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.)

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:

•  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)

We also have our first Art Vista lesson this week.  Art Vista is a program paid for by the Alta Vista Home & School Club, thanks to your generous donations to events like the Walk-a-thon.  It is a very hands-on art program, where the children will look at copies of paintings by many great artists and discuss an artistic element such as line, shade, perspective, etc.  Then they will have a follow-up art project that focuses on the particular element. 

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.)

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.)

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.)

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.)