Week of 9/28

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.

This week we will introduce the letter Ss. The worksheets that accompany our Language Arts program will all be about the letter Ss-- we will cover the sound and the handwriting of the letter, and the Alphafriend's name is Sammy Seal.

We will also officially begin the Handwriting without Tears program this week.  Whatever the letter of the week is, that will be the letter we are learning in Handwriting.  We will be using mini-chalkboards on Mondays to help the children practice the formation of letters in an engaging & multi-sensory way.  On Tuesday, we will do a sentence writing lesson using the Sentence School part of the program.

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 this 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 (their list has 100 words), so these are important words to master.

Our art this week will center around scarecrows and Fall things.  We have a fun scarecrow book that will help reinforce the spelling and reading of color words.

We completed our FOSS science unit on Trees & Leaves.  The children really enjoyed looking at different trees, learning about the parts of a tree, and looking closely at leaves & other things that grow on trees.  Thank you for sending in leaves, fruit, and other items from your trees-- the unit was a lot of fun for the kids.

I also want to remind you that the Walkathon is coming up quickly on Saturday, October 25th! We will have a kick-off mini-assembly in our classroom on Monday, and then the children will do a practice lap with me some time before the 25th.  The practice lap will give them a sense of where they will be walking and how big the lap is, and they will also earn their first "foot," which they will receive the Friday before the walkathon. The children will be collecting these plastic feet on a necklace on the day of the event.  Every five 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!  You can start registering your children and checking our progress on the walkathon website: http://www.altavistawalkathon.org   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.

Remember your child's Blue Bag tomorrow, with the homework folder inside the bag :)

Upcoming Events:
10/20: Field Trip to California Theater Center
10/25: Alta Vista Walkathon
10/29: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/30: Halloween Parade & Celebration 
10/31:  Staff Development Day: No School
11/10-11/11: No School, Veteran's Day 
11/13-11/21: Parent-Teacher Conferences 
11/19: November's Wacky Wednesday
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m. class) and 1:30 (p.m. class)  
11/24-11/28: Thanksgiving Week Vacation
12/19: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m. class) & 1:30 (p.m. class)

Week of 9/21

Dear Parents,

Happy Fall!  In our first days of Fall, we continue with our FOSS science unit on trees.  We are still studying the leaves on trees.  Last week, we collected leaves around campus, along with the leaves that the children brought in from home.  This week, we are doing leaf rubbings on Thursday.  If you have any large or interesting leaves in your yard at home, we'd love to use those for leaf rubbings. Finally, we will be talking about things that come from trees this week.  If you have a fruit-bearing tree,  it would be great if your child can bring in an apple, lemon, lime, etc. from a tree that you may have.  Please send those items in tomorrow or Tuesday.  Thank you!

We are wrapping up our overview of the alphabet this week with the letters Uu-Zz.  We will begin our weekly study of the letters next week with the letter Ss. The letters do not go in alphabetical order. To help your children in learning the sounds of each letter, we will have an "Alphafriend" that goes along with each letter. Their names are all alliterative, like Sammy Seal, Larry Lion, Mimi Mouse, etc. The children will learn a song for each Alphafriend. They really enjoy these songs and have fun with them. Look forward to hearing your children singing these songs around the house!

We have begun focusing on beginning sounds in our "Daily Phonemic Awareness." We have fun activities where we jump if the two words start with the same sound, etc. You can reinforce this concept at home with similar activities. Riding in the car is a great time to play games like these. Children can respond with a silly word if the two words that you say to them start with the same sound: "Say boo if bunny & boat start the same," etc. It's a fun way to reinforce what's going on at school.

We will start a new math unit this week on decomposing numbers.  We will play some fun math games while we will look at combinations that make up a number.  For example, 5 can be 1 & 4, 2 & 3, 5 & 0.  Obviously, this sets them up for pre-addition skills.

This week's share is book share. Remember, if you ever forget what the share topic is (or I forget to mention it), it is marked on the calendar on our web page. For book share, I'd like the children to come prepared with this general script:
1) My book is called:______________
2)  It is about: ___________________
3) My favorite page is: (have favorite page bookmarked)________________

We have a Wacky Wednesday this week on the 24th.  The p.m. class runs from 10:00 to 1:20.

Remember that Friday is Picture Day.  We have not yet received the order forms, but I assume they will come home in this week's Wednesday envelope.  You can either order online, or send in the order form with your child.  Please make sure that you place your order by Friday, at the latest.  The kids need to have their order envelopes in-hand (or an online order place) on Friday.

Please send in your child's Blue Bag tomorrow, with the homework folder inside the bag. A parent helper goes through the bags and pulls out the homework, so there is no need for it to be separate. Thanks for the great job with that last week!

Please note below: we have set the dates for the Friendship Feast & the Nutcracker performance-- mark your calendars-- you won't want to miss out :)

Upcoming Events:
9/24: September's Wacky Wednesday (10:00-1:20)
9/26: Picture Day
10/20: Field Trip to California Theater Center
10/25: Alta Vista Walkathon
10/29: October's Wacky Wednesday
10/30: Halloween Parade & Celebration 
10/31:  Staff Development Day: No School
11/10-11/11: No School, Veteran's Day 
11/13-11/21: Parent-Teacher Conferences 
11/19: November's Wacky Wednesday
11/21: Kindergarten Friendship Feast @ 10:15 (a.m. class) and 1:30 (p.m. class)  
11/24-11/28: Thanksgiving Week Vacation
12/19: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 (a.m. class) & 1:30 (p.m. class)

Week of 9/14

Dear Parents,

We had a great first week of centers, and hopefully homework is going well, too! Thanks so much to all our center helpers. I appreciate your diligence in coming on time, working with the children, and finding substitutes when you are unable to come. All went very well last week!

Remember to send in your child's Blue Bag on Monday, with the homework folder inside. No need to pull the homework folder out and turn it in separately-- I have a parent helper who will go through all the bags and pull out the homework. You will receive a new book and some new homework again on Wednesday.

Sharing begins this week! Our sharing topic this week is Toy in a Bag.  Your child should bring one item, hidden in a bag or backpack, with clues attached. The clues are very important and are part of the preparation for this oral language activity. Please work with your child to come up with three clues that will help the other children guess what is in the bag. If you are not sure of your child's sharing day, please click on the link on the right-hand side called "Sharing  Info."  Sharing topics each week are posted under the "calendar" link.

We will continue with our math topic on numbers.  I am especially reinforcing the formation of numbers in handwriting. Some of these numbers are quite tricky to make, so watch that your child is starting at the top and going in the correct direction.

We will also continue with our overview of the alphabet, plus working on rhyming. Letters Pp through Tt will be covered this week.

We began introducing some of our line strokes last week using Handwriting without Tears,  and as mentioned, we also worked individually with each student on his/her name writing.  This week, we will begin another component of the Handwriting program called "Sentence School."  In sentence school, we will all copy a sentence from the easel and work on handwriting and word spacing, while also reinforcing vocabulary and sight words.  We started using "Sentence School" a couple of years ago, and found that it really improved sentence writing.

We began our science unit on Trees & Leaves last week, and the children are really enjoying it. We introduced important vocabulary such as roots, leaves, branches, and trunk. We talked about evergreens and deciduous trees. This week we will begin looking more closely at leaves.  Please send in a a few leaves from trees around your home in a baggie on Monday, marked with your child's name.  It can be in the blue bag if that's easier.

Upcoming Events:
9/19:  Alta Vista Movie Night
9/24:  September's Wacky Wednesday
10/20:  Field Trip to California Theater Center
10/25:  Alta Vista Walkathon
10/29:  October's Wacky Wednesday

Week of 9/7

Dear Parents,

We've made it to an exciting week in kindergarten, where we start centers and homework!

Just a reminder that homework goes home in the Blue Bag on Wednesday and is due back on Monday.    The Blue Bag will have a book inside that we'd like you to read a few times.  There is also a homework folder.  On the right side of the folder is the homework pages for the week.  On the left side of the folder are two laminated reference sheets, that stay in the folder all year.  One sheet explains the Blue Bag program, and has a letter formation guide from Handwriting without Tears on the back.  The other sheet has discussion question ideas for when you finish reading the book with your child.  Please keep in mind that the book in the blue bag is not a book that we expect your kindergartner to read alone.  These are to be read to your children.  Also, the books in the program are of different genres and themes.  The idea is to expose your children to different types of literature.  If the book is really not a favorite of your child's, just read it once and move onto other books that your child prefers.  Please try to keep the blue bags in a place where the dog won't eat it, food won't be spilled on it, etc.  We'd like to keep them nice for the future years of kindergartners!

In language arts, we continue our overview of the alphabet and our readings of familiar tales and fables. In the past few weeks, we've covered The Gingerbread Man, The Three Pigs, The Three Bears, Chicken Little, The Three Billy Goats Gruff,  The Tortoise and The Hare, The Lion and the Mouse, and Jack and the Beanstalk, among others. The children have had fun listening to retellings of these favorite stories.

In math, we will continue with the topic: Numbers 1-5. We will be looking at the value of these numbers, as well as how to write them correctly. Math is one of the subjects we cover in centers, so though the paperwork is the same, the hand-on activities may be different, depending on the ability of the group.

In science, we will begin our unit on Trees & Leaves. This is a fun hand-on science unit through our FOSS science program. We will be looking at trees and learning some names of different types of trees. We will be learning about deciduous trees vs. evergreens.   We enjoyed many activities with last week's science unit on the Five Senses.  The children tasted sour, sweet, salty, and bitter foods and they felt items in a "mystery box."  They also smelled some mystery smells in canisters and tried to guess what they were.  We had a great time!

Our art this week is centered around apples. We have a few fun apple art projects, and we'll be using paint!   Parent helpers and students beware-- don't wear clothes that you are overly concerned about keeping neat this week. :)

Parents of p.m. kindergartners-- at Back-to-School Night, I mentioned that there may be a few additional Wacky Wednesdays.  There will not be.  Miss Miller has hired substitutes for those few dates so that your kindergartner's schedule will stay as planned, and Miss Mangione & I can attend the trainings.  Thank you for your patience while we worked that out.

Upcoming Events:
9/12: No School: Staff Development Day
9/19:  Alta Vista Movie Night
9/24:  September's Wacky Wednesday
10/25:  Alta Vista Walkathon