Dear Parents,
I hope you are all enjoying this long weekend. We have a few fun things in the upcoming week, starting with a presentation on Tuesday from the Youth Science Institute (YSI) called "Life in the Pond." The children have been learning about pond life along with studying fish, worms, and pond snails, so this is an exciting culmination of our unit. Also, I hope many of our classroom helpers received their invitations and will be coming to the Volunteer Appreciation Tea on Wednesday the 28th. I want to thank all the classroom volunteers for their generous donation of time. Without you, centers, Art Vista, Cornerstone, Clay, computer lab, field trips, and SPARK P.E. would not be possible!
The sharing this week is book share. Bring in any book your child may have purchased at the book fair or any other book your child wants to share to get us excited about summer reading options. Children should be prepared to tell the title of the book and a little bit about what it's about. Also, a favorite page should be bookmarked to share. In class, we will continue our science unit on animals. The children have really enjoyed observing fish, guppies, red worms, and night crawlers so far. Our butterflies should be hatching soon-- hopefully not over the weekend! This week, we will be observing sow bugs and pill bugs. We will also wrap up our social studies units. We continue to do a lot of writing, and this week, we'll do a few pieces of writing for our memory books. We are also completing our Common Core supplemental math book. Right now, we are really hitting on addition and subtraction concepts. Addition & subtraction facts up to 5 (5-3, 4+1, 5-4, etc.) should be very innate at this point and should not require fingers or manipulatives.
"Virtual homework" continues this week. Please take about 15-20 minutes a day to have your child do either Lexia or ixl.com.
The Home & School Club is conducting a survey right now to get feedback on the various programs that they fund & support. Please take the time to do the survey-- it's a quick one-- so that they have the opinions of the majority of the school. The link is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/AVHSC_2014_Survey
Next week, on Thursday the 5th, please come to the cafeteria in the evening (exact time will be posted soon!) to enjoy the Art Vista Art show. Every child in our class will have several pieces on display. The Art Vista art show is always a sight to behold-- such beautiful artwork from all the grade levels! It is truly impressive.
We have our water play day/class party coming up on Friday the 6th. We will have a pizza lunch and some fun in the sun! 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. Children who are going to daycare after class should have a change of clothes and shoes.
Wednesday the 11th, we do have a school-wide Olympic Day. So that the children can participate, the afternoon class will have another Wacky Wednesday that day. I could use a few parent helpers to walk around with us. Also, I know they are in need of parent helpers to run the various stations. Here's the link if you'd like to help at a station: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0848ACAD2CA02-olympic
The afternoon class also has a Wacky Wednesday this week. Class runs from 10:00 to 1:20. Thank you.
Our last big event together is Tuesday the 10th for our Promotion Day celebration. Please plan on joining us as we have a small presentation and will look back on our wonderful year together! This should wrap up before class is out, 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. Remember that this event is for immediate family only due to space limitations, as it is in our classroom. Also, school-aged siblings are not to be pulled out of class to attend. Thank you for your understanding.
There are no events on Thursday the 12th, but all kindergarten classes attend from 8:05 to 11:25. Both the morning class and the afternoon class will be in the room together, cleaning up, signing yearbooks, and wrapping up our year together.
In our final weeks, there will be a few opportunities to watch movies (class party, after Olympic Day, etc.) If your child has any Rated G movies that s/he would like to bring in to share, I'd appreciate it. We do not have a Blue-Ray player, just a DVD player (and VHS if anyone still has those lying around!) Please clearly mark the movies with your child's name.
Upcoming Events:
5/27: In-class presentation from YSI, "Life in the Pond"
5/28: May's Wacky Wednesday
6/5: Art Vista's Art Show 5:30-8:00
6/10: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony-- 8:30 (a.m.) and 1:00 (p.m.)
6/11: June's Wacky Wednesday & Olympic Day
6/12: Last Day of School: all students come from 8:05-11:25
