you know that if you have to leave for a soccer game (or come a little later because of soccer) please let the people at the check-in desk know. Your child gets some lap credit for soccer games or other outside sports obligations that they have.
Along with the Walk-a-thon, the Scholastic Book Fair also begins on Thursday the 20th. It will be open in the morning (8:00-9:00) at lunch (noon) and after school (2:00-3:30). It will also be open during the Walk-a-thon. Check it out-- there will be some great selections there, and a percentage of the sales goes to support the Alta Vista Library.
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 Letter of the Week sharing again-- this time for the letter Mm. This is a change from what was on the calendar, but it is great to give the children an opportunity to think about things that start with the letter of the week. Three clues about what is inside the bag is appreciated. If your child shares on Friday, s/he may share any other day this week due to the Friday inservice day.
This week, I will begin assessing your children at center time so that I have up-to-date information to share with you at conference time. I will be working with them individually to check them on things such as letter recognition, letter sounds, rhyming, etc. I 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! I will be sending out my conference sign-up sheet via e-mail this week. When you receive the form, please select THREE times that are convenient for you, and I will send out a confirmation with your time as soon as I put together my schedule. The sooner you return the form (either e-mail your time preferences to me, or print out the form and send it back to me) the more likely you will get your first choice for a time! Please note that I prefer to do one conference per child. In the case of divorced parents, I 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 me know, but I have found that this has usually worked well in the past.
Just a reminder that our first field trip is also coming up on Monday, October 17th. Since we have Friday the 14th off, we really need you to mark your calendars and remember that the afternoon class is on a Wacky Wednesday schedule that day. All children need to arrive promptly, as we will depart immediately on the bus. Please have children use the restroom at home/daycare right before coming to school. Children also need to wear their class t-shirt. This helps me keep track of the children, as they are easy to spot in their same-colored t-shirts. If it is chilly that day, please wear a long-sleeved shirt UNDER the class t-shirt so that I can still see it. Thank you everyone for filling out the permission slips for the trip-- we will be heading to the Sunnyvale Community Center to see a live theater performance of "The Little Mermaid."
Blue bags, with homework folders inside are due tomorrow. Thanks for being so great about returning those!
Upcoming Events:
10/14: No School, Staff Development Day
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/26: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Week of 10/2
Dear Parents,
We have an exciting week this week as we begin our intensive study of each letter of the alphabet, which will not be in alphabetical order. We introduce an "Alphafriend" to help your child remember the sounds of the letter. The children really enjoy the Alphafriends, and singing the songs that accompany each one.
At this point, it is very helpful for the children to have recognition of most letters under their belts, so that they can focus on learning the sounds. I have noticed in the past several weeks while we were doing our daily overview of the alphabet that many children had difficulty recognizing the letters out of sequence. They also had trouble completing the activities at the bottom of those pages, whether it was matching upper case letters with lower case letters, or figuring out which letter came next in a sequence of letters. If you are noticing that your child has had difficulty with these activities, I highly recommend the DVD called The Letter Factory, which is available for about $10 at Target, and I have also seen it recently at Costco. This DVD really helps the children to learn both letter names and letter sounds, and it is truly a great investment. I have used it with my own two children and really seen results.
This week we will introduce the letter Ss. The worksheets that accompany our Language Arts program will all be about the letter Ss (and the stories we are reading)-- we will cover the sound and the handwriting of the letter, and the Alphafriend's name is Sammy Seal. In your child's homework packet this week, you will find a page where they cut out things that begin with the letter Ss, as well as draw something that starts with that letter. If your child is looking for a little more challenge, encourage him/her to draw the picture (or more than one) AND write the word(s) that go along with those pictures. This is entirely optional. Please be prepared at home with a gluestick or tape and some child-safe scissors for this homework, as it will appear in the packet weekly from now on. This will help you to know what letter we are studying in class so that you can reinforce it at home, if necessary.
This week's share is "Letter of the Week" share. Since our letter of the week is Ss, please have your child bring something that starts with Ss. They do like to do the guessing game with this item, so please have it hidden in a bag with three clues written about the item. Because it has to start with the letter Ss, this will also encourage them to think of things that start with the sound.
In addition to a letter of the week, we will also begin introducing a sight word each week. 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. This week's word is I. We will write sentences using the word I and look for the word in things that we are reading. There is a link on my webpage that has the list of sight words so that you can begin practicing with your child. 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, so these are important words to master.
Another thing happening this week is Walk/Bike to School Week. Although kindergarten is not formally participating in this activity, we are encouraging children to walk, bike, ride scooters, etc., to get to school, rather than riding in a car. Obviously, this encourages healthy activity, and it also reduces the congestion around the school. I hope you'll try coming to school by "foot power" even if only for a few days.
While on the topic of fitness, I also want to remind you that the Walkathon is coming up quickly on October 22nd! Kindergarten will be doing practice laps so that the children will already have a "foot" on their Walkathon necklaces to get the fun started. Every few laps at the Walkathon, they add a foot to a 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! 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.
Also starting this month is the "Student in the Spotlight" program. This is a school-wide character building program, where we emphasize a positive characteristic each month such as honesty, respectfulness, etc. Several children from the class will get chosen for a certificate each month. By the end of the year, every child will be rewarded for a positive trait that they have exhibited. So if you see a certificate with "Student in the Spotlight" at the top, be sure to congratulate your child! Additionally, Miss Miller, the principal, has started the Cougar Gold Card lunches. When children are "caught being good," I give them Cougar Gold Cards. At the end of each month, one child's name is drawn from each classroom to come to a pizza lunch with the principal.
Finally, we will also have our first Cornerstone lesson this week. This is another character-building/anti-bullying program. Katherine B. will be presenting these lessons this year-- thank you, Katherine!
Remember your child's Red Bag tomorrow, with the homework folder inside the bag :)
Upcoming Events:
10/14: No School, Staff Development Day
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/26: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
We have an exciting week this week as we begin our intensive study of each letter of the alphabet, which will not be in alphabetical order. We introduce an "Alphafriend" to help your child remember the sounds of the letter. The children really enjoy the Alphafriends, and singing the songs that accompany each one.
At this point, it is very helpful for the children to have recognition of most letters under their belts, so that they can focus on learning the sounds. I have noticed in the past several weeks while we were doing our daily overview of the alphabet that many children had difficulty recognizing the letters out of sequence. They also had trouble completing the activities at the bottom of those pages, whether it was matching upper case letters with lower case letters, or figuring out which letter came next in a sequence of letters. If you are noticing that your child has had difficulty with these activities, I highly recommend the DVD called The Letter Factory, which is available for about $10 at Target, and I have also seen it recently at Costco. This DVD really helps the children to learn both letter names and letter sounds, and it is truly a great investment. I have used it with my own two children and really seen results.
This week we will introduce the letter Ss. The worksheets that accompany our Language Arts program will all be about the letter Ss (and the stories we are reading)-- we will cover the sound and the handwriting of the letter, and the Alphafriend's name is Sammy Seal. In your child's homework packet this week, you will find a page where they cut out things that begin with the letter Ss, as well as draw something that starts with that letter. If your child is looking for a little more challenge, encourage him/her to draw the picture (or more than one) AND write the word(s) that go along with those pictures. This is entirely optional. Please be prepared at home with a gluestick or tape and some child-safe scissors for this homework, as it will appear in the packet weekly from now on. This will help you to know what letter we are studying in class so that you can reinforce it at home, if necessary.
This week's share is "Letter of the Week" share. Since our letter of the week is Ss, please have your child bring something that starts with Ss. They do like to do the guessing game with this item, so please have it hidden in a bag with three clues written about the item. Because it has to start with the letter Ss, this will also encourage them to think of things that start with the sound.
In addition to a letter of the week, we will also begin introducing a sight word each week. 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. This week's word is I. We will write sentences using the word I and look for the word in things that we are reading. There is a link on my webpage that has the list of sight words so that you can begin practicing with your child. 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, so these are important words to master.
Another thing happening this week is Walk/Bike to School Week. Although kindergarten is not formally participating in this activity, we are encouraging children to walk, bike, ride scooters, etc., to get to school, rather than riding in a car. Obviously, this encourages healthy activity, and it also reduces the congestion around the school. I hope you'll try coming to school by "foot power" even if only for a few days.
While on the topic of fitness, I also want to remind you that the Walkathon is coming up quickly on October 22nd! Kindergarten will be doing practice laps so that the children will already have a "foot" on their Walkathon necklaces to get the fun started. Every few laps at the Walkathon, they add a foot to a 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! 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.
Also starting this month is the "Student in the Spotlight" program. This is a school-wide character building program, where we emphasize a positive characteristic each month such as honesty, respectfulness, etc. Several children from the class will get chosen for a certificate each month. By the end of the year, every child will be rewarded for a positive trait that they have exhibited. So if you see a certificate with "Student in the Spotlight" at the top, be sure to congratulate your child! Additionally, Miss Miller, the principal, has started the Cougar Gold Card lunches. When children are "caught being good," I give them Cougar Gold Cards. At the end of each month, one child's name is drawn from each classroom to come to a pizza lunch with the principal.
Finally, we will also have our first Cornerstone lesson this week. This is another character-building/anti-bullying program. Katherine B. will be presenting these lessons this year-- thank you, Katherine!
Remember your child's Red Bag tomorrow, with the homework folder inside the bag :)
Upcoming Events:
10/14: No School, Staff Development Day
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/26: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Week of 9/25
Dear Parents,
Happy Fall! In our first days of Fall, we continue with our FOSS science unit on trees. We are still studying the leaves on trees. Last week, we collected leaves around campus. This week, I ask that you and your child go around your yard/neighborhood and collect 5 or so leaves from different trees. If you can send those in with your child in a plastic baggie (that helps keep them fresh) on Monday, I'd appreciate it. Additionally, if any of you have trees with a large leaf for leaf rubbings, I'd love to have those, too. We will be doing leaf rubbings on Thursday. Finally, we will be talking about things that come from trees this week. If you have a fruit or nut-bearing tree, it would be great if your child can bring in an apple, walnut, lemon, etc. from a tree that you may have. I have not seen any nut allergies listed for our classroom, which is why our room is not nut-free. However, please let us know if a science lesson involving handling and possibly cracking nuts will be a problem.
We are wrapping up our overview of the alphabet this week, and will begin our weekly study of the letters next week with the letter Ss. The letters do not go in alphabetical order. To help your children in learning the sounds of each letter, we will have an "Alphafriend" that goes along with each letter. Their names are all alliterative, like Sammy Seal, Larry Lion, Mimi Mouse, etc. The children will learn a song for each Alphafriend. They really enjoy these songs and have fun with them. Look forward to hearing your children singing these songs around the house!
We have begun focusing on beginning sounds in our "Daily Phonemic Awareness." We have fun activities where we jump if the two words start with the same sound, etc. You can reinforce this concept at home with similar activities. Riding in the car is a great time to play games like these. Children can respond with a silly word if the two words that you say to them start with the same sound: "Say boo if bunny & boat start the same," etc. It's a fun way to reinforce what's going on at school.
We will start a new math unit this week, "More & Fewer." This is a more challenging topic, where we really delve into the value of numbers and understand their value in relation to other numbers.
This week's share is homemade item. This does not need to be hidden in a bag. The children just bring an item that they made (or mostly made) at home or at preschool or elsewhere. They should be able to tell a bit about how they made it.
We have our first Wacky Wednesday this week on the 28th. Please bring your child to school at 10:00. Dismissal is at 1:20. Holy Cross & Champions have been notified of these days, but you may want to confirm with them that they have it on the calendar.
Remember that Friday is Picture Day. Send in your picture order NO LATER THAN Friday morning, because it is very difficult to order afterward. You are also able to pre-order online by following the directions on the order form, which you received a couple of weeks ago. If you are not happy with the pictures when they come in, your child can do a retake.
Please send in your child's Red Bag tomorrow, with the homework folder inside the bag. I go through the bags and pull out the homework, so there is no need for it to be separate. Thanks for the great job with that last week!
Please note below: we have set the dates for the Friendship Feast & the Nutcracker performance-- mark you calendars-- you won't want to miss out :)
Happy Fall! In our first days of Fall, we continue with our FOSS science unit on trees. We are still studying the leaves on trees. Last week, we collected leaves around campus. This week, I ask that you and your child go around your yard/neighborhood and collect 5 or so leaves from different trees. If you can send those in with your child in a plastic baggie (that helps keep them fresh) on Monday, I'd appreciate it. Additionally, if any of you have trees with a large leaf for leaf rubbings, I'd love to have those, too. We will be doing leaf rubbings on Thursday. Finally, we will be talking about things that come from trees this week. If you have a fruit or nut-bearing tree, it would be great if your child can bring in an apple, walnut, lemon, etc. from a tree that you may have. I have not seen any nut allergies listed for our classroom, which is why our room is not nut-free. However, please let us know if a science lesson involving handling and possibly cracking nuts will be a problem.
We are wrapping up our overview of the alphabet this week, and will begin our weekly study of the letters next week with the letter Ss. The letters do not go in alphabetical order. To help your children in learning the sounds of each letter, we will have an "Alphafriend" that goes along with each letter. Their names are all alliterative, like Sammy Seal, Larry Lion, Mimi Mouse, etc. The children will learn a song for each Alphafriend. They really enjoy these songs and have fun with them. Look forward to hearing your children singing these songs around the house!
We have begun focusing on beginning sounds in our "Daily Phonemic Awareness." We have fun activities where we jump if the two words start with the same sound, etc. You can reinforce this concept at home with similar activities. Riding in the car is a great time to play games like these. Children can respond with a silly word if the two words that you say to them start with the same sound: "Say boo if bunny & boat start the same," etc. It's a fun way to reinforce what's going on at school.
We will start a new math unit this week, "More & Fewer." This is a more challenging topic, where we really delve into the value of numbers and understand their value in relation to other numbers.
This week's share is homemade item. This does not need to be hidden in a bag. The children just bring an item that they made (or mostly made) at home or at preschool or elsewhere. They should be able to tell a bit about how they made it.
We have our first Wacky Wednesday this week on the 28th. Please bring your child to school at 10:00. Dismissal is at 1:20. Holy Cross & Champions have been notified of these days, but you may want to confirm with them that they have it on the calendar.
Remember that Friday is Picture Day. Send in your picture order NO LATER THAN Friday morning, because it is very difficult to order afterward. You are also able to pre-order online by following the directions on the order form, which you received a couple of weeks ago. If you are not happy with the pictures when they come in, your child can do a retake.
Please send in your child's Red Bag tomorrow, with the homework folder inside the bag. I go through the bags and pull out the homework, so there is no need for it to be separate. Thanks for the great job with that last week!
Please note below: we have set the dates for the Friendship Feast & the Nutcracker performance-- mark you calendars-- you won't want to miss out :)
Upcoming Events:
9/28: First Wacky Wednesday (10:00-1:20)
9/28: Willow Street Pizza Fundraiser
9/30: Picture Day
10/14: No School, Staff Development Day
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/26: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
9/28: First Wacky Wednesday (10:00-1:20)
9/28: Willow Street Pizza Fundraiser
9/30: Picture Day
10/14: No School, Staff Development Day
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/26: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
11/7-11/17: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/11: No School, Veteran's Day
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m.) and 1:30 (p.m.)
11/22: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m.) and 11:30 (p.m.)
11/30: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m.) & 1:30 (p.m.)
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Week of 9/18
Dear Parents,
We had a great first week of centers & sharing, and hopefully homework is going well, too! Thanks so much to all our center helpers. I appreciate your diligence in coming on time, working with the children, and finding substitutes when you are unable to come. All went very well last week!
Remember to send in your child's Blue Bag on Monday, with the homework folder inside. No need to pull the homework folder out and turn it in separately-- I go through all the bags and pull out the homework. You will receive a new book and some new homework again on Wednesday.
This week's sharing is book share. Remember, if you ever forget what the share topic is (or I forget to mention it), it is marked on the calendar on our web page. For book share, I'd like the children to come prepared with a favorite page bookmarked, and to also know the title of the book and a general idea of what it's about. No clues necessary on this one!
We will continue with our math topic on numbers 1-5. I am especially reinforcing the formation of numbers in handwriting. Some of these numbers are quite tricky to make, so watch that your child is starting at the top and going in the right direction.
We will also continue with our overview of the alphabet, plus working on rhyming. Letters Pp through Tt will be covered this week.
I began introducing some of our line strokes last week using Handwriting without Tears, and as mentioned, I also worked individually with each student on his/her name writing. This week, I will begin another component of the Handwriting program called "Sentence School." In sentence school, we will all copy a sentence from the easel and work on handwriting and word spacing, while also reinforcing vocabulary and sight words. We started using "Sentence School" a couple of years ago, and found that it really improved sentence writing.
We began our science unit on Trees & Leaves last week, and the children really enjoyed it. We introduced important vocabulary such as roots, leaves, branches, and trunk. We talked about evergreens and deciduous trees. This week we will begin looking more closely at leaves.
We have our first Spirit Day this week. Spirit Days are decided by Alta Vista's Student Council (4th & 5th graders). They are just fun theme days to show school spirit, and are totally optional. This Wednesday, it is Rainbow Day. Each grade level has been assigned a different color to wear. Kindergartners should wear red on the 21st.
Our next school-wide event is this Thursday, the 22nd-- Family Science Night. It starts at 6:30 p.m. in the cafeteria. This is a fun night that is sponsored by the Children's Discovery Museum. The children have an opportunity to participate in some great hands-on projects with their parents. Come out and enjoy the fun & learning!
Upcoming Events:
9/22: Family Science Night
9/28: First Wacky Wednesday
9/28: Willow Street Pizza Fundraiser
9/30: Picture Day
10/14: No School, Staff Development Day
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
9/22: Family Science Night
9/28: First Wacky Wednesday
9/28: Willow Street Pizza Fundraiser
9/30: Picture Day
10/14: No School, Staff Development Day
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Week of 9/11
Dear Parents,
We've made it to our big week in kindergarten, where we start sharing, centers, and homework!
Just a reminder that homework goes home on Wednesday and is due back on Monday. The Red Bags are no longer red-- they are blue!! We got an entire new set of bags (which is great because the other ones were getting worn out and stinky!) so the bag you are looking for on Wednesday is now blue. It will have a book inside that we'd like you to read a few times. There is also a homework folder. On the right side of the folder is the homework packet for the week. On the left side of the folder are two laminated reference sheets, that stay in the folder all year. One sheet explains the Red/Blue Bag program, and has a letter formation guide from Handwriting without Tears on the back. The other sheet has discussion question ideas for when you finish reading the book with your child. Please keep in mind that the book in the blue bag is not a book that we expect your kindergartner to read alone. These are to be read to your children. Also, the books in the program are of different genres and themes. The idea is to expose your children to different types of literature. If the book is really not a favorite of your child's, just read it once and move onto other books that your child prefers. Please try to keep the brand new blue bags in a place where the dog won't eat it, food won't be spilled on it, etc. We'd like to keep them nice for the future years of kindergartners!
In language arts, we continue our overview of the alphabet and our readings of familiar tales and fables. In the past few weeks, we've covered The Gingerbread Man, The Three Pigs, The Three Bears, Chicken Little, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Tortoise and The Hare, The Lion and the Mouse, and Jack and the Beanstalk, among others. The children have had fun listening to retellings of these favorite stories.
In math, we will start a new topic: Numbers 1-5. We will be looking at the value of these numbers, as well as how to write them correctly. Math is one of the subjects we cover in centers, so though the paperwork is the same, the hand-on activities will be different, depending on the ability of the group.
In science, we will begin our unit on Trees & Leaves. This is a fun hand-on science unit through our FOSS science program. We will be looking at trees and learning some names of different types of trees. We will be learning about deciduous trees vs. evergreens. We enjoyed many activities with last week's science unit on the Five Senses. The children tasted sour, sweet, salty, and bitter foods and they felt items in "mystery bags." They also smelled some mystery smells in canisters and tried to guess what they were. We had a great time!
Our art this week is centered around apples. We have a few fun apple art projects, and we'll be using paint! Parent helpers and students beware-- don't wear clothes that you are overly concerned about keeping neat this week. :)
Our sharing topic this week is Share in a Bag. Just a reminder again that your child should bring one item, hidden in a bag or backpack, with clues attached. The clues are very important and are part of the preparation for this oral language activity. So please work with your child to come up with three clues that will help the other children guess what is in the bag. If you are not sure of your child's sharing day, please check the link on the right or e-mail me.
Book orders are due this Friday, if you are interested. Please go to the link on the right if you are interested in ordering.
Upcoming Events:
9/22: Family Science Night
9/28: First Wacky Wednesday
9/28: Willow Street Pizza Fundraiser
9/30: Picture Day
10/14: No School, Staff Development Day
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
We've made it to our big week in kindergarten, where we start sharing, centers, and homework!
Just a reminder that homework goes home on Wednesday and is due back on Monday. The Red Bags are no longer red-- they are blue!! We got an entire new set of bags (which is great because the other ones were getting worn out and stinky!) so the bag you are looking for on Wednesday is now blue. It will have a book inside that we'd like you to read a few times. There is also a homework folder. On the right side of the folder is the homework packet for the week. On the left side of the folder are two laminated reference sheets, that stay in the folder all year. One sheet explains the Red/Blue Bag program, and has a letter formation guide from Handwriting without Tears on the back. The other sheet has discussion question ideas for when you finish reading the book with your child. Please keep in mind that the book in the blue bag is not a book that we expect your kindergartner to read alone. These are to be read to your children. Also, the books in the program are of different genres and themes. The idea is to expose your children to different types of literature. If the book is really not a favorite of your child's, just read it once and move onto other books that your child prefers. Please try to keep the brand new blue bags in a place where the dog won't eat it, food won't be spilled on it, etc. We'd like to keep them nice for the future years of kindergartners!
In language arts, we continue our overview of the alphabet and our readings of familiar tales and fables. In the past few weeks, we've covered The Gingerbread Man, The Three Pigs, The Three Bears, Chicken Little, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Tortoise and The Hare, The Lion and the Mouse, and Jack and the Beanstalk, among others. The children have had fun listening to retellings of these favorite stories.
In math, we will start a new topic: Numbers 1-5. We will be looking at the value of these numbers, as well as how to write them correctly. Math is one of the subjects we cover in centers, so though the paperwork is the same, the hand-on activities will be different, depending on the ability of the group.
In science, we will begin our unit on Trees & Leaves. This is a fun hand-on science unit through our FOSS science program. We will be looking at trees and learning some names of different types of trees. We will be learning about deciduous trees vs. evergreens. We enjoyed many activities with last week's science unit on the Five Senses. The children tasted sour, sweet, salty, and bitter foods and they felt items in "mystery bags." They also smelled some mystery smells in canisters and tried to guess what they were. We had a great time!
Our art this week is centered around apples. We have a few fun apple art projects, and we'll be using paint! Parent helpers and students beware-- don't wear clothes that you are overly concerned about keeping neat this week. :)
Our sharing topic this week is Share in a Bag. Just a reminder again that your child should bring one item, hidden in a bag or backpack, with clues attached. The clues are very important and are part of the preparation for this oral language activity. So please work with your child to come up with three clues that will help the other children guess what is in the bag. If you are not sure of your child's sharing day, please check the link on the right or e-mail me.
Book orders are due this Friday, if you are interested. Please go to the link on the right if you are interested in ordering.
Upcoming Events:
9/22: Family Science Night
9/28: First Wacky Wednesday
9/28: Willow Street Pizza Fundraiser
9/30: Picture Day
10/14: No School, Staff Development Day
10/17: Field Trip to See a Play: Wacky Weds. Schedule
10/22: Walk-a-thon
10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:15
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Week of 9/5
Dear Parents,
I hope you all enjoyed a nice 4 (or 3) day weekend!
Thank you very much for coming to Back-to-School night. I covered a lot that evening, and I still feel like there was much left to say! I hope you all got a better idea of the kindergarten program. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to e-mail me. Thank you also for your support with the CCP! I know it's a big check to write, especially if you have more than one student at the school, and I truly appreciate your support of the kindergarten "extras." If you still have forms to turn in, please try to have those for me on Tuesday morning. Thank you.
This week, we will continue with our overview of the alphabet. We will be covering letters Gg-Jj. We will also be studying the five senses. I have a fun book with some hands-on activities that I do with the children, ending with doing a taste test of different apples for "taste". We will continue on our math topic on sorting, and we will also be working on number writing in a book called, "My Beary Good Book of Numbers."
In the next couple of weeks, we will be working on our first Social Studies unit on being a Good Citizen. This is basically an overview of rules in the classroom and rules in our community. Some newsprint "booklets" accompany the Social Studies program.
We have also been learning how to spell color words through singing some catchy tunes. We are introducing a new song each week. You may have enjoyed hearing your children sing the "red" song last week.
Of course, next week is a big week for us. We will begin sharing on the 12th. Our first share topic is "toy in a bag." The topic lasts for the whole week, (each week is a different topic) but your child's share day never changes. Please see the "Sharing Info & Schedule" link to the right for your child's share day.
Homework will also begin next week on the 14th. Finally, centers will begin next week on Monday. I am working on the helper schedule and will have it out this week. If you signed up to help with centers on Monday, be prepared to possibly come in on the 14th!
We are looking forward to a fun short week ahead! See you Tuesday.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Monday, September 5th: No School-- Labor Day
Friday, September 9th: Back-to-School Movie Night
Thursday, September 22nd: Family Science Night
Wednesday, September 28th: First Wacky Wednesday
Wednesday, September 28th: Willow Street Pizza Fundraiser
Friday, September 30th: Picture Day
I hope you all enjoyed a nice 4 (or 3) day weekend!
Thank you very much for coming to Back-to-School night. I covered a lot that evening, and I still feel like there was much left to say! I hope you all got a better idea of the kindergarten program. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to e-mail me. Thank you also for your support with the CCP! I know it's a big check to write, especially if you have more than one student at the school, and I truly appreciate your support of the kindergarten "extras." If you still have forms to turn in, please try to have those for me on Tuesday morning. Thank you.
This week, we will continue with our overview of the alphabet. We will be covering letters Gg-Jj. We will also be studying the five senses. I have a fun book with some hands-on activities that I do with the children, ending with doing a taste test of different apples for "taste". We will continue on our math topic on sorting, and we will also be working on number writing in a book called, "My Beary Good Book of Numbers."
In the next couple of weeks, we will be working on our first Social Studies unit on being a Good Citizen. This is basically an overview of rules in the classroom and rules in our community. Some newsprint "booklets" accompany the Social Studies program.
We have also been learning how to spell color words through singing some catchy tunes. We are introducing a new song each week. You may have enjoyed hearing your children sing the "red" song last week.
Of course, next week is a big week for us. We will begin sharing on the 12th. Our first share topic is "toy in a bag." The topic lasts for the whole week, (each week is a different topic) but your child's share day never changes. Please see the "Sharing Info & Schedule" link to the right for your child's share day.
Homework will also begin next week on the 14th. Finally, centers will begin next week on Monday. I am working on the helper schedule and will have it out this week. If you signed up to help with centers on Monday, be prepared to possibly come in on the 14th!
We are looking forward to a fun short week ahead! See you Tuesday.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Monday, September 5th: No School-- Labor Day
Friday, September 9th: Back-to-School Movie Night
Thursday, September 22nd: Family Science Night
Wednesday, September 28th: First Wacky Wednesday
Wednesday, September 28th: Willow Street Pizza Fundraiser
Friday, September 30th: Picture Day
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Week of 8/28
Dear Parents,
I believe we now have almost everyone receiving our e-mails. Thank you for responding to my various tests. If you haven’t replied to one of the e-mails to let me know you are receiving it, please do so. Otherwise, I will check in with you at Back-to-School Night to make sure I have all addresses entered correctly. Also, I still need those pink “Rules for RESPECT” signature sheets, as well as the Student Handbook signature sheet that I handed out at Orientation. Please send those in on Monday if you can.
Along with sending out the weekly update via e-mail, I also post this letter (or similar info) on my webpage. If you ever need to double-check what's going on, you can find it all there, too.
We had a great first week searching for and finding our runaway Gingerbread Men and getting to know one another, along with beginning our Language Arts workbook! Right now, our workbook pages are focusing on a quick overview of the alphabet—one letter a day, in alphabetical order. We familiarize ourselves with all the names of our classmates by looking for those letters in each person’s name. Of course, when we are done with the overview, we will begin a more intense study of each letter—a week per consonant/vowel, along with meeting that letter’s “Alphafriend.” The Alphafriends go along with our reading program and help the children remember letter names & sounds in a fun & catchy way.
We will also begin our math program this week. Our first unit is on sorting & classifying. Children will study how things are alike and different, and sort them accordingly.
In the next few weeks, we will be listening to familiar tales (Three Pigs, Three Billy Goats Gruff, etc.) and nursery rhymes. Hearing different versions of familiar tales and rhymes is a fun way to get children engaged in reading.
During the past week, I have observed that many of the students will need to work on name-writing skills. One of our kindergarten standards is writing a name with one capital letter and the rest lower-case. We will begin practicing this in class by tracing our names on a worksheet, but I encourage you to reinforce this at home-- we try and drop the all-capital letter name writing as quickly as possible. The faster children can write their names correctly, the easier it is for them to get going on assignments, as we encourage them to write their names first. We appreciate your help with this.
In class, your child will be using a program called, "Handwriting without Tears." This is a wonderful program that really focuses on correct formation of letters along with correct pencil grip. We find that it is so important to get in good habits (and in some cases, break bad habits) with handwriting early on. We have already begun the basics of this program-- starting with a jazzy song called "We Start our Letters at the Top"-- and we will use it in conjunction with our letter program in language arts. When your child is learning about the letter "s," s/he will also be learning the correct formation of that letter.
Back-to-School Night is this Wednesday at 6:00 in K2. This is a night for parents only, as I go over our curriculum and classroom policies. Please make every effort to attend. I cover a lot of information that night in only 45 minutes, so afterwards, if you need more information on anything, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Please also plan on attending the Home & School Club meeting in the cafeteria immediately following my presentation. If you are unable to attend Back-to-School Night, please let me know so that I can set aside materials for you.
One item I will be covering during our meeting is the Consolidated Classroom Payment. The CCP is a payment that each grade level at Alta Vista asks for at the beginning of each year. It is different than a donation to the Home & School Club, which goes to school-wide programs such as Art Vistas, Clay, etc. This payment goes directly to your child. Rather than asking for money and items every time we have an event, the kindergarten team has totaled up what our costs will be for the entire year. So instead of paying for your child's entrance fee each time we have a field trip, or running out to buy a pillow case when we have our Thanksgiving Feast (it's part of the costume), we ask for the money for these items up front. Then we go out and do the purchasing in bulk, saving you time and money. The CCP for kindergarten this year is around $70-- I will get the exact total for you before Back-to-School Night. Please do whatever you can to make this payment, as it covers the costs of your own child's supplies and entrance fees and bus fees. Even if you can only make a partial payment at this time-- every little bit helps. If for some reason we don’t spend all of the money, it stays with your child and will go toward their first grade consolidated payment.
It is a lot easier to collect this payment at Back-to-School Night, so I’d appreciate it if you bring your checkbooks. Plus, there's usually a school-wide contest to see which class can get their CCP payments in first, and K2 has won that contest for the past two years, earning a class pizza party! We would love to win again! If this payment is a hardship, the Home & School Club does help supplement the CCP money for our grade level. Thank you in advance for your support with this payment—it helps us do a lot of projects and activities that would otherwise not be possible.
Some of you have asked about classroom help. I will put our parent helper opportunities back out at Back-to-School Night, then make the final schedule. You will find out which days you are officially helping after I have a chance to look over all of the information, and make sure I have coverage for all the activities and days. If you sign up to help at center time, we will begin centers the week of September 11th. Thank you to so many of you who signed up to help at the Orientation—we already have most of our activities covered! I know we do still need center helpers and a Wednesday envelope/Red Bag person, so I’ll hope for a few more volunteers at Back-to-School Night.
There is no school this Friday, September 2nd, or Monday, September 5th. Friday there will be a staff development meeting throughout the district, and Monday is of course Labor Day.
I am looking forward to another fun week with your children, and I am excited to meet and talk with you all Wednesday night!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Wednesday, August 31st @ 6:00: Back-to-School Night
Friday, September 2nd: No School-- Teacher Inservice Day
Monday, September 5th: No School-- Labor Day
Friday, September 9th: Back-to-School Movie Night
Thursday, September 22nd: Family Science Night
Wednesday, September 28th: First Wacky Wednesday
Wednesday, September 28th: Willow Street Pizza Fundraiser
Friday, September 30th: Picture Day
I believe we now have almost everyone receiving our e-mails. Thank you for responding to my various tests. If you haven’t replied to one of the e-mails to let me know you are receiving it, please do so. Otherwise, I will check in with you at Back-to-School Night to make sure I have all addresses entered correctly. Also, I still need those pink “Rules for RESPECT” signature sheets, as well as the Student Handbook signature sheet that I handed out at Orientation. Please send those in on Monday if you can.
Along with sending out the weekly update via e-mail, I also post this letter (or similar info) on my webpage. If you ever need to double-check what's going on, you can find it all there, too.
We had a great first week searching for and finding our runaway Gingerbread Men and getting to know one another, along with beginning our Language Arts workbook! Right now, our workbook pages are focusing on a quick overview of the alphabet—one letter a day, in alphabetical order. We familiarize ourselves with all the names of our classmates by looking for those letters in each person’s name. Of course, when we are done with the overview, we will begin a more intense study of each letter—a week per consonant/vowel, along with meeting that letter’s “Alphafriend.” The Alphafriends go along with our reading program and help the children remember letter names & sounds in a fun & catchy way.
We will also begin our math program this week. Our first unit is on sorting & classifying. Children will study how things are alike and different, and sort them accordingly.
In the next few weeks, we will be listening to familiar tales (Three Pigs, Three Billy Goats Gruff, etc.) and nursery rhymes. Hearing different versions of familiar tales and rhymes is a fun way to get children engaged in reading.
During the past week, I have observed that many of the students will need to work on name-writing skills. One of our kindergarten standards is writing a name with one capital letter and the rest lower-case. We will begin practicing this in class by tracing our names on a worksheet, but I encourage you to reinforce this at home-- we try and drop the all-capital letter name writing as quickly as possible. The faster children can write their names correctly, the easier it is for them to get going on assignments, as we encourage them to write their names first. We appreciate your help with this.
In class, your child will be using a program called, "Handwriting without Tears." This is a wonderful program that really focuses on correct formation of letters along with correct pencil grip. We find that it is so important to get in good habits (and in some cases, break bad habits) with handwriting early on. We have already begun the basics of this program-- starting with a jazzy song called "We Start our Letters at the Top"-- and we will use it in conjunction with our letter program in language arts. When your child is learning about the letter "s," s/he will also be learning the correct formation of that letter.
Back-to-School Night is this Wednesday at 6:00 in K2. This is a night for parents only, as I go over our curriculum and classroom policies. Please make every effort to attend. I cover a lot of information that night in only 45 minutes, so afterwards, if you need more information on anything, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Please also plan on attending the Home & School Club meeting in the cafeteria immediately following my presentation. If you are unable to attend Back-to-School Night, please let me know so that I can set aside materials for you.
One item I will be covering during our meeting is the Consolidated Classroom Payment. The CCP is a payment that each grade level at Alta Vista asks for at the beginning of each year. It is different than a donation to the Home & School Club, which goes to school-wide programs such as Art Vistas, Clay, etc. This payment goes directly to your child. Rather than asking for money and items every time we have an event, the kindergarten team has totaled up what our costs will be for the entire year. So instead of paying for your child's entrance fee each time we have a field trip, or running out to buy a pillow case when we have our Thanksgiving Feast (it's part of the costume), we ask for the money for these items up front. Then we go out and do the purchasing in bulk, saving you time and money. The CCP for kindergarten this year is around $70-- I will get the exact total for you before Back-to-School Night. Please do whatever you can to make this payment, as it covers the costs of your own child's supplies and entrance fees and bus fees. Even if you can only make a partial payment at this time-- every little bit helps. If for some reason we don’t spend all of the money, it stays with your child and will go toward their first grade consolidated payment.
It is a lot easier to collect this payment at Back-to-School Night, so I’d appreciate it if you bring your checkbooks. Plus, there's usually a school-wide contest to see which class can get their CCP payments in first, and K2 has won that contest for the past two years, earning a class pizza party! We would love to win again! If this payment is a hardship, the Home & School Club does help supplement the CCP money for our grade level. Thank you in advance for your support with this payment—it helps us do a lot of projects and activities that would otherwise not be possible.
Some of you have asked about classroom help. I will put our parent helper opportunities back out at Back-to-School Night, then make the final schedule. You will find out which days you are officially helping after I have a chance to look over all of the information, and make sure I have coverage for all the activities and days. If you sign up to help at center time, we will begin centers the week of September 11th. Thank you to so many of you who signed up to help at the Orientation—we already have most of our activities covered! I know we do still need center helpers and a Wednesday envelope/Red Bag person, so I’ll hope for a few more volunteers at Back-to-School Night.
There is no school this Friday, September 2nd, or Monday, September 5th. Friday there will be a staff development meeting throughout the district, and Monday is of course Labor Day.
I am looking forward to another fun week with your children, and I am excited to meet and talk with you all Wednesday night!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Wednesday, August 31st @ 6:00: Back-to-School Night
Friday, September 2nd: No School-- Teacher Inservice Day
Monday, September 5th: No School-- Labor Day
Friday, September 9th: Back-to-School Movie Night
Thursday, September 22nd: Family Science Night
Wednesday, September 28th: First Wacky Wednesday
Wednesday, September 28th: Willow Street Pizza Fundraiser
Friday, September 30th: Picture Day
Friday, August 19, 2011
Welcome!
Dear Parents,
We'd like to welcome you and your children to our kindergarten class, and we were happy to meet so many of you at the orientation.
Our primary form of communication is via e-mail, so hopefully, you were able to provide an e-mail address to us at the orientation. If not, please make sure to do so between now and Back-to-School Night. We will send a few test e-mails between now and then, too, so look for those in your inbox.
The kindergarten daily schedules are:
Please mark your calendars and arrange babysitters for Back-to-School Night on Wednesday, August 31st. The schedule is as follows:
We are looking forward to an exciting year!
We'd like to welcome you and your children to our kindergarten class, and we were happy to meet so many of you at the orientation.
Our primary form of communication is via e-mail, so hopefully, you were able to provide an e-mail address to us at the orientation. If not, please make sure to do so between now and Back-to-School Night. We will send a few test e-mails between now and then, too, so look for those in your inbox.
The kindergarten daily schedules are:
- 8:05-11:25 AM Session
- 11:30-2:50 PM Session
- Please arrive on time and have your child ready to enter the classroom at the start time.
- Please say goodbye to your children at the door, rather than following them into the classroom and prolonging the goodbyes. We will both be there to comfort any children who need an extra hug!
- Pack a healthy snack for your child that includes a drink. If your child is attending day care either before or after kindergarten, it is a good idea to separate the snack items from the lunch items, as kindergartners often get confused and will eat all the food in one sitting!
- We do like your children to have a small backpack. Although it may often come home empty (except on Wednesdays!), we do have a project here and there that we send home during the week. Having a backpack gets the children in an early habit of taking responsibility for their things and putting them all in one place.
- All supplies are provided for your children, but we do appreciate donations of pump soap, tissues, glue sticks, and dry-erase markers.
Please mark your calendars and arrange babysitters for Back-to-School Night on Wednesday, August 31st. The schedule is as follows:
- 6:00-6:45 PM Class Presentation
- 6:45-7:15 Home & School Club Presentation
- 7:15-8:00 AM Class Presentation
We are looking forward to an exciting year!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Summer 2011
We thank the students and parents from the kindergarten class of 2010-2011 for a wonderful year, and we look forward to meeting our new kindergartners of 2011-2012!
Kindergarten Orientation is Friday, August 19th, from 10:00 to 11:00 (a.m.) and 11:00 to 12:00 (p.m.)
Supplies that we usually ask for include glue sticks, tissues, pencils, white board markers, and liquid hand soap. Check Back-to-School sales for these items-- we appreciate it!!
School begins on August 22, 2011-- morning session is 8:05 to 11:25 and the afternoon session is 11:30 to 2:50. Child care for both sessions is available at Champions (408) 356-3178 or Holy Cross (408) 356-6828.
If you have any other questions about our program, please click on the "send an e-mail" tab to the left.
Kindergarten Orientation is Friday, August 19th, from 10:00 to 11:00 (a.m.) and 11:00 to 12:00 (p.m.)
Supplies that we usually ask for include glue sticks, tissues, pencils, white board markers, and liquid hand soap. Check Back-to-School sales for these items-- we appreciate it!!
School begins on August 22, 2011-- morning session is 8:05 to 11:25 and the afternoon session is 11:30 to 2:50. Child care for both sessions is available at Champions (408) 356-3178 or Holy Cross (408) 356-6828.
If you have any other questions about our program, please click on the "send an e-mail" tab to the left.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Week of 6/5
Dear Parents,
It's exciting and a little sad at the same time, but we are heading into our last week together. What a wonderful year it's been! Michele & I want to thank you for the fantastic support you've given us all year long.
During the week, there will probably be a couple of opportunities to watch movies (class party day especially). If you can, please send in G-rated DVDs (no Blu-Rays, please) with your child's name on them, so that we have some movies to choose from. We will take a vote, so please let your children know that we won't necessarily be watching the movie they bring (there always seem to be some hurt feelings when a favorite movie doesn't "win" a vote!)
Here is a day-by-day run-down of the week-- hopefully the weather cooperates to allow all of these activities, but please check your e-mail daily to see if there are any updates!
MONDAY: Doughnuts with Dad/Hot Lunch Practice. Dads, please arrive with your children and the action will start after we take roll. NO SNACKS NEEDED as we will also be going to the cafeteria at about 11:00 to practice going through the hot lunch line. No money needed-- this was paid for in your consolidated classroom money.
TUESDAY: Class party/water play. Your party money is covering the food for this event. Again, no snacks needed. Pizza will be served. Please send your child with a bathing suit underneath (girls should wear a two-piece for ease of bathroom use/boys can wear swim trunks as shorts) a towel, and flip flops/water shoes/crocs, etc. for walking around on the blacktop. If they are going to day care afterward, please send a change of clothes. Please put sunblock on in the morning. Weather forecast is showing a pleasant day for Tuesday, but this event is weather-dependent. Check for updates!
WEDNESDAY: Olympic Day. This is a school-wide event. Please wear class t-shirts and appropriate footwear! Sunblock would also be a good idea, and hats, too. The event starts at 10:00 and goes on until noon, so we will miss a station or two at the end. We will eat an early snack, so please send snacks on this day. I have one parent helper, but could probably use 1-2 more to walk around with us and coordinate the stations. Please e-mail me if you are available.
THURSDAY: Promotion Ceremony @ 8:15 in the classroom. Be prepared for a brief presentation from the children and a great walk down memory lane of our wonderful year together. Please plan on attending this event or sending another family member who can attend! This is a special time to share with your children. No snacks needed-- refreshments will be served.
FRIDAY: All children in kindergarten on an early schedule, so we will be sharing the classroom with the p.m. class. Children will clean the classroom, sign yearbooks, and participate in our annual "Alphafriend Song Marathon!" Please send a snack on this day.
It's exciting and a little sad at the same time, but we are heading into our last week together. What a wonderful year it's been! Michele & I want to thank you for the fantastic support you've given us all year long.
During the week, there will probably be a couple of opportunities to watch movies (class party day especially). If you can, please send in G-rated DVDs (no Blu-Rays, please) with your child's name on them, so that we have some movies to choose from. We will take a vote, so please let your children know that we won't necessarily be watching the movie they bring (there always seem to be some hurt feelings when a favorite movie doesn't "win" a vote!)
Here is a day-by-day run-down of the week-- hopefully the weather cooperates to allow all of these activities, but please check your e-mail daily to see if there are any updates!
MONDAY: Doughnuts with Dad/Hot Lunch Practice. Dads, please arrive with your children and the action will start after we take roll. NO SNACKS NEEDED as we will also be going to the cafeteria at about 11:00 to practice going through the hot lunch line. No money needed-- this was paid for in your consolidated classroom money.
TUESDAY: Class party/water play. Your party money is covering the food for this event. Again, no snacks needed. Pizza will be served. Please send your child with a bathing suit underneath (girls should wear a two-piece for ease of bathroom use/boys can wear swim trunks as shorts) a towel, and flip flops/water shoes/crocs, etc. for walking around on the blacktop. If they are going to day care afterward, please send a change of clothes. Please put sunblock on in the morning. Weather forecast is showing a pleasant day for Tuesday, but this event is weather-dependent. Check for updates!
WEDNESDAY: Olympic Day. This is a school-wide event. Please wear class t-shirts and appropriate footwear! Sunblock would also be a good idea, and hats, too. The event starts at 10:00 and goes on until noon, so we will miss a station or two at the end. We will eat an early snack, so please send snacks on this day. I have one parent helper, but could probably use 1-2 more to walk around with us and coordinate the stations. Please e-mail me if you are available.
THURSDAY: Promotion Ceremony @ 8:15 in the classroom. Be prepared for a brief presentation from the children and a great walk down memory lane of our wonderful year together. Please plan on attending this event or sending another family member who can attend! This is a special time to share with your children. No snacks needed-- refreshments will be served.
FRIDAY: All children in kindergarten on an early schedule, so we will be sharing the classroom with the p.m. class. Children will clean the classroom, sign yearbooks, and participate in our annual "Alphafriend Song Marathon!" Please send a snack on this day.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Week of 5/29
Dear Parents,
We hope you are all enjoying this beautiful long weekend. With only 9 days to go in kindergarten, we mostly will just remind you of upcoming special events!
There is no sharing this week and in class, we will wrap up our science unit on animals. The children have really enjoyed observing fish, guppies, land snails and pond snails, red worms, and night crawlers. Our butterflies all hatched over the weekend, and we will let them go on Tuesday.
Our last Wednesday envelope will go home this week. Please review the papers, and then keep the envelope-- no need to send it back again!
This week, we have our Art Vista art show. This is a really neat event to come and check out. It is in the cafeteria on Thursday from 8 a.m. to 3:00, and then from 5:00 to 8:00 . A few pieces of each child's work is on display, and it is absolutely amazing to look at the art work when it is all mounted and ready for display! I highly encourage you to come and check it out.
On Monday the 6th, we have Doughnuts with Dad. Dads, we will start up the activities at around 8:15 with some doughnuts and orange juice, and then we will have a paper airplane folding activity. Things should wrap up in about 45 minutes to an hour. Again, if dads are unavailable, feel free to send a grandpa, mom, uncle, neighbor, etc.
We have our water play day coming up on Tuesday the 7th. Please send your children with a towel, a swimsuit under their clothes (or boys just wear their swimsuits as shorts) water shoes or flip flops or old shoes you don't mind having them get wet. We don't like them to go barefoot on the blacktop, so we need them to be wearing shoes that will work with the water. Please coat them in sunblock before their arrival, as sun block is most effective if applied about a half hour before the activity.
Spirit Week is this week, but it is totally optional. If your child wants to participate, here's the run-down:
Upcoming Events:
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
6/1: Volunteer Luncheon, 12:00-1:00
6/6: Doughnuts with Dad @ 8:15, Practice eating lunch in cafeteria
6/7: Water Play Day & Class Party
6/8: School-wide Olympic Day
6/9: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony 8:15-10:00
6/10: Last Day
We hope you are all enjoying this beautiful long weekend. With only 9 days to go in kindergarten, we mostly will just remind you of upcoming special events!
There is no sharing this week and in class, we will wrap up our science unit on animals. The children have really enjoyed observing fish, guppies, land snails and pond snails, red worms, and night crawlers. Our butterflies all hatched over the weekend, and we will let them go on Tuesday.
Our last Wednesday envelope will go home this week. Please review the papers, and then keep the envelope-- no need to send it back again!
This week, we have our Art Vista art show. This is a really neat event to come and check out. It is in the cafeteria on Thursday from 8 a.m. to 3:00, and then from 5:00 to 8:00 . A few pieces of each child's work is on display, and it is absolutely amazing to look at the art work when it is all mounted and ready for display! I highly encourage you to come and check it out.
On Monday the 6th, we have Doughnuts with Dad. Dads, we will start up the activities at around 8:15 with some doughnuts and orange juice, and then we will have a paper airplane folding activity. Things should wrap up in about 45 minutes to an hour. Again, if dads are unavailable, feel free to send a grandpa, mom, uncle, neighbor, etc.
We have our water play day coming up on Tuesday the 7th. Please send your children with a towel, a swimsuit under their clothes (or boys just wear their swimsuits as shorts) water shoes or flip flops or old shoes you don't mind having them get wet. We don't like them to go barefoot on the blacktop, so we need them to be wearing shoes that will work with the water. Please coat them in sunblock before their arrival, as sun block is most effective if applied about a half hour before the activity.
Spirit Week is this week, but it is totally optional. If your child wants to participate, here's the run-down:
- Tuesday: Sports Day (wear team jerseys, caps, etc.)
- Wednesday: Beach Day
- Thursday: Fancy/Formal Dress Day
- Friday: Crazy Hair/Class t-shirt Day
Upcoming Events:
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
6/1: Volunteer Luncheon, 12:00-1:00
6/6: Doughnuts with Dad @ 8:15, Practice eating lunch in cafeteria
6/7: Water Play Day & Class Party
6/8: School-wide Olympic Day
6/9: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony 8:15-10:00
6/10: Last Day
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Week of 5/22
Dear Parents,
It was great to see so many of you at the Fantasy Faire on Friday night. Thanks for coming out to support our school! A special thanks goes to Edna Eng, Karla Carlen, and Jen Lipscomb (did I miss anyone?) for coordinating our classroom booth.
The upcoming final 14 days (can you believe it??) will be devoted to reviewing concepts that we have learned in kindergarten. Mrs. Sheikh and I will be administering our final round of assessments to evaluate your children for the 3rd trimester report cards. Those report cards will come home with your children on the last day of school.
We will begin our last math unit on graphing this week, and we have mostly wrapped up our final science unit on living things. The kids really enjoyed the snails, fish, and worms that we had in class! Last week, we even had some snail races, which were tons of fun. It was amazing to see how many of your children did not even hesitate to handle the snails and let them crawl along their arms :)
This week's sharing is toy in a bag. It is our last week of sharing, so we'll end on a high note with the children's favorite! It's been great seeing so many of the clues written by the children themselves.
Please send in your child's homework folder tomorrow for the last time.
We hope to see you all at Open House this Wednesday. It starts with a Home & School Club meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the cafeteria, where information about the upcoming year's budget & board members will be shared. Classrooms will open at 7:00. The children are very excited about showing off their work and we have some wonderful projects on display, so please join us! This is also a great opportunity to check out first grade classrooms so that children can see what lies ahead!
Another very important event for you all to attend will be our kindergarten promotion ceremony on the 9th. Please plan on joining us at 8:15 for a short program presented by the children, followed by refreshments and a special DVD presentation.
Dads, we hope you are planning on joining us on Monday the 6th at 8:15 for Doughnuts with Dad. We will have some doughnuts (of course!) and dads will do a little project with their kids. It should be a fun hour or so.
Please continue checking the upcoming events below, as this is a VERY busy time of year, and new events keep getting added!
Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Homework folders due, Prepare for Open House, Sharing
TUESDAY: Prepare for Open House, Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Sharing, Open House 7:00-8:00
THURSDAY: Sharing
FRIDAY: SPARK P.E. (Tim, Megan/Mark, Margaret, Derek) Sharing
Upcoming Events:
5/25: Open House 7:00-8:00, HSC meeting 6:30 pm
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
6/1: Volunteer Luncheon, 12:00-1:00
6/2: Art Vistas Art Show 8:00-3:00 & 5:00-8:00
6/6: Doughnuts with Dad @ 8:15, Practice eating lunch in cafeteria
6/7: Water Play Day & Class Party
6/8: School-wide Olympic Day
6/9: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony 8:15-10:00
6/10: Last Day
It was great to see so many of you at the Fantasy Faire on Friday night. Thanks for coming out to support our school! A special thanks goes to Edna Eng, Karla Carlen, and Jen Lipscomb (did I miss anyone?) for coordinating our classroom booth.
The upcoming final 14 days (can you believe it??) will be devoted to reviewing concepts that we have learned in kindergarten. Mrs. Sheikh and I will be administering our final round of assessments to evaluate your children for the 3rd trimester report cards. Those report cards will come home with your children on the last day of school.
We will begin our last math unit on graphing this week, and we have mostly wrapped up our final science unit on living things. The kids really enjoyed the snails, fish, and worms that we had in class! Last week, we even had some snail races, which were tons of fun. It was amazing to see how many of your children did not even hesitate to handle the snails and let them crawl along their arms :)
This week's sharing is toy in a bag. It is our last week of sharing, so we'll end on a high note with the children's favorite! It's been great seeing so many of the clues written by the children themselves.
Please send in your child's homework folder tomorrow for the last time.
We hope to see you all at Open House this Wednesday. It starts with a Home & School Club meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the cafeteria, where information about the upcoming year's budget & board members will be shared. Classrooms will open at 7:00. The children are very excited about showing off their work and we have some wonderful projects on display, so please join us! This is also a great opportunity to check out first grade classrooms so that children can see what lies ahead!
Another very important event for you all to attend will be our kindergarten promotion ceremony on the 9th. Please plan on joining us at 8:15 for a short program presented by the children, followed by refreshments and a special DVD presentation.
Dads, we hope you are planning on joining us on Monday the 6th at 8:15 for Doughnuts with Dad. We will have some doughnuts (of course!) and dads will do a little project with their kids. It should be a fun hour or so.
Please continue checking the upcoming events below, as this is a VERY busy time of year, and new events keep getting added!
Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Homework folders due, Prepare for Open House, Sharing
TUESDAY: Prepare for Open House, Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Sharing, Open House 7:00-8:00
THURSDAY: Sharing
FRIDAY: SPARK P.E. (Tim, Megan/Mark, Margaret, Derek) Sharing
Upcoming Events:
5/25: Open House 7:00-8:00, HSC meeting 6:30 pm
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
6/1: Volunteer Luncheon, 12:00-1:00
6/2: Art Vistas Art Show 8:00-3:00 & 5:00-8:00
6/6: Doughnuts with Dad @ 8:15, Practice eating lunch in cafeteria
6/7: Water Play Day & Class Party
6/8: School-wide Olympic Day
6/9: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony 8:15-10:00
6/10: Last Day
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Week of 5/8
Dear Parents,
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms! We are looking forward to celebrating with all of you tomorrow at 10:30. We have a short presentation of a mini-play and a few songs, and then you can enjoy some treats with your child. This is an event the kindergartners always look forward to sharing with their moms/someone special, so please be sure that someone comes. Thank you!
We have now introduced all of the consonants & vowels, as I forgot to mention last week that we did introduce Umbie Umbrella. . This week (and all the rest of the weeks this school year) will be a review week. We will be reviewing the letters Bb, Cc, Ll, but we do have two new sight words-- he & as. In math, we will begin our unit on the calendar. Children will learn things such as there are seven days in the week, twelve months in the year, the order of the days of the week & the months of the year, etc.
In science, we are beginning our unit on the life cycle of a butterfly. We will have some real caterpillars arriving in class soon, and we will watch the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly. This is a very exciting unit for the children. We will also begin our unit on Animals. Other "creatures" that will be coming to class include: worms, snails, and fish.
Our sharing this week is Book Share. Please have your child bring in a book with a favorite page bookmarked. Please have them be prepared to share the title as well as a brief summary of the book. This share does not need to be hidden or have clues.
Please send in your Red Bags tomorrow-- there are only two weeks left of homework!-- along with the April "I Love to Read" calendar if you haven't done so already. Thank you to everyone who turned in their calendars/e-mailed minutes last week.
The district's parent survey is up on the Alta Vista website, and it is really important that you participate. Go to the AV website: http://altavista.unionsd.org/home and click on the left-hand link, "District Parent Survey." Please let us know if you've participated by either sending in the form that was sent home over a week ago, or just sending us an e-mail stating that you've participated. We will give a Cougar Gold Card to each child whose family participates. Thank you for your help with this.
Enjoy the rest of your Mother's Day, Moms!
Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Red Bags due, NO CENTERS, Muffins with Mom @ 10:30, Sharing
TUESDAY: Centers (Margaret& Wendy), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Computers (Matt), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Centers (Arden & Melanie), Sharing
FRIDAY: SPARK P.E. (Tim, Megan/Mark, Margaret, Derek) Sharing
Upcoming Events:
5/9: Muffins with Mom @ 10:30
5/11: Life in the Pond Presentation from YSI @ 10:00
5/20: Fantasy Fair Luau @ 5:00-8:30
5/25: Open House
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
6/6: Doughnuts with Dad @ 8:15, Practice eating lunch in cafeteria
6/7: Water Play Day & Class Party
6/8: School-wide Olympic Day
6/9: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony
6/10: Last Day
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms! We are looking forward to celebrating with all of you tomorrow at 10:30. We have a short presentation of a mini-play and a few songs, and then you can enjoy some treats with your child. This is an event the kindergartners always look forward to sharing with their moms/someone special, so please be sure that someone comes. Thank you!
We have now introduced all of the consonants & vowels, as I forgot to mention last week that we did introduce Umbie Umbrella. . This week (and all the rest of the weeks this school year) will be a review week. We will be reviewing the letters Bb, Cc, Ll, but we do have two new sight words-- he & as. In math, we will begin our unit on the calendar. Children will learn things such as there are seven days in the week, twelve months in the year, the order of the days of the week & the months of the year, etc.
In science, we are beginning our unit on the life cycle of a butterfly. We will have some real caterpillars arriving in class soon, and we will watch the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly. This is a very exciting unit for the children. We will also begin our unit on Animals. Other "creatures" that will be coming to class include: worms, snails, and fish.
Our sharing this week is Book Share. Please have your child bring in a book with a favorite page bookmarked. Please have them be prepared to share the title as well as a brief summary of the book. This share does not need to be hidden or have clues.
Please send in your Red Bags tomorrow-- there are only two weeks left of homework!-- along with the April "I Love to Read" calendar if you haven't done so already. Thank you to everyone who turned in their calendars/e-mailed minutes last week.
The district's parent survey is up on the Alta Vista website, and it is really important that you participate. Go to the AV website: http://altavista.unionsd.org/home and click on the left-hand link, "District Parent Survey." Please let us know if you've participated by either sending in the form that was sent home over a week ago, or just sending us an e-mail stating that you've participated. We will give a Cougar Gold Card to each child whose family participates. Thank you for your help with this.
Enjoy the rest of your Mother's Day, Moms!
Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Red Bags due, NO CENTERS, Muffins with Mom @ 10:30, Sharing
TUESDAY: Centers (Margaret& Wendy), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Computers (Matt), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Centers (Arden & Melanie), Sharing
FRIDAY: SPARK P.E. (Tim, Megan/Mark, Margaret, Derek) Sharing
Upcoming Events:
5/9: Muffins with Mom @ 10:30
5/11: Life in the Pond Presentation from YSI @ 10:00
5/20: Fantasy Fair Luau @ 5:00-8:30
5/25: Open House
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
6/6: Doughnuts with Dad @ 8:15, Practice eating lunch in cafeteria
6/7: Water Play Day & Class Party
6/8: School-wide Olympic Day
6/9: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony
6/10: Last Day
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Week of 5/1
Dear Parents,
Our Cinco de Mayo dance will be this Thursday, May 5th, at 11:15 a.m. Please arrive on time so that you don't miss it! The afternoon class will be coming at that time, too, so parking may be tricky. If your children have any festive, bright dresses or bright colorful tops those always make the scene even more vibrant. Remember that if work constraints only allow you occasional days off that we would prefer that you are present for the Muffins with Mom event next Monday the 9th. If you cannot come, please consider sending a grandma, aunt, good friend, etc. Thank you!
This week, we do have a new letter-- one of our last ones! The letter is Jj and the Alphafriend is Jumping Jill. We will also have a new word, are. We are starting a new math topic next week on the calendar. We will be looking more closely at the names of the days of the week, the months, and how many days are in a month, etc. This week will be a review week in math.
Our sharing this week is letter of the week share. Please have your child bring in something that starts with the letter Jj. Your child can write three clues about it so that we can guess. They have been doing a great job writing their own clues!
Homework/Red Bags are due tomorrow. This week, when the Red Bags go home again, the children will have special Cinco de Mayo homework-- a packet of fun activities with Spanish words and English words.
We will be doing some painting and other "messy" projects the next few weeks at center time, so please don't wear any super special outfits! We will also have our last Art Vista lesson on Friday. We will not paint on Cinco de Mayo since children may be wearing special dresses and shirts, and there are no centers on the 9th for the Mother's Day event.
The district's parent survey is up on the Alta Vista website, and it is really important that you participate. Go to the AV website: http://altavista.unionsd.org/home and click on the left-hand link, "District Parent Survey." Please let us know if you've participated by either sending in the form that was sent home over a week ago, or just sending us an e-mail stating that you've participated. We will give a Cougar Gold Card to each child whose family participates. Thank you for your help with this.
Also, a reminder that STAR testing for grades 2-5 begins this week. At both drop-off, but especially at pick-up, please be mindful of the fact that the older children are test-taking during the entire morning block. This is not a good week to be making a lot of noise outside the classrooms or on the grass in front of the school at pick-up time or as you walk around campus during the school hours. Thanks so much for your cooperation.
Reminder again that the book order that is currently posted will be up until May 20th. That will be the last order of the year.
Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Red Bags due, Centers (Manami & Megan), Sharing
TUESDAY: Centers (Laura & Margaret), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Computers (Tim), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Centers (Kristi & Matt/Lorraine), Sharing, Cinco de Mayo Dance on the playground @ 11:15
FRIDAY: ZUMBA, Sharing
Upcoming Events:
5/5: Cinco de Mayo Hat Dance @ 11:15
5/6: Multicultural Family Night @ 5:00-7:30
5/9: Muffins with Mom @ 10:30
5/11: Life in the Pond Presentation from YSI @ 10:00
5/20: Fantasy Fair Luau @ 5:00-8:30
5/25: Open House
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
6/6: Doughnuts with Dad
Our Cinco de Mayo dance will be this Thursday, May 5th, at 11:15 a.m. Please arrive on time so that you don't miss it! The afternoon class will be coming at that time, too, so parking may be tricky. If your children have any festive, bright dresses or bright colorful tops those always make the scene even more vibrant. Remember that if work constraints only allow you occasional days off that we would prefer that you are present for the Muffins with Mom event next Monday the 9th. If you cannot come, please consider sending a grandma, aunt, good friend, etc. Thank you!
This week, we do have a new letter-- one of our last ones! The letter is Jj and the Alphafriend is Jumping Jill. We will also have a new word, are. We are starting a new math topic next week on the calendar. We will be looking more closely at the names of the days of the week, the months, and how many days are in a month, etc. This week will be a review week in math.
Our sharing this week is letter of the week share. Please have your child bring in something that starts with the letter Jj. Your child can write three clues about it so that we can guess. They have been doing a great job writing their own clues!
Homework/Red Bags are due tomorrow. This week, when the Red Bags go home again, the children will have special Cinco de Mayo homework-- a packet of fun activities with Spanish words and English words.
We will be doing some painting and other "messy" projects the next few weeks at center time, so please don't wear any super special outfits! We will also have our last Art Vista lesson on Friday. We will not paint on Cinco de Mayo since children may be wearing special dresses and shirts, and there are no centers on the 9th for the Mother's Day event.
The district's parent survey is up on the Alta Vista website, and it is really important that you participate. Go to the AV website: http://altavista.unionsd.org/home and click on the left-hand link, "District Parent Survey." Please let us know if you've participated by either sending in the form that was sent home over a week ago, or just sending us an e-mail stating that you've participated. We will give a Cougar Gold Card to each child whose family participates. Thank you for your help with this.
Also, a reminder that STAR testing for grades 2-5 begins this week. At both drop-off, but especially at pick-up, please be mindful of the fact that the older children are test-taking during the entire morning block. This is not a good week to be making a lot of noise outside the classrooms or on the grass in front of the school at pick-up time or as you walk around campus during the school hours. Thanks so much for your cooperation.
Reminder again that the book order that is currently posted will be up until May 20th. That will be the last order of the year.
Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Red Bags due, Centers (Manami & Megan), Sharing
TUESDAY: Centers (Laura & Margaret), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Computers (Tim), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Centers (Kristi & Matt/Lorraine), Sharing, Cinco de Mayo Dance on the playground @ 11:15
FRIDAY: ZUMBA, Sharing
Upcoming Events:
5/5: Cinco de Mayo Hat Dance @ 11:15
5/6: Multicultural Family Night @ 5:00-7:30
5/9: Muffins with Mom @ 10:30
5/11: Life in the Pond Presentation from YSI @ 10:00
5/20: Fantasy Fair Luau @ 5:00-8:30
5/25: Open House
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
6/6: Doughnuts with Dad
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Week of 4/24
Dear Parents,
This week, we have another review week with letters. I believe we only have one consonant and one vowel left to formally introduce, so we will have many review weeks ahead of us! We will be reviewing both w and y, as those are more difficult sounds which are often confused. Our sight words are if and was.
We will continue on our math topic on telling time. This topic covers telling time to the hour and half hour on both a digital and an analog clock. It also covers estimating how much time something takes, as well as things that happen during the day versus during the night. The children seem to be enjoying this topic.
This week's sharing is Song, Poem, Nursery Rhyme. The children need to be prepared to recite a short song, poem, or nursery rhyme. Alphafriend songs are perfect for this sharing-- they can choose a letter we've covered and sing the accompanying Alphafriend song. We also love to hear songs and lullabies from other countries, so this is a perfect time for children to show off other languages that they know!
Remember that we have canceled centers this week due to the assessments of the incoming kindergartners. We could still use one helper from about 9:00 to 10:00 (maybe slightly less time) on Tuesday, if anyone is available. We will be making some hats/masks for our Mother's Day play, so I will need help measuring heads and working with the kids on decorating those.
Moms, remember that Muffins with Mom is coming up on May 9th at 10:30, and it is most important that you come to that. If for some reason you are unable to join us, please consider sending another "representative," such as Grandma, Aunt, a special neighbor, etc. The kids are always so excited to host their mothers for this event, so it is important that someone is there. Thank you!
There is a book order up that is due on May 20th if you'd like to order. This will be our last order of the year.
Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Pinatas (Manami), Sharing
TUESDAY: Hats/Masks for Play (OPEN), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Computers (Matt), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Papel Picado, Sharing
FRIDAY: SPARK P.E. (Tim, Margaret, Megan/Mark, Derek)
Upcoming Events:
5/5: Cinco de Mayo Hat Dance @ 11:15
5/6: Multicultural Family Night @ 5:00-7:30
5/9: Muffins with Mom @ 10:30
5/11: Life in the Pond Presentation from YSI @ 10:00
5/20: Fantasy Fair Luau @ 5:00-8:30
5/25: Open House
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
This week, we have another review week with letters. I believe we only have one consonant and one vowel left to formally introduce, so we will have many review weeks ahead of us! We will be reviewing both w and y, as those are more difficult sounds which are often confused. Our sight words are if and was.
We will continue on our math topic on telling time. This topic covers telling time to the hour and half hour on both a digital and an analog clock. It also covers estimating how much time something takes, as well as things that happen during the day versus during the night. The children seem to be enjoying this topic.
This week's sharing is Song, Poem, Nursery Rhyme. The children need to be prepared to recite a short song, poem, or nursery rhyme. Alphafriend songs are perfect for this sharing-- they can choose a letter we've covered and sing the accompanying Alphafriend song. We also love to hear songs and lullabies from other countries, so this is a perfect time for children to show off other languages that they know!
Remember that we have canceled centers this week due to the assessments of the incoming kindergartners. We could still use one helper from about 9:00 to 10:00 (maybe slightly less time) on Tuesday, if anyone is available. We will be making some hats/masks for our Mother's Day play, so I will need help measuring heads and working with the kids on decorating those.
Moms, remember that Muffins with Mom is coming up on May 9th at 10:30, and it is most important that you come to that. If for some reason you are unable to join us, please consider sending another "representative," such as Grandma, Aunt, a special neighbor, etc. The kids are always so excited to host their mothers for this event, so it is important that someone is there. Thank you!
There is a book order up that is due on May 20th if you'd like to order. This will be our last order of the year.
Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Pinatas (Manami), Sharing
TUESDAY: Hats/Masks for Play (OPEN), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Computers (Matt), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Papel Picado, Sharing
FRIDAY: SPARK P.E. (Tim, Margaret, Megan/Mark, Derek)
Upcoming Events:
5/5: Cinco de Mayo Hat Dance @ 11:15
5/6: Multicultural Family Night @ 5:00-7:30
5/9: Muffins with Mom @ 10:30
5/11: Life in the Pond Presentation from YSI @ 10:00
5/20: Fantasy Fair Luau @ 5:00-8:30
5/25: Open House
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Week of 4/17
Dear Parents,
We hope you all enjoyed a nice week off with your children. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we are now into the "final stretch" of kindergarten, and the time will fly by very quickly! We are looking forward to some great fun and learning in the weeks ahead.
Just a reminder that if you are ordering Spring pictures, the money is due tomorrow. You received the proof in the Wednesday envelope before Spring Break.
We have a new letter this week, Yy, and the Alphafriend is Yetta Yo-Yo. We will also have a new sight word, she. We will begin a new math unit on time. The kindergarten expectation is telling time to the hour on both an analog and digital clock. Our art projects this week will continue around the Farm theme and Spring/Earth Day.
On May 5th, you may have noticed in the "Upcoming Events" that we have our Cinco de Mayo hat dance. This is an annual tradition in kindergarten, and you are all invited to come and watch! All the kindergarten classes dance the Hat Dance together, and it is a sight to see! The dance will start at 11:15. Don't be late, or you will miss it! Please plan on joining us if you can, but if your work schedule only allows for one day off, we would MUCH prefer that moms join us for Muffins with Mom on the 9th. Thank you!
The sharing this week will be Toy in a Bag. We would really like the children to start writing their own clues at this point in the year, even if it is only one single word to prompt them. For example, "1. Furry 2. Brown 3. Soft" could be clues for a teddy bear. Thank you for continuing to encourage your children in their writing and in spelling words on their own using phonetic spelling.
We have a Cornerstone lesson on Tuesday. We will also be doing "I Love to Read" this week, so if you have not sent in your child's March reading minutes, please send them in tomorrow or e-mail them directly to Margaret.
We will look forward to seeing the children tomorrow and hearing all about their adventures over the past week!
Helpers/Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Centers (Megan & Tammy), Sharing
TUESDAY: Centers (Margaret & Jamie), Sharing, Cornerstone
WEDNESDAY: Clay glazing, Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Computers (Margaret), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Centers (Kristi & Matt/Lorraine)
FRIDAY: SPARK P.E. (Tim, Margaret, Megan/Mark, Derek)
Upcoming Events:
5/5: Cinco de Mayo Hat Dance @ 11:15
5/6: Multicultural Family Night @ 5:00-7:30
5/9: Muffins with Mom @ 10:30
5/11: Life in the Pond Presentation from YSI @ 10:00
5/20: Fantasy Fair Luau @ 5:00-8:30
5/25: Open House
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
We hope you all enjoyed a nice week off with your children. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we are now into the "final stretch" of kindergarten, and the time will fly by very quickly! We are looking forward to some great fun and learning in the weeks ahead.
Just a reminder that if you are ordering Spring pictures, the money is due tomorrow. You received the proof in the Wednesday envelope before Spring Break.
We have a new letter this week, Yy, and the Alphafriend is Yetta Yo-Yo. We will also have a new sight word, she. We will begin a new math unit on time. The kindergarten expectation is telling time to the hour on both an analog and digital clock. Our art projects this week will continue around the Farm theme and Spring/Earth Day.
On May 5th, you may have noticed in the "Upcoming Events" that we have our Cinco de Mayo hat dance. This is an annual tradition in kindergarten, and you are all invited to come and watch! All the kindergarten classes dance the Hat Dance together, and it is a sight to see! The dance will start at 11:15. Don't be late, or you will miss it! Please plan on joining us if you can, but if your work schedule only allows for one day off, we would MUCH prefer that moms join us for Muffins with Mom on the 9th. Thank you!
The sharing this week will be Toy in a Bag. We would really like the children to start writing their own clues at this point in the year, even if it is only one single word to prompt them. For example, "1. Furry 2. Brown 3. Soft" could be clues for a teddy bear. Thank you for continuing to encourage your children in their writing and in spelling words on their own using phonetic spelling.
We have a Cornerstone lesson on Tuesday. We will also be doing "I Love to Read" this week, so if you have not sent in your child's March reading minutes, please send them in tomorrow or e-mail them directly to Margaret.
We will look forward to seeing the children tomorrow and hearing all about their adventures over the past week!
Helpers/Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Centers (Megan & Tammy), Sharing
TUESDAY: Centers (Margaret & Jamie), Sharing, Cornerstone
WEDNESDAY: Clay glazing, Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Computers (Margaret), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Centers (Kristi & Matt/Lorraine)
FRIDAY: SPARK P.E. (Tim, Margaret, Megan/Mark, Derek)
Upcoming Events:
5/5: Cinco de Mayo Hat Dance @ 11:15
5/6: Multicultural Family Night @ 5:00-7:30
5/9: Muffins with Mom @ 10:30
5/11: Life in the Pond Presentation from YSI @ 10:00
5/20: Fantasy Fair Luau @ 5:00-8:30
5/25: Open House
5/30: No School: Memorial Day
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Week of 4/3
Dear Parents,
We have a very packed week ahead of us with a field trip Thursday and Spring Fling Friday! As we head into our final week of school before Spring Break, when we get back, I hate to say it, but the time will just FLY by!
This week, we have a review week in language arts. We are reviewing f, h, s. We will introduce two new sight words, an and you. In math, we will wrap up our unit on weight & capacity.
We have really been enjoying our science unit on Wood & Paper! Last week we had the chance to make paper mache, as well as our own paper by creating our own paper pulp, then drying it. This week, we will be taking apart boxes (thanks for all the donations!) and looking at their original shapes. It is truly a great hands-on unit.
We have a very packed week ahead of us with a field trip Thursday and Spring Fling Friday! As we head into our final week of school before Spring Break, when we get back, I hate to say it, but the time will just FLY by!
This week, we have a review week in language arts. We are reviewing f, h, s. We will introduce two new sight words, an and you. In math, we will wrap up our unit on weight & capacity.
We have really been enjoying our science unit on Wood & Paper! Last week we had the chance to make paper mache, as well as our own paper by creating our own paper pulp, then drying it. This week, we will be taking apart boxes (thanks for all the donations!) and looking at their original shapes. It is truly a great hands-on unit.
For the field trip Thursday, please remember to send your child in the Great White Shark t-shirt. You may need to have your child wear a shirt underneath for warmth. Also, please pack a disposable snack in a paper bag. Please write your child's name visibly on the bag. Please also send your children in good walking shoes, as we will be walking around the farm.
We have Spring Fling this Friday, of course. Thank you again for answering the call for help!! I believe all items are now covered, but if anyone else would like to join us for the day, feel free to do so. Thanks again.
I Love to Read calendars for March are now due. Please turn them in with tomorrow's Red Bags. Red Bags will not go home this Wednesday due to the upcoming vacation week.
This week's sharing is Homemade Item. Please have your children bring in something they've made or decorated themselves, and be prepared to tell a bit about how they did the project. Thursday & Friday children can share any day this week.
A reminder again that we've set the date for Muffins with Mom (May 9 @ 10:30). Please come join us for this important event!
There is a change to the helper calendar-- the week of April 25th, we will no longer need center helpers. We will be doing "Kindergarten Round-Up," that week, where we do our pre-assessments on the incoming kindergartners to assist us in balancing the classes. However, we may need a volunteer or two that week for some special art projects. Thank you for your flexibility. We also won't be doing centers on the day of our Muffins with Mom event.
Helpers/Activities This Week:
We have Spring Fling this Friday, of course. Thank you again for answering the call for help!! I believe all items are now covered, but if anyone else would like to join us for the day, feel free to do so. Thanks again.
I Love to Read calendars for March are now due. Please turn them in with tomorrow's Red Bags. Red Bags will not go home this Wednesday due to the upcoming vacation week.
This week's sharing is Homemade Item. Please have your children bring in something they've made or decorated themselves, and be prepared to tell a bit about how they did the project. Thursday & Friday children can share any day this week.
A reminder again that we've set the date for Muffins with Mom (May 9 @ 10:30). Please come join us for this important event!
There is a change to the helper calendar-- the week of April 25th, we will no longer need center helpers. We will be doing "Kindergarten Round-Up," that week, where we do our pre-assessments on the incoming kindergartners to assist us in balancing the classes. However, we may need a volunteer or two that week for some special art projects. Thank you for your flexibility. We also won't be doing centers on the day of our Muffins with Mom event.
Helpers/Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Red Bags due, Centers (Manami & Megan), Sharing
TUESDAY: Centers (Laura & Wendy), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Computers (Margaret), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: FIELD TRIP
FRIDAY: SPRING FLING
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Computers (Margaret), Sharing, Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: FIELD TRIP
FRIDAY: SPRING FLING
Upcoming Events:
4/7: Field Trip to Prusch Farm
4/7: Field Trip to Prusch Farm
4/8: Spring Fling
4/9-4/17: Spring Break
5/5: Cinco de Mayo Hat Dance
5/5: Cinco de Mayo Hat Dance
5/9: Muffins with Mom