Dear Parents,
The big news this week is our first Field Trip on Friday! We are excited to see the play, I Don't Want to Go to Bed. Here's the description of the play from the website:
Observe the frustrations of a young girl who doesn’t like bedtime so transforms this task one night into a wonderful imaginative adventure with her parents by re-enacting her favorite stories including The Three Little Pigs and The Billy Goats Gruff.
We have seen this play in the past, and it's a fun one! Your child needs to wear his/her "Grist/Sheikh" t-shirt, preferably over the top of something warm (a turtleneck, fleece, long-sleeved t-shirt underneath). This makes them easier to spot as we enter the theater and get seated. Because this trip doesn't require a lot of extra supervision (we are simply boarding the bus at school, then pulling into the parking lot in Sunnyvale, exiting the bus, and going in the theater) we are only having one parent chaperone. Thanks to those who offered-- we do have a farm trip in the Spring when we will need more chaperones. Please remember to also send a snack with your child. We will eat it upon returning to school.
This week's share is 100 Day collections. Please have your child bring in 100 items that they'd like to show us on his/her share day. Children who share on Friday can bring in their sharing any day this week, since we won't have time for sharing due to the field trip. This is a fun counting activity at home, plus a fun way to see the many ways 100 can look. I will probably ask your child how they counted out their items (by 1s, 10s, 5s, etc.), so have him/her prepared to talk about the process. Remember that it can be as simple as 100 cheerios-- whatever your child has 100 items of that s/he would like to share.
The 100th day of school is this Wednesday, and we will have lots of fun projects and activities in class in celebration of the day! We have 180 total school days, so we are more than half-way through the year. Our Spring conferences are rapidly approaching (March) and I will be sending out those sign-ups in a separate e-mail. If you had a conference with me in the Fall, I will send you my schedule, and if you had a conference with Mrs. Sheikh, I will send you her schedule. As in the Fall, you can either print out our schedule and write in your time preferences & send it back with your child this week, or you can e-mail us with your three time preferences.
This week's letter is Kk, and our Alphafriend is Keely Kangaroo. We will be learning a new word this week, here. Last week, we learned a new vowel, Ii, and met the Alphafriend Iggy Iguana. Now we can read and spell CVC words with both short a and short i. We will be continuing with numbers 20-30 in math.
Our art activities this week will center around our snowy theme, the 100 day theme, and we will also begin talking about Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year. If there are any families in our class that celebrate Lunar New Year and would like to come and talk about this holiday, we would love to have you! The previous two years, we've had wonderful presentations on the Lunar New Year with cultural outfits and other important items being brought in. Please let us know if you'd be interested in talking to the class, either this week or next week.
On Monday, February 14th, we will be celebrating Valentine's Day in class. Just a reminder (since I know your children will be eagerly shopping for Valentines soon!) in kindergarten, we have the kids sign their valentines, but we do not have them write who the valentine is "to." This makes distribution MUCH easier, since most kids cannot read the names! So please sign the cards, but leave the "to" box blank. Please send in 23 valentines so that there are enough for each child in the class. Thanks!
Please send in your child's red bag tomorrow, and remember to include January's "I Love to Read" calendar, which is now almost due.
Helpers/Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Red Bags due, Centers (Laura & Megan), Sharing, Library
TUESDAY: Centers (Manami & Margaret), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: 100 Day Fun, Red Bags/Weds. Envelopes prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Sharing, Computers (Matt), Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Centers (Tammi & Melanie), Sharing
FRIDAY: Field Trip to California Theater Center
Upcoming Events:
2/2: 100 Day
2/4: Field trip to CA Theater Center to see a play
2/7: Snow Day (dress up in snow gear and have a day of "snow" activities)
Week of 2/20: No School: President's Week
