Dear Parents,
I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving break. I'd like to thank all of you for making the Feast such a success! We had a wonderful spread of food, and the children all looked darling! Thanks to the MANY parents who helped with that event.
Now...onto a very busy but exciting time in kindergarten as we prepare for our Nutcracker presentation on the 20th, as well as continue with all the academics & seasonal artwork!
Academics
We will have a new letter this week, Vv, and the Alphafriend is Vinnie Volcano. We will also have a new high frequency word, to. We will begin a math topic on addition this week. Any reinforcement you can provide at home on this would be great, as this is obviously a core concept.
At the side of this webpage, there is a link for kindergarten websites. There is one website, http://www.spellingcity.com/k2grist that I'd like you all to check out with your children. This is a fun way to reinforce both the sight words and short-vowel words that they will be expected to recognize and spell in kindergarten. I have pre-loaded the list of sight words onto Spelling City, but if you want to make your own list of short-vowel words, you can do that, too. In addition to Spelling City, you may also want to check out: http://www.xtramath.org to reinforce math facts. These sites are just extra tools to reinforce learning.
We will return to centers for the next two weeks, then we take a break from centers again the week of December 15th. Please check the helper schedule.
This week's sharing is Homemade Item. Please have your child bring in something s/he has created, whether at preschool, a crafting class, or at home. Have children be prepared to tell a bit about how they made the item (glazed clay, colored it with markers, etc.)
Upcoming
If you are in need of some new books or holiday books-- I have activated a new book order on the Scholastic website. There is a quick turnaround on this one so that we can hopefully get them in time for the holidays. They are due next Friday the 6th. Take a look by following the link on the right-hand side of the website.
Thank you for returning your blue bags last week. If you still have a white envelope, please send it in on Monday. Blue Bags will go home for the next two weeks. They will not go home on December 18th.
On December 18th, we will be having our annual "Nutcracker Hat Party." We need parents to come in straight after the p.m. class's Wacky Wednesday (1:20) to help make all the paper parts of the Nutcracker costumes. Children are invited to play in the classroom while parents create from provided patterns. If all goes well, this will last about an hour: 1:20 to 2:20 or so. Please let us know if you can join!
Looking forward to seeing everyone Monday!
Upcoming Events:
12/18: December's Wacky Wednesday & Nutcracker Costume-Making Event (parent help needed @ 1:20!)
12/20: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m. class) & 1:30 (p.m. class)
12/21-1/5: Winter Break
1/17: No School: Staff Development Day
1/20: No School: MLK B'day
1/29: January's Wacky Wednesday
2/15-2/23: President's Week Vacation
2/26: February's Wacky Wednesday
