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.
Instead, it is in the order of frequency of these sounds in words. 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 a few
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 used it with my own two
children and really saw 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 pages like this will appear in the packet quite often 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 20th! Kindergarten will be
doing practice laps so that the children will already have a tally mark
on their Walkathon t-shirts to get the fun started.
The children will also be collecting plastic feet on a necklace on the
day of the event. Every few laps at the Walkathon, they add a foot to
the 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! There is a kick-off assembly
this week to get the kids excited about the walkathon, but kindergarten
students usually don't attend assemblies. However, I wanted to give you
the link to the walkathon's website, where
you can register your child and easily solicit donations on his/her
behalf :) It is:
http://www.altavistawalkathon.org The first 100 registrants get a
coupon for a free bundtlet from "Nothing Bundt Cakes" in Los Gatos. 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.
Finally, last week, Miss Miller hosted the first Cougar Gold Card
lunch. 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.
Obviously, only 10 children will get to go to this lunch, but I keep
telling the kids that the more Cougar Gold Cards they have, the better
their chances :)
On a final note, if anyone thinks they may be going to IKEA in the next
month, please let me know. We purchase the pillow cases that we use for
the Thanksgiving Feast costumes there at a very reasonable price. If
you are going, please e-mail me and I will
give you the details on what we need, and of course, you will be fully
reimbursed for the purchase.
Remember your child's Blue Bag tomorrow, with the homework folder inside the bag :)
Upcoming Events:
10/1-10/5: Walk to School Week
10/12: No School, Staff Development Day
10/20: Walk-a-thon
10/31: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/31: Halloween Parade & Celebration, 10:30 a.m.
11/6-11/16: Parent-Teacher Conferences
11/12: No School, Veteran's Day
11/19: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m. class) and 1:30 (p.m. class)
11/20: Grandparents' Day @ 10:30 (a.m. class) and 11:30 (p.m. class)
11/28: November's Wacky Wednesday
12/21: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m. class) & 1:30 (p.m. class)
