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.)
