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:

• Tuesday: Sports Day (wear team jerseys, caps, etc.)
• Wednesday: Beach Day
• Thursday: Fancy/Formal Dress Day
• Friday: Crazy Hair/Class t-shirt Day

Our last big event together is next Thursday the 9th at 8:15 a.m. for our Promotion Day celebration. This should wrap up by about 10:00, and then the kids can stay and sign yearbooks, etc. If you want them to leave early that day, please sign them out in the office. Please plan on joining us as we have a small presentation and will look back on our wonderful year together!

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

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

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

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