Week of 12/13

Dear Parents,

We were excited to participate in Hour of Code last week, and we had some guests in our classroom come and observe us programming a Bee-Bot. Ms. Shmueli came in on Thursday and tweeted about it on the school's Twitter account-- check it out as some of your children are featured: https://twitter.com/teamaltavista We had a lot of fun, and will continue to work on incorporating technology into our classroom with lessons that also hit on other skills-- the Bee Bot lesson tied in sight word recognition with programming. We also followed up by using our new set of classroom iPads to move a virtual Bee Bot around on the Bee Bot app!

The main "business" of this week is all things Nutcracker! We will be practicing daily this week, so I am canceling centers. We do not have a new letter or any new sight words. There will also be no homework/red bags this Wednesday.  Enjoy a stress-free week to focus on your holiday preparations!

For the Nutcracker performance, we have a photographer-- thanks to Lawrence, (another one would be perfect), but we will also need just a few parents to help us with the theater make-up and costuming on the day of the performance.  Please let me know if you can help with this. You would come in at around 8:45 or so and begin calling kids back individually and get them ready for the stage. Thank you!

We will continue our topic on addition this week and on into the first week of 2016.  This is definitely a concept that needs additional reinforcement at home as well.  Get out those iPads over the break, or go to a math reinforcement website (ixl.com, xtramath.com) to work on both addition and subtraction (coming in January) facts.

This week's share is song, poem, or nursery rhyme. Please have your child be prepared to recite a song, poem, or nursery rhyme. If children are stuck for ideas, they can always sing a favorite alpha friend song. Songs or poems in other languages are always appreciated as well!

A reminder about clothing for the Nutcracker: please remember to dress your children in the clothes suggested in the letter sent home in the Wednesday envelope. Children should come to school dressed in these items on Friday. Girls can wear something over the top of their leotards when they arrive and change into their ballet shoes for the performance. As a reminder, here is the list:

FRITZ: Bathrobe/pajamas & slippers
SOLDIERS/RUSSIAN DANCERS: White Shirt & Dark Pants w/ dark shoes
MOUSE KING/MICE: Dark Shirt & Dark Pants & dark shoes
SUGAR PLUM, RIBBON CANDY, FLOWERS: Light colored leotard/light colored tights/ballet slippers or light colored shoes-- leotards with tutus attached are fine & encouraged for Sugar Plum Fairies & Flowers, especially. Ribbon tutu provided for Ribbon Candies.
ARABIAN: Light colored fitted shirt w/ leggings OR leotard (we provide the Harem pants)
CHINESE DANCERS: Shirt doesn't matter so much (will be wearing jacket we provide) dark pants.

Please borrow whatever you need to borrow-- we don't intend for anyone to have to buy anything.  I have 2-3 leotards and a few pairs of ballet slippers in the classroom that used to belong to my daughter that are also available-- let me know if you need to borrow.

Please arrive promptly in the cafeteria for the Nutcracker, as we intend to start the show right on time. Also, please do not try to come early and save seats.  We will be keeping the doors locked until about 15 minutes before the performance.We want everyone to enjoy the performance, so please refrain from standing and blocking the aisles as much as possible.  Also remember that school-aged siblings are not to be pulled out of class to watch the performance.  Thank you!

Remember to bring your blue bags tomorrow. Starting in January, a journal page will be added to the homework packet so that your children can write a response to the book in the bag each week. No blue bags this Wednesday, but there will be Wednesday envelopes. Please return those on Thursday so that they don't get lost over the long holiday.

Happy Holidays!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Blue Bags returned (Jillian), No centers, Sharing
Tuesday: No centers, Sharing
Wednesday: Computers (Johanna), Sharing, Weds. envelopes go home

Thursday: Weds. envelopes returned, No centers, Sharing
Friday: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00 followed by Cast Party afterward!

Upcoming Events:

12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00
12/19-1/3: Winter Break
1/18: No School: MLK Day
1/21: Incoming Kindergartner Parent Information Night
2/2: 100 Day
2/15-2/19: President's Week Break

Week of 12/6

Dear Parents,

You should have received a note regarding your child's Nutcracker part, and what s/he should wear for the performance in last week's Wednesday envelope. Please let me know if there are any problems with gathering up the various clothes needed-- most girls will be wearing leotards, and most boys will be wearing dark pants and either a light or dark shirt. Hopefully, if there is a clothing item you do not have, you can borrow it, as I do not intend for you to have to buy anything.  Girls-- I have several leotards of my daughter's that can be borrowed.  Again, the performance of the Nutcracker will be at 10:00. Get there a little early (the invitation we are sending home tomorrow has a time 10 minutes before the start) so that you can be seated when the performance begins. You won't want to miss it!

On another Nutcracker note, I am in need of two photographers with decent cameras for the event.  They will be responsible for taking constant pictures throughout the performance, and then insuring that I get a high-resolution copy of the pictures afterward as soon as possible.  We will offer priority seating to the photographers.  Please let me know if you can help.

Curriculum
This week's letter is Cc, and the Alphafriend is Callie Cat. We have two new sight words this week: that and at. We will be continuing with our math unit on addition.  Again, I want to remind you that any reinforcement you can provide with addition is very helpful.  If your child has access to an iPad, "Hungry Fish" and "Math Bingo" and I'm sure many other great math apps are out there. I would suggest continuing to work on addition throughout the holidays as well.  When we return in January, we will begin subtraction, so it is important to have good fluency in addition before we start subtraction.

This week's sharing is Letter of the Week share. Please have your child bring in something that starts with Cc. Please write clues and hide it in a bag.

This week, our class will participate in an exciting movement called Hour of Code. We will be using our Bee-Bot to do some programming, getting the Bee-Bot around a gridded mat. We are excited to be a part of this global movement!

We have a Cornerstone lesson this Friday the 11th. Thank you to Matt (Leo's dad) and Meg (Nia's mom) for their great Cornerstone lessons.

This is our final week of centers before the holidays, as next week we will be focusing on Nutcracker rehearsals.  Thank you so much to our classroom helpers in 2015, and thank you for your continued support in 2016!  I will be updating the 2016 schedule as soon as I can. Please let me know if there are any changes to the schedule or if you'd like to be added to the schedule.

Blue Bags are due tomorrow, and will go home again on Wednesday for the last time before the holidays. When we return from Winter Break, the journal component will be added to the Blue Bags. Your children will be asked to write a response to the story they read. We would like them to write a sentence about what they liked about the book, and draw a nice picture to go along with it. More details will follow in the Blue Bag on the week of January 3rd.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Blue Bags returned (Jillian), Centers (Hiromi & Maria), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Jerri & Tanya), P.E. with Coach Jose, Sharing
Wednesday: Computers (Johanna), Sharing, Blue Bags go Home

Thursday: Centers (Lawrence & Lisa), Sharing
Friday: Story time with Grandma Gail, Cornerstone, Sharing

Upcoming Events:

12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00
12/19-1/3: Winter Break
1/18: No School: MLK Day
1/21: Incoming Kindergartner Parent Information Night
2/2: 100 Day

Week of 11/29

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! I heard from Mrs. Arrasmith that 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 performance on the 18th, 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. We will do a lot of manipulative-based activities to build a visual understanding of math facts. 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: www.kidsa-z.com  This website has a large collection of books that your children can read (or listen to) online. For every book they read, the children receive stars that can be used to build a robot on the site. This is another great reading reinforcement website.

We will return to centers for the next two weeks, then we take a break from centers again the week of December 13th. Please check the helper schedule.

This week's sharing is Book Share. Please have your child bring in a favorite book and be prepared to tell: 1) The Title  2) A bit about what the book is about  3) Show a favorite page (please bookmark).

We have an Art Vista lesson this Friday the 4th. Thanks to Amorette, Kim, and Johanna for this presentation.

Upcoming
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 16th.

On December 16th, 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!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Centers (Camille & Johanna), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Jerri & Gwenny), Sharing
Wednesday: Computers (Lawrence), Sharing, Blue Bags go Home

Thursday: Centers (Jill & Pantea), Sharing
Friday: Story time with Grandma Gail, Art Vistas, SPARK P.E. (Jill)

Upcoming Events:

12/4: Art Vista Set B

12/16: Nutcracker "Hat Party" at 1:20 (we need parents to come & help with costume-making)
12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00
12/19-1/3: Winter Break
1/18: No School: MLK Day
2/2: 100 Day

Week of 11/15

Dear Parents,

It was great meeting with all of you the past two weeks to discuss your children's progress. Thank you so much for providing support to your children in areas that we went over, for having them continue to practice using Lexia and IXL, and for helping them with homework and preparing their sharing. Kindergarten is such a year of fantastic growth, and you are a huge part of that. Thank you!

Report cards will go home Friday with you or your child in a manilla envelope that needs to be returned with a signature when we resume school on November 30th. Please put those in a safe spot so that they don't get forgotten.

I hope you had fun with the "Turkey Trouble" homework project, and I look forward to seeing those tomorrow. We will be writing about the turkey this week in class, so please try and have your homework bags ready tomorrow. There will be no homework this week due to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, but there will be white envelopes. Please return those Thursday so that you have one less thing to remember on November 30th!

Curriculum
Our letter this week will be Hh. The Alphafriend is Hattie Horse. We will also be introducing our first vowel, Aa, Andy Apple! This means that we will be doing much more blending and spelling short-vowel words now. Our new sight words are a and an. It's a little confusing having "a" as both a letter and a word this week, so make sure your children are clear on the difference. We continue reviewing numbers to 10 and shapes in math. After Thanksgiving, we will begin addition.

This week's sharing is Letter of the Week: Hh. Please have your children bring three clues about something that starts with Hh. The clues are important in case they forget what they are going to say, so please take the time to prepare them and go over the clues with your child.

This week, we will also continue taking a closer look at the Pilgrims & Native Americans as we talk about the first Thanksgiving & prepare for our reenactment of this event, our Friendship Feast on the 20th. We have a great simple book that we will be putting together about the first Thanksgiving, and we have some interesting books that we will be reading to the children. It would be wonderful if you can all join us for the Feast on Friday, even if you can only come briefly. The children look so cute in their costumes & love sharing the meal with family members. They will sing a couple of songs for you and then we will get started with the meal. Younger siblings are welcome if there is a child care issue. Thank you to everyone for sending in food for the event! The sign-ups are looking very good, but if you still haven't had a chance to check it out, you can do so here: https://goo.gl/xgjxJg 

Upcoming Events
We are glazing our clay projects this Wednesday. Please don't send your children in any special outfits that day, as the clay glaze does stain. Please contact Jill Brehmer if you can help with this. We will be glazing first thing in the morning at the picnic table outside our classroom due to the Wacky Wednesday that day
.
Looking ahead on your calendars at this busy time of year, I wanted to make sure that you are all marking your calendars for Friday, December 18th at 10:00-- our annual performance of The Nutcracker. This is something that you will not want to miss. To help you clear your calendar, the kindergarten teachers have decided that we will do our class holiday party and the Nutcracker performance all on the same day. We will have a big "cast party" after the performance so that we can send the kids off on a great holiday break!

Have a great Thanksgiving!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags (Jillian), Centers (Camille & Hiromi), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Tanya & Lizl), PE with Coach Jose, Sharing
Wednesday: Clay (Jill, Johanna, Lizl, ????), Computers (Conrad), Sharing

Thursday: Centers (Jill & Lisa), Sharing
Friday: Sharing, FRIENDSHIP FEAST @ 10:15

Upcoming Events:

11/18: Clay Glazing
11/20: Friendship Feast @ 10:15
11/23-11/27: No School: Thanksgiving Break

12/4: Art Vista Set B
12/16: Nutcracker "Hat Party" at 1:20 (we need parents to come & help with costume-making)
12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00

Week of 11/8

Dear Parents,

We have an abbreviated week this week due to the Veteran's Day holiday on Wednesday. Our center schedule will not be interrupted, however. Blue Bags will come home on Tuesday so that you have an extra day to work on a special homework project (described below). Please be sure to return your child's complete blue bag tomorrow so that I can get them turned around in one day. Thank you!

Curriculum
Our letter this week is Nn, and our Alphafriend is Nyle Noodle. Our sight words this week will be with and be.  In math, we continue our review weeks.  We will still be looking at 3D & 2D shapes, while also looping back to decomposing numbers to 10.

Sharing this week will be Homemade Item. Your child can bring in any craft or project s/he made at home or at preschool, summer camp, etc. No clues are necessary. Your child should just be prepared to explain how the item was made, materials used, and information like that. Wednesday sharing kids can share any other day this week.

This week in class, we will be doing some non-fiction writing about owls. We have a few books we will be reading to learn more about owls and we will use that information to write a sentence or two.

We will also have some fun with turkeys! We will put together a cute book about a Pilgrim on a search for a turkey. We will also read the book Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano, which is a funny story about a turkey who wants to avoid becoming Thanksgiving dinner, so he disguises himself as different animals on the farm. We will do several activities that go along with this story. Finally, our homework this week includes a fun project where your child will have the opportunity to disguise a turkey, just as the turkey in Turkey Trouble disguises himself. Feel free to get creative with these disguises! Add some dimension to the pictures with construction paper, stickers, etc. Here is a picture of a sample project I found on Pinterest:

Upcoming Events:
The link to sign up for our Friendship Feast food and parent help can be found here. Please check it out and sign up for an item to bring, and if you can help, please sign up for that as well. We need everyone's contributions to make this event a success! Thank you also to the parents who cut out the costumes for this event: Lizl Pienaar, Jillian Brandt, Hiromi Kumayama, and Nancy Cardenas. I truly appreciate your help!

We also will be glazing our clay projects that we created a few weeks ago on Wednesday 11/18. We need many parent helpers to set up, work with the children, and clean up. If you can help with this, please email either me or Jill Brehmer. Thank you!

Remember that report cards will be sent home on Friday, November 20th. They will be in an envelope in your child's backpack, unless I hand it to you at the Feast. Please hang onto the envelope over the Thanksgiving break and return it signed to me on Monday, November 30th.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags (Jillian), Centers (Camille & Johanna), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Tanya & Lynda), Sharing
Wednesday: NO SCHOOL

Thursday: Centers (Jill & Lawrence), Sharing
Friday: Story Time with Grandma Gail, Cornerstone (Matt & Meg), Sharing, SPARK P.E. (Jill)

Upcoming Events:
11/11: No School: Veteran's Day

11/18: Clay Glazing
11/20: Friendship Feast @ 10:15
11/23-11/27: No School: Thanksgiving Break

12/4: Art Vista Set B
12/16: Nutcracker "Hat Party" at 1:20
12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00

Week of 11/1

Dear Parents,

I hope you are all enjoying a fun Halloween weekend with your children.  What a great party we had in class!  A huge thanks to the room parents and parent helpers who organized such wonderful Halloween centers & treats. The kids all enjoyed themselves very much.

Remember that Daylight Savings Time ends.  Hopefully, you got to enjoy an extra hour of sleep on Sunday!

Also, if you were not able to send in your child's Wednesday envelope last Thursday (it was kind of a crazy day!), please send it on Monday.

Language Arts
We get back to centers this week, for the next three weeks. Yea! Please check the schedule at the bottom of this post to see if you are helping. The letter this week is Bb and the Alphafriend is Benny Bear. There are two new sight words this week: like and can. 

We will be focusing on the season of Fall this week in our writing and our art projects. Children will be writing and reading about Fall things. We will create scarecrows, Indian corn, and owls in our art.

Sharing this week will be a special topic: Solid Shape Sharing. Children should bring something shaped like one of the solid shapes we've been studying: cube, cone, cylinder or sphere. They can hide it in a bag and have clues. Then they should be prepared to tell what shape the item is when they reveal it (if they didn't have the shape as part of their clues). This will help them become more familiar with these shape vocabulary words.

Math
In math this week, and for the next three weeks up to Thanksgiving, we will be having review weeks. We will be focusing on the shapes (both flat and solid) and we will review composing and decomposing numbers to 10. We will play games and really get a handle on these concepts.

Science & Social Studies
You may have noticed that your child is bringing home a little newspaper called "Scholastic News." These weekly newspapers cover a variety of science and social studies topics in a fun way. Additionally, there is an online link to these articles that feature movies and additional information that we will be showing in class. This is a fun way to keep up on current events and topics that are interesting to kindergartners.

Upcoming Events
As you know, our next big event is the Friendship Feast on November 20th. Children will dress as Pilgrims and Native Americans and come together with their friends in K1 to sing a few songs and share some food. In this week's Wednesday envelope, you will find a sign-up form for the food and help at that event.  Please fill that out and turn it in as soon as you can. We need many helpers and plenty of food to make this a success. We are looking forward to a fun event!

The 20th is also the day that the report card is sent home. Hopefully, I'll see you at the Feast to hand that to you. Otherwise, it will be in your child's backpack.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Centers (Hiromi & Maria), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Lizl & Gwenny), PE with Coach Jose, Sharing
Wednesday: Computers (Duan or Thanh-Nhan), Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Centers (Jill & Mahadevi), Sharing
Friday: Story Time with Grandma Gail, Sharing

Upcoming Events
11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
11/20: Friendship Feast @ 10:15
11/23-11/27: No School: Thanksgiving Break
12/16: Nutcracker "Hat Party" at 1:20
12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00

Week of 10/25

Dear Parents,

I have enjoyed meeting with many of you so far during parent-teacher conferences, and have gained some great insights on your children from you. Thank you for meeting with me and being such active participants in your child's education. I look forward to meeting with the rest of you this week.  If you need to confirm your conference time, please contact me.

We will still be taking a break from centers this week while we continue with parent-teacher conferences, and they won't resume until after Halloween. However, on Thursday, we do have special Halloween-themed centers that we'd love to have some help with. Please email me or Jill Brehmer if you can come on Thursday to help. There is also a sign-up next to the front door (redwood tree side) that has items we need for the party. Please check that out to see if there is something you could supply.

Language Arts
Due to the shortened week this week, we won't be introducing a new letter. We will continue to review the letters we've introduced so far: Ss, Mm, Rr, and Tt. There will also be no new sight words, and we will review I, see, in, it, and my.

Sharing this week will be Book Share.  Please have your child bring a favorite book (perhaps a new book from the book fair!)  Be prepared to tell: the title, a bit about what the book is about, and have a favorite page bookmarked.  Friday children can share any other day of the week.

We are also beginning to do more writing using phonetic spelling.  We went over this a bit at Back-to-School Night, but this is where children are encouraged to sound words out on their own and spell them phonetically.  For example, they may spell hope as hop or monster as monsr.  These spellings are totally acceptable at this time as a first tool to becoming an independent writer.  Please try your best not to constantly spell words for your child.  Encourage them to think for themselves and experiment with phonics so that they have a tool to fall back on when they need to spell on their own.

Math
In math, we are continuing our study of shapes by moving onto 3-Dimensional (solid) shapes.  We are studying the cube, sphere, cone, and cylinder.  Not only do children need to be able to name these shapes, but they need to be able to tell the characteristics of the shape.  For example, a cube has six square surfaces and 8 corners/vertices.  Ask your children what they know about these shapes-- I think you will be impressed with their use of math language!

Homework
Blue bags will not go home this week so that you can enjoy a homework-free long Halloween weekend.  Have fun and stay safe!

Halloween
On Thursday, the Halloween parade will begin at 8:15. All Kindergarten children should arrive dressed up in their Halloween costumes. If the costume has a weapon with it (pirate sword, Star Wars lightsaber, etc.) please leave those at home.  No gory costumes/fake blood allowed either, although that's not usually a problem in kindergarten :)  The party will begin at about 9:00.  Parents are welcome to attend. There is no need to pack any food for your child on Thursday-- pizza lunch will be provided due to our class having 100% participation in the Consolidated Classroom Payment. Thanks everyone!

November Events
While on the subject of classroom events, and to give you an opportunity to plan ahead, we have another big event coming up in November.  On Friday the 20th, we have our Thanksgiving Feast.  If you can take some time off work to join us, this is a pretty fun and special event.  We ask each family to send in a dish for the event-- either a traditional Thanksgiving dish or a dish from your family's cultural background.  We always enjoy the wonderful mix of foods that we get.  Both K1 & K2 kindergartners come together for this event.  The children from our class will be dressed as Pilgrims  and the children in K1 will be dressed as Native Americans.  No need to provide any costumes-- we have some special costumes made out of pillowcases that a few parents have offered to cut for us in the upcoming weeks.  This event is definitely a great photo-op!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags (Jillian), Sharing
Tuesday: Sharing
Wednesday: Computers (Lawrence), Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Halloween Parade, Halloween Centers (whoever can come!), Sharing
Friday: NO SCHOOL: Staff Development Day

Upcoming Events
10/19-10/27: Parent-Teacher Conferences
10/29: Kindergarten Halloween Parade & Celebration
10/30: No School: Staff Development Day
11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
11/20: Friendship Feast @ 10:15
11/23-11/27: No School: Thanksgiving Break
12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00

Week of 10/18

Dear Parents,

It was GREAT to see so many of you Saturday at the walk-a-thon! Our ENTIRE class signed up, and it looked like much fun was had by all. Thanks for coming out and supporting the school, and hopefully, it was the beginning of many walk-a-thons to come for all of you!  On Monday, send your children with their walk-a-thon necklaces & t-shirts, if possible, so that we can all celebrate the laps that we walked!

If you didn't have a chance to check out the Book Fair at the walkathon, it runs through Thursday of this week, closing at 1:30 on the 23rd.  Check it out!

Here's what's going on in the classroom this week:

Language Arts
Our letter this week is Tt. The alphafriend is Tiggy Tiger. We have a new high frequency word, my.

The sharing this week is Song, Poem, or Nursery Rhyme. Children should be prepared to recite a familiar song, poem or nursery rhyme that they know.  A good choice for this one if your child is "stuck" is to sing a color song or an Alphafriend song.  This is also a great time for children who know another language to share a song or nursery rhyme in that language.  We love hearing other languages in K2!

Art Vistas & Clay
We have our first lessons this week from both these programs. These programs are some of the great enrichment programs at our school that fundraising events like the walkathon help fund.  The Art Vista lesson will be on Wednesday, and we'll be talking about trains. Children will look at famous paintings of trains and study different aspects of these prints, such as line and color. Afterward, children will get to create trains of their own. Extra hands are always appreciated. The art lesson will begin at around 10:00. The clay lesson will be on Thursday. Children will get to work with clay to make a special project that they will also glaze at a separate time. Again, I'm sure that the clay leads would love extra hands to help set up, work with the children, and clean up. I believe they are starting at around 8:15. Please email me if you can help.

Math
We will begin our topic on shapes.  Children are expected to be able to identify triangles, rectangles, circles, squares, and hexagons.  Additionally, children should be able to tell the characteristics of those shapes.  For example, a triangle has three corners and three sides. The 3D shapes that they will be expected to know are cones, spheres, cubes, and cylinders.  Again, they also need to be able to tell the characteristics of those shapes.

Upcoming
I am looking forward to meeting with each of you beginning Monday for your child's conference. All conferences will be held in the office conference room, except for the 7:30 am time slot, which will be held in the classroom. The conference room is located in the main office, 2nd door to the right after you walk through the swinging half-door.  To confirm your conference time, please click here: https://goo.gl/nFbxE7 Please note that you can no longer edit this form. If you need to change your conference time, please email me.

Halloween
Despite the fact that the rest of the school is celebrating Halloween on Wednesday, kindergarten is celebrating Halloween on Thursday the 29th. The a.m. parade will begin at 8:15, and our party will begin at about 9:00. More information about signing up to send in items or helping will be coming out soon!

November Events
While on the subject of classroom events, and to give you an opportunity to plan ahead, we have another big event coming up in November.  On Friday the 20th, at 10:00, we have our Thanksgiving Feast.  If you can take some time off work to join us, this is a pretty fun and special event.  We ask each family to send in a dish for the event-- either a traditional Thanksgiving dish or a dish from your family's cultural background.  We always enjoy the wonderful mix of foods that we get.  Both K1 & K2 kindergartners come together for this event.  The children from our class will be dressed as Pilgrims, and the children in K1 will be dressed as Native Americans.  No need to provide any costumes-- we have some special costumes made out of pillowcases that a few parents have offered to cut for us in the upcoming weeks.  This event is definitely a great photo-op!

Please send in your child's blue bag tomorrow, homework folder inside.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags (Jillian), Centers (Johanna & Nancy), Sharing
Tuesday: Clay (Lizl, Jill, and ????), P.E. with Coach Jose, Sharing
Wednesday: Art Vistas (Lizl, Kim, Amorette, and ????), Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: No Centers (conferences), Sharing
Friday: Story time with Grandma Gail, Sharing

Upcoming Events
10/19-10/27: Parent-Teacher Conferences
10/29: Kindergarten Halloween Parade & Celebration
10/30: No School: Staff Development Day
11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
11/20: Friendship Feast @ 10:15
11/23-11/27: No School: Thanksgiving Break
12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00

Week of 10/11

Dear Parents,

It's Walk-a-thon week!!  I hope everyone will be able to join in on Saturday! Please go to the website, www.altavistawalkathon.org, if you have not already registered so that you can be a part of this fun event.  We will be doing one practice lap this week so that the kids have an idea of the lap length and what to expect.  On Friday, the kids will receive both their walk-a-thon t-shirt (if they have signed up online & received a pledge of $40 by Wednesday) and their lanyard with the first foot.  Please be sure to wear both the t-shirt & lanyard on Saturday. Every 5 laps, the kids get a different plastic foot on the lanyard/necklace.  The kindergartners get a special foot already on their necklace for the practice lap that they did.  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 forget that if you are coming from a soccer game, etc., to mention that at check-in.  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!

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 (for the big kids) 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 that out as well!

Language Arts
This week's letter is Rr. The Alphafriend is Reggie Rooster. We have two new high frequency words, in and it. We have started incorporating these words in our writing and encouraging the children to begin writing a short sentence.  For example, now that we know I and see, we can write a sentence that starts with "I see...."  As kindergarten progresses, the expectation is that the children will write at least two sentences on their own.  We will be expecting 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.  It is very fun to watch their writing progress at this level. 

Math
We are wrapping up our math topic on composing and decomposing numbers to 10, and will begin the topic on 2-Dimensional and 3-Dimensional shapes next week.  Circle, square, rectangle, triangle, and hexagon are the shapes to know.  Three dimensional shapes that we will cover include: cube, cone, sphere, and cylinder.  Please reinforce these shapes as much as possible in your conversations at home. "What shape is the table?" "What shape is this paper?" "What shape is this can?" and questions of this nature are good to ask.

Science
We are also wrapping up our unit on Trees & Leaves this week. Tomorrow, we will be studying "what comes from trees." If you have a fruit-bearing tree, or a tree with interesting seed pods, pine cones, etc., please send in a small bag with item(s) from those trees. The children will be sorting the different items tomorrow at center time, and it's nice to have a variety of different things to show the kids.

Sharing
We will continue doing "letter of the week" sharing, as the kids are really enjoying it. This week, share something that starts with Rr. As a reminder, please have written clues prepared for your child in case they forget what they planned to say. This allows me to prompt them as needed. Thank you!

Field Trip
We had a great time at the performance of Peter Rabbit. When I asked the children what their favorite part of the play was the next day, I got many different answers, showing that they were very attentive. I think most kids really enjoyed the show.

Upcoming
Conferences: Thanks to everyone for scheduling your conferences with me so quickly.  If you need a reminder about when your conference is, please click here: https://goo.gl/nFbxE7 Please note that you can no longer edit this form. If you need to change your conference time, please email me.

Halloween: Just a reminder that kindergarten will celebrate Halloween on Thursday the 29th. The am kindergarten parade will be at 8:15. The party will begin at approximately 9:00.

Thanksgiving Feast: I have purchased pillow cases for our upcoming Thanksgiving Feast.  These will be turned into Pilgrim costumes with some simple cutting.  Now, I need to have volunteers who can cut these at home.  This is a great project for those who would like to help out but are unable to due to work commitments.  I will send home pillowcases and a sample shirt for you to replicate.  I also have aprons that need to be cut.  You will need a pair of pinking shears (zigzag scissors) for this project.  Please let me know if you do not have a pair-- I have an extra pair myself that I can loan out.  I will not need the pillowcases back until a few days before the Feast (11/20).  Please let me know if you can help!

Please send in your child's blue bag tomorrow, homework folder inside.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags (Jillian), Centers (Camille & Hiromi), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Lizl & Tanya), Sharing
Wednesday: Computers (Lawrence), Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Centers (Jill & Pantea), Sharing
Friday: Story time with Grandma Gail, SPARK P.E. (Johanna), Sharing
Saturday: WALK-A-THON!!!

Upcoming Events
10/17: Walkathon
10/19-10/27: Parent-Teacher Conferences
10/29: Kindergarten Halloween Parade & Celebration
10/30: No School: Staff Development Day
11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
11/20: Friendship Feast @ 10:15
11/23-11/27: No School: Thanksgiving Break
12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00

Week of 10/4

Dear Parents,

We are excited for our first field trip this Thursday! We will be going to the California Theater Center to see a live performance of Peter Rabbit. We will travel by bus and leave shortly after arriving at school. We will return in time for dismissal at 11:25.

In class this week, we will be focusing on the letter Mm. We will also have a new sight word, see. We will continue our science unit on trees and leaves. Thank you for sending in such a great variety of leaves last week! The children will do one more activity with those leaves this week.

In math, we continue our topic on deconstructing numbers to 10.  Children should be learning combinations that make up numbers to 10, for example, 8 & 2 make 10 or 1 & 4 make 5.  Our next topic is on two & three dimensional shapes.

This week's sharing is Letter of the Week sharing again-- this time for the letter Mm.  It is great to give the children an opportunity to think about things that start with the letter of the week.  Please have three clues about what is inside the bag either written on the bag or on a paper inside the bag. If your child normally shares on Thursday, this week s/he can share any other day of the week due to the field trip on Thursday.

We are doing very well with our walkathon sign-ups!  Keep on registering and soliciting sponsors for your children at:  http://www.altavistawalkathon.org  The children all seem very excited about the walkathon, so I hope to see you all there on the 17th!  Not only does it help raise money for all of the wonderful enrichment programs at our school, but it is a great community event.  There is so much to do besides the walking!  Come out and enjoy the day.

And...since I've heard many of your children talking about soccer, I wanted to let you know that if you have to leave for a soccer game (or come a little later because of soccer) please let the people at the check-in desk know.  Your child gets 10 laps of credit for soccer games or other outside sports obligations that they have.

I also wanted to give you an update on Halloween. While the rest of the school (grades 1-5) will be celebrating Halloween on Wednesday the 28th, kindergarten will NOT celebrate on that day. Our parade and celebration will be on Thursday the 29th due to the fact that the 28th is a Wacky Wednesday, and it would be too hard for us to organize a party with 48 children involved. Our AM parade will be right at the start of the day on the kindergarten playground, at approximately 8:15, followed by Halloween-themed centers that will begin at approximately 9:00. Food will be served toward the end of the day (10:30ish). Looking forward to lots of Halloween fun on the 29th!

Blue bags, with homework folders inside are due tomorrow.  Thanks for being so great about returning the Blue Bags each week on time.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags (Jillian), Centers (Amorette & Johanna), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Lizl & Gwenny), Sharing, PE with Coach Jose
Wednesday: Computers (Conrad), Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Field Trip to CA Theater Center (Stephanie)
Friday: Sharing

Upcoming Events
10/08: Field Trip to California Theatre Center
10/17: Walkathon
10/19-10/27: Parent-Teacher Conferences
10/29: Kindergarten Halloween Parade & Celebration
10/30: No School: Staff Development Day
11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
11/20: Friendship Feast @ 10:15
11/23-11/27: No School: Thanksgiving Break
12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00

Week of 9/27

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.

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 (called "High Frequency Word List") 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. If your child has already mastered the 40 kindergarten words, you can find the first grade words here.

Our art and science this week will center around leaves. Please go on a "leaf walk" around your neighborhood, and send in a small baggie with a few leaves in it that your child has collected. Please write your child's name on the baggie.

I also want to remind you that the Walkathon is coming up quickly on Saturday, October 17th! The children will do a practice lap with me some time before the 17th.  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 continue 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 :)

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags (Jillian), Centers (Camille & Maria), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Tanya & Lynda), Sharing
Wednesday: Computers (Duan or Thanh-Nhan), Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Centers (Lawrence & Jill), Sharing
Friday: SPARK P.E. (Stephanie), Sharing

Upcoming Events
10/08: Field Trip to California Theatre Center
10/17: Walkathon
10/19-10/27: Parent-Teacher Conferences
10/30: No School: Staff Development Day
11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
11/20: Friendship Feast @ 10:15
11/23-11/27: No School: Thanksgiving Break
12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00

Week of 9/20

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 (Maddie's mom) 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.

As we begin Fall this week, we will also start our first FOSS science unit on trees.  We are studying different types of trees, deciduous trees vs. evergreen trees, and taking a close look at parts of a tree. FOSS science units provide fun, hands-on lessons for the kids.

We will also wrap up our unit on apples by learning about Johnny Appleseed this week. We have some good books to read and a fun art project.

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)________________

This 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. Due to picture day, we will not be having SPARK P.E. or a Grasshopper t-shirt day :)

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 :)

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags (Jillian), Centers (Camille & Hiromi), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Lizl & Gwenny), Recess 101 (Coach Jose), Sharing
Wednesday: Computers (Conrad), Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Centers (Jill & Lisa), Sharing
Friday: Picture Day, Sharing

Upcoming Events
10/08: Field Trip to California Theatre Center
10/17: Walkathon
10/19-10/27: Parent-Teacher Conferences
10/30: No School: Staff Development Day
11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
11/20: Friendship Feast @ 10:15
11/23-11/27: No School: Thanksgiving Break
12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00

Week of 9/13

We've made it to an exciting week in kindergarten, where we start centers, sharing, computer lab, SPARK P.E., and homework!

As a reminder to center helpers, centers run from about 8:45 to 10:00. Please come a little before 8:45 so that you can sign in & get a visitor's badge in the office. Then just come straight to the classroom & you will catch my explanation of the center to the children so that you know what the expectation is. If there is clean-up involved at the end of centers, if you could stay for a bit afterwards to help with that so that things are ready for the afternoon class, I'd appreciate it. Thank you so much-- the schedule for centers each week is posted below, in addition to the link on the right, "Helper Schedule."

Homework will go home in the Blue Bag on Wednesdays and is due back on Mondays. The Blue Bag will have a book inside that I'd like you to read with your child 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 I expect your kindergartner to read alone. These are mostly to be read to your children.  Also, the books in the program are of different genres and themes, and there are both fiction and non-fiction selections. 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.  I'd like to keep them nice for the future years of kindergartners! Finally, please try your very best to always return the blue bag on Monday. Each week, I have to switch the books in each bag & put the new homework in, and I like to start doing that right away. When a bag is missing, I cannot switch the books because each bag gets a book from the previous bag. If your child is absent on a Monday, please send the blue bag with a friend or sibling, if possible. Thank you!

Sharing also 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. Additionally, we will continue our "Apple" theme with science, art, and math projects involving apples.

I began introducing some of our line strokes last week using the Handwriting without Tears program,  and I also worked individually with each student on his/her name writing.  This week, we will continue working on name-writing, and it will also be reinforced in homework this week. Please watch your children as they write their names in homework and check the handwriting reference guide in the homework folder to ensure that they are forming letters correctly. The sooner they break any bad habits, the better!

Helpers & Activities This Week
Monday: Centers (Johanna & Camille), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Lizl &Tanya), Sharing
Wednesday: Computers (Conrad), Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Centers (Lawrence & Jill), Sharing
Friday: SPARK P.E. (Jill)

Upcoming Events:
9/18: Alta Vista Movie Night
10/08: Field Trip to California Theatre Center
10/17: Walkathon
10/30: No School: Staff Development Day

Week of 9/6

Dear Parents,

I hope you have had a wonderful long weekend. We will get right back into the swing of things on Tuesday, with no days off again until October 30th.

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,  and Jack and the Beanstalk, among others. The children have had fun listening to retellings of these favorite stories, and a few students have brought versions of these stories in other languages, which have been really fun to see! This week, we will hear a few of Aesop's Fables.

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 enjoyed many activities with last week's unit on the Five Senses.  The children tasted sour, sweet, salty, and bitter foods and they felt items in a "mystery bag."  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!   Please don't send your children in any clothes that you are overly concerned about keeping neat this week. :)

Next week, the week of 9/14. we will begin homework, centers, and sharing, SPARK P.E., and Computers. It's a big week! Homework will go home on 9/16.  It will come home in a blue bag, and we will be reinforcing correct name-writing, which the children have been working on in class.  Finally, centers will begin next week on Monday the 14th. Hopefully, you have all had a chance to check the helper schedule (link to the right) and let me know of any conflicts. If you ever have an unexpected conflict (sick kids, sick adult, etc.), please email the class, as we have many parents who just wanted to help a few times, and subbing at centers is a perfect opportunity for that.

Looking forward to another fun week in kindergarten!

Week of 8/30

Dear Parents,

Thank you so much for your attendance at Back-to-School Night. It was so wonderful to have everyone there-- I feel very supported already in making our year together the very best. Thank you also for your sign-ups to volunteer in the classroom. I have everything covered! Wow! I will get back to you some time this week with the center schedule. Again, I know I didn't cover everything during my presentation, so please feel free to email me with any questions you have along the way. I definitely prefer email over the classroom voicemail, which is difficult to retrieve messages from. You will get a quicker response over email :)

This week, we will continue with our overview of the alphabet. We will be covering letters Hh-Kk.  We will also continue reading familiar fairy tales as well as some Aesop's Fables.  We will begin studying the five senses in science. I have a fun book with some hands-on activities that I do with the children, ending with doing a taste test of salty, sweet, sour, and bitter items.

In math, we will begin studying numbers to 5.  We will have some hands-on activities in class as well as several educational YouTubes.

One thing that I forgot to mention at Back-to-School Night is that I spent a week at the Krause Center for Innovation just before school started, learning about many, many tools for implementing technology in the classroom. I will continue expanding my knowledge throughout this year by sharing what I've learned with both your students and other teachers in Union School District. It is an exciting time in education with so many technology tools being developed specifically for classroom use, and I am looking forward to experimenting with them and hopefully tapping into your students' natural curiosity. Last week, we played with "Bee Bot," a programmable robot-bee. The children were using basic programming to get Bee Bot to move from one square on a grid toward another square. They all really enjoyed this and it is a fun way to reinforce traditional learning activities, as we had Bee Bot go to different letters on the grid. I am excited about using this and many other technology tools this year to keep learning engaging and relevant.

We also will be using a lot of music in the classroom for learning. I have already had them up and dancing to our "Alphabet Action" tune, and this week, we will be learning how to spell color words through singing some catchy tunes. We are introducing a new song each week. This week it will be the "red" song.  I also play the violin and break that out from time to time, mostly to play "Happy Birthday" for birthday celebrations. :)

We have this Friday the 4th off school, as well as Monday the 7th. We will begin sharing and centers the first full five-day week, which is the week of September 13th.

Upcoming Events:
9/4:  No School: Staff Development Day
9/7: No School: Labor Day
9/18:  Alta Vista Movie Night
10/17:  Alta Vista Walkathon

Week of 8/23

Dear Parents,

Apologies in advance for the long post, but I know that many of you are new parents to Alta Vista, and you will start to notice that I tend to err on the side of over-communication ;)

We had a great first week reading books from the "If You Give a...." series by Laura Numeroff, along with beginning our Language Arts workbook! Right now, our workbook pages are focusing on a quick overview of the alphabet—one letter a day, in alphabetical order. We familiarize ourselves with all the names of our classmates by looking for those letters in each person’s name. Of course, when we are done with the overview, we will begin a more intense study of each letter—a week per consonant/vowel, along with meeting that letter’s “Alphafriend.” The Alphafriends go along with our reading program and help the children remember letter sounds in a fun & catchy way.

We will also begin our math program this week. Our first unit is on shapes. At Back-to-School Night, I will be talking to you a bit more about the national "Common Core Standards" that are focusing on a more intense study of curriculum topics with higher level questioning. Though the topic of shapes sounds simple enough, with our common core standards, we will be talking about angles, sides and points, using higher level mathematical language.

In the next few weeks, we will be listening to familiar tales (Three Pigs, Jack & The Beanstalk, Three Billy Goats Gruff, etc.) and nursery rhymes. Hearing different versions of familiar tales and rhymes is a fun way to get children engaged in reading. Some families may own these traditional tales in another language. If you do, these may be fun for your child to bring in and share with the students.

During the past week, I have observed that some of the students will need to work on name-writing skills. One of our kindergarten standards is writing a name with one capital letter and the rest lower-case. We will begin practicing this in class by tracing our names on a worksheet, but I encourage you to reinforce this at home-- we try and drop the all-capital letter name writing as quickly as possible. The faster children can write their names correctly, the easier it is for them to get going on assignments, as we encourage them to write their names first. I appreciate your help with this.

In class, your child will be using a program called, "Handwriting without Tears." This is a wonderful program that really focuses on correct formation of letters along with correct pencil grip. It is so important to get in good habits (and in some cases, break bad habits) with handwriting early on. I will begin introducing the basics of this program by introducing a jazzy song called "We Start our Letters at the Top"--- and we will use it in conjunction with our letter program in language arts. When your child is learning about the letter "s," s/he will also be learning the correct formation of that letter.

Back-to-School Night is this Wednesday, starting at 6:45 in the cafeteria with a presentation from Alta Vista's Home & School Club. Following that presentation, I will begin my classroom presentation at about 7:15. This is a night for parents only, as I go over our curriculum and classroom policies. Please make every effort to attend so that you can be informed about the year ahead. I cover a lot of information that night in only 45 minutes, so afterwards, if you need more information on anything, please don’t hesitate to contact me. If you are unable to attend Back-to-School Night, please let me know so that I can set aside materials for you.

One item I will be covering during our meeting is the Consolidated Classroom Payment. The CCP is a payment that each grade level at Alta Vista asks for at the beginning of each year. It is different than a donation to the Home & School Club, which goes to school-wide programs such as Art Vistas, Clay, etc.  This payment goes directly to your child. Rather than asking for money and items every time we have an event, the kindergarten team has totaled up what our costs will be for the entire year. So instead of paying for your child's entrance fee each time we have a field trip, or running out to buy a pillow case when we have our Thanksgiving Feast (it's part of the costume), we ask for the money for these items up front. Then we go out and do the purchasing in bulk, saving you time and money.  The CCP for kindergarten this year is $80. Please do whatever you can to make this payment, as it covers the costs of your own child's supplies and entrance fees and bus fees for field trips. Even if you can only make a partial payment at this time-- every little bit helps. If for some reason we don’t spend all of the money, it stays with your child and will go toward their first grade consolidated payment.

It is a lot easier to collect this payment at Back-to-School Night, so I’d appreciate it if you bring your checkbooks. Plus, there's a school-wide contest to see which class can get their CCP payments in first, and my class has won that contest for the past six years, earning a class pizza party! Let's try to keep the streak going! If this payment is a hardship, the Home & School Club does help supplement the CCP money for our grade level, so just let us know if you need a scholarship. Thank you in advance for your support with this payment—it helps us do a lot of projects and activities that would otherwise not be possible.

Some of you have asked for more details about classroom help. Please continue to sign up here: https://goo.gl/RPRs4v I will be going over all the volunteer opportunities as part of my presentation at Back-to-School Night. I will also put the center helper sign-ups back out that night. You will find out which days you are officially helping after I have a chance to look over all of the information, and make sure I have coverage for all the activities and days. Then, I put together a schedule, usually for an entire quarter, so that you know which days to schedule on your calendar in advance for classroom help. If you sign up to help at center time, we will begin centers the week of September 14th. Thank you to so many of you who signed up to help at the Orientation—we already have most of our activities covered! I know we do still need more center helpers, so I’ll hope for a few more volunteers at Back-to-School Night. Center time is a wonderful way to get involved in our classroom, get to know the children, and stay apprised of what we are learning.

For your upcoming scheduling: There is no school on Friday the 4th or Monday the 7th.

I am looking forward to another fun week with your children, and I am excited to meet and talk with you all Wednesday night!

Week of 8/18

Dear Parents,

I'd like to welcome you and your children to my kindergarten class, and I was happy to meet so many of you at the orientation.

My primary form of communication is via e-mail, so hopefully, you were able to provide an e-mail address to me at the orientation.  If not, please make sure to do so between now and Back-to-School Night by filling out this form. I will send a few test e-mails between now and then, too, so look for those in your inbox.

I love to have classroom helpers, and the school's enrichment programs depend on them! Please sign up to be a part of the Home & School Club and to volunteer in the classroom in either centers or the enrichment programs by completing this form.

The kindergarten daily schedule is:

• 8:05-11:25 AM Session

For tomorrow:

• Please arrive on time and have your child ready to enter the classroom at the start time.
• Please say goodbye to your children at the door, rather than following them into the classroom and prolonging the goodbyes. Both Mrs. Sheikh & I will be there to comfort any children who need an extra hug!
• Pack a healthy snack for your child that includes a drink.  If your child is attending day care either before or after kindergarten, it is a good idea to separate the snack items from the lunch items, as kindergartners often get confused and will eat all the food in one sitting!
• I do like your children to have a small backpack. Although it may often come home empty (except on Wednesdays!), I do have a project here and there that I send home during the week. Having a backpack gets the children in an early habit of taking responsibility for their things and putting them all in one place.
• All supplies are provided for your children, but I do appreciate donations of baby wipes, tissues, glue sticks, and Clorox/Sanitizing Wipes.
• The kindergarten parking lot will continue to be closed this year at 7:45 a.m.  This is due to traffic congestion problems.  Please plan on walking or parking on Westchester between the hours of 7:45 to 8:15 a.m. At pick-up time (11:25), you are permitted to park at the curb in front of the school on Blossom Valley.
• This week in class will of course be all about procedures and getting to know the children.  We will be reading the story "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" and enjoying some cookies of our own.  We will be reading many familiar stories as well as nursery rhymes to create that sense of familiarity for your children.

Please mark your calendars and arrange babysitters for Back-to-School Night on Wednesday, August 26th.   The schedule is as follows:

• 6:00-6:45 PM Class Presentation in K2
• 6:45-7:15 Home & School Club Presentation in the Cafeteria
• 7:15-8:00 AM Class Presentation in K2

I will go over classroom policies and procedures, discuss the curriculum, and answer any questions that you may have. Of course, if you have any questions prior to that, please feel free to ask! I am very responsive over e-mail.

At the orientation, I provided you with the Alta Vista handbook, the Union School District handout, a computer print-out of the information the office has on file, and a "pick-ups & drop-offs" form.  Please look over both handbooks with your child (as appropriate).  Please return the final page of these booklets as soon as possible.  If you were unable to return your "office info" updated sheet today, please return that as well. There are signature areas on both sides of that form.  Finally, I think many of you may have missed the "pick-ups & drop-offs" form, so I will have those available again tomorrow.  If you could just fill that out & give me a rough idea of who to expect each day at the door, particularly for pick-ups at the end of the day, I'd appreciate it.

I am looking forward to an exciting year!

Summer 2015

I'd like to thank the students and parents from my kindergarten class of 2014-2015 for a wonderful year, and I look forward to meeting our new kindergartners of 2015-2016!

Kindergarten Orientation is Tuesday, August 18th, from 10:00 to 11:00 (a.m.) and 11:00 to 12:00 (p.m.)

Supplies that we usually ask for in kindergarten include glue sticks, tissues, #2 pencils, white board markers, baby wipes, and hand sanitizer. Check Back-to-School sales for these items-- we appreciate it!!

School begins on Wednesday, August 19, 2015-- morning session is 8:05 to 11:25 and the afternoon  session is 11:30 to 2:50. Child care for both sessions is available at Champions (408) 356-3178 or Holy Cross (408) 356-6828.

You will receive a letter the week of August 10th stating whether your child will be in the morning or afternoon session.  Due to fluctuation in enrollment, we cannot let you know before that time.

For kindergarten readiness, we highly recommend that your child comes into kindergarten:

• recognizing most letters
• writing his/her name legibly, using one upper-case & the rest lower-case letters
• recognizing numbers to 10 & beyond
• knowing names of basic shapes
• having good cutting/scissor skills
• able to sit attentively for the duration of a picture book

We highly recommend LeapFrog's  DVD "The Letter Factory" for a good review of letter recognition and letter sounds.

If you have any other questions about our program, please feel free to e-mail me at: gristn@unionsd.org

Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you in August!

Week of 6/7

Dear Parents,

It's exciting and a little sad at the same time, but we are heading into our last week together. What a wonderful year it's been! I'd like to thank you for the fantastic support you've given me all year long.

Here is a day-by-day run-down of the week:

MONDAY: No special activities. Please send your child with a large bag to bring home their Art Vista portfolios and other remaining items in the classroom, if you haven't done so already.

TUESDAY:  Promotion Ceremony in K2.  Be prepared for a brief presentation from the children and a great walk down memory lane of our wonderful year together. Please plan on attending this event or sending another family member who can attend! This is a special time to share with your children. No snacks needed-- refreshments will be served.

WEDNESDAY: Olympic Day. This is a school-wide event and is also a Wacky Wednesday for the p.m. kindergartners. Please wear class t-shirts and appropriate footwear! Sunblock would also be a good idea, and hats, too. The event starts at 10:00 and goes on until noon.  We will have snack time, so please send snacks on this day. Thank you to the parents who have already volunteered to help. If you'd still like to help, please email me or go to this link: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/30E084CAFAE29A64-alta1/28324657

THURSDAY: All children in kindergarten on an early schedule (8:05-11:25), so we will have 39 children in the room! Children will clean the classroom, sign yearbooks, and participate in our annual "Alphafriend Song Marathon!"  Please send a snack on this day if you think your child will get hungry.

Happy Summer!!!

Week of 5/31

Dear Parents,

With only 9 days to go in kindergarten, this post will mostly just remind you of upcoming special events, and this week is a week of a few more "lasts!"

It is the last week of sharing.  In celebration of that fact, children may pick ANY share topic-- toy in a bag; book share; song, poem, or nursery rhyme; or homemade item.

Our last Wednesday envelope will go home this week. Please review the papers, and then keep the envelope-- no need to send it back again.

On Thursday the 4th, please come to the cafeteria any time between 5:30 and 8:00 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 class party coming up this Friday the 5th. In light of the drought, we have revamped it to just be a lot of fun in the sun with outdoor games & toys. We will have a pizza lunch, so no need to pack a snack. Since we will be outdoors for quite a while, please load up on the sunscreen before their arrival.

Our last big event (parental attendance strongly encouraged) together is next Tuesday the 9th for our Promotion Day celebration. 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. Please plan on joining us as we have a small presentation and will look back on our wonderful year together!

Wednesday the 10th, 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.

There are no events on Thursday the 11th, 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.

Looking forward to lots of fun & memories in these final weeks!

Upcoming Events:
6/4: Art Vista Art Show @ 6:00 pm
6/5: End of the year Fun in the Sun!
6/9: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony 8:30 (a.m.) and 1:00 (p.m.)
6/10: June's Wacky Wednesday & Olympic Day
6/11: Last Day of School: All Kindergartners come from 8:05-11:25

Week of 5/25

Dear Parents,

I hope you are all enjoying this long weekend. We are heading into the final stretch here with many year-end events, so keep your calendars updated! The most important event this week is Open House, which is on Wednesday, May 27th. It starts at 6:30 in the cafeteria with a Home & School Club meeting. Classrooms are open between 7:00 & 8:00. Please bring your entire family to come into the classroom, letting your student be your guide. The kids will be showing off many projects we have been working on, and they are very excited to share all of it with you!

Another event this week is a daily Spirit Day. Participation is totally optional. Here is the rundown:
TUESDAY: Tutu & Bow Tie Day
WEDNESDAY: Wacky Hair Day
THURSDAY: America Day
FRIDAY: Hawaiian Day

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, and snails so far. We are hoping to get some worms in our classroom this week. Our caterpillars will probably be going into chrysalises over the weekend. 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 continuing our review of math concepts. 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" starts this week as the blue bag program is done.  Please take about 15-20 minutes a day to have your child do either Lexia, ixl.com, or raz-kids. If you are not sure how to log into these sites, please email me.

Next week, on Thursday the 4th, 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 5th. 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. Children who are going to daycare after class should have a change of clothes and shoes.

Wednesday the 10th, 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 & help organize the kids.

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 9th for our Promotion Day celebration. This event is at 8:30 for the morning class and 1:00 for the afternoon class. 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. We are trying to keep this event to 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 may be a few opportunities to watch movies (class party, after Olympic Day, etc.) If your child has any Rated G movies (these are actually quite hard to find!) 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.

Please send in your child's blue bag Tuesday for the final time!

Upcoming Events:
5/25: Memorial Day
5/27: May's Wacky Wednesday & Open House
6/4: Art Vista Art Show @ 6:00 pm
6/5: End of the year Party & Water Play Day
6/9: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony 8:30 (a.m.) and 1:00 (p.m.)
6/10: June's Wacky Wednesday & Olympic Day
6/11: Last Day of School: All Kindergartners come from 8:05-11:25

Week of 5/17

Dear Parents,

It was great to see you all at the Hoe-Down! I think I saw just about every student there, and it looked like lots of fun was being had by all.
We have another review week covering several consonants this week (Dd, Jj, Nn, Ww). All letters have now been introduced, so please work on practicing both writing and reading consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words. Your children should be able to read all of those types of words using their letter sounds and blending skills-- cut, bus, rat, sip, hot, etc. This is a really important skill to work on now and through the summer, as this is something your children will be expected to do proficiently in first grade. Books such as the leveled Scholastic Readers, Bob Books, I Can Read Books, and Ready to Read Books are great for reinforcing blending skills and practicing fluency. Please keep your children reading 20-30 minutes daily now and through the summer. Also, continue working on the sight words.  They need to know all 40, and in first grade, the list increases to 100 words.  That list can be found on the first grade page here: http://www.unionsd.org/cms/lib07/CA01001465/Centricity/Domain/97/100_Sight_Words.pdf:   I can't emphasize enough that the best way to help your child become a successful reader is to offer plenty of opportunity for practice.

Speaking of plenty of practice-- the Alta Vista Book Fair is a great source for new books for your children, and it is open beginning this Thursday the 21st and runs through Thursday the 28th.  On both May 21st & 22nd, the book fair will be open at 11:30 to accommodate kindergarten drop-off. These shopping hours will be much more quiet, so if you'd like to go in and make a purchase of a book your child had his/her eye on, this is the time to do it. It will also be open during Open House, if you'd like to make purchases at that time.  Stop by & check it out!

This is our last week of centers!  I'd like to thank all of the volunteers for their commitment to coming in weekly to help us in the classroom.  This was an amazing year for classroom help-- whenever somebody was unable to come in, someone else stepped right up as a sub.  That small-group instruction time is so important, and without all of the helpers, it would not have been possible. Thank you, thank you!

The upcoming final 18 days (can you believe it??) will be devoted to reviewing and reinforcing concepts that we have learned in kindergarten.  We will introduce two more sight words, do and had.  I have also been and will continue to be administering the final round of assessments to evaluate your children for the 3rd trimester report cards. Those report cards will come home with your children on the last day of school.

We are also continuing our animal unit in science.  We studied snails this past week, and next week, we will be continuing to watch our caterpillars & learning about the life cycle of a butterfly! The children are really enjoying this hands-on opportunity to take a closer look at several different species.

Please send in your Blue Bags tomorrow.  This Wednesday, we will send home the final blue bag!   Please use the extra time in the remaining weeks to do "virtual homework assignments."  I would like to see the children spending at least 15 minutes a day on either Lexia, ixl.com , or raz-kids for the next few weeks. I would also encourage using the extra time to read, read, read!

Upcoming Events:
5/25: Memorial Day
5/27: May's Wacky Wednesday & Open House
6/4: Art Vista Art Show @ 6:00 pm
6/8: End of the year Party & Water Play Day
6/9: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony
6/10: June's Wacky Wednesday & Olympic Day
6/11: Last Day of School: All Kindergartners come from 8:05-11:25

Week of 5/10

Dear Parents,

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for the wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week.  From the beautiful flowers, all the delicious fruits,  to the touching notes-- thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and for entrusting me with your wonderful children.  Thank you also to all the moms for coming on Friday.  The children were so excited to have you there for our Mother's Day event, and it was wonderful that each child had someone to honor.  I hope all the moms enjoy their day Sunday.

We have now introduced all of the consonants & vowels. This week (and all the rest of the weeks this school year) will be a review week. We will be reviewing the letters Bb, Cc, Ll, but we do have two new sight words-- he & as. In math, we will begin reviewing concepts covered during the year, especially addition & subtraction. We are working on fluency in facts to and from 5. Children should be able to solve addition problems to 5 (2+2=4) and subtraction from 5 (5-3=2) in seconds.

In science, we are continuing our unit on animals and beginning the section on the life cycle of a butterfly.  We will have caterpillars to watch in our classrooms as they go through their metamorphosis to butterflies. Last week we observed and discussed goldfish and guppies. This week, we will also be looking at snails.

This Friday is the Alta Vista Hoedown, and you won't want to miss it! This is a very fun school-wide carnival with game booths and bouncy houses, a cake walk, food trucks, and even a mechanical bull! The Hoedown is from 5:00 to 8:30. Be sure to stop by for some fun! They can still use some help as well. Sign up here to assist: http://cosmith.ivolunteer.com/fantasyfair15

We are busily preparing for Open House, on the night of May 27th.  We will have much on display in our room that night, and the kids are very excited to show off their work. Please plan on attending with your child!  There is a Home & School club meeting that evening in the cafeteria at 6:30, followed by the classrooms being open between 7:00 and 8:00.  Stop by any time during that hour to have your child show off all of his/her projects to you!

Our sharing this week is Letter of the Week: Bb, Cc, or Ll. Have your child bring in something that starts with Bb, Cc, or Ll. They can hide it in a bag and write clues. Great job recently to so many of the kids for writing their own clues!

Please send in your Blue Bags tomorrow! We have just two weeks left of homework!

Upcoming Events:
5/25: Memorial Day
5/27: May's Wacky Wednesday & Open House
6/4: Art Vista Art Show @ 6:00 pm
6/8: End of the year Party & Water Play Day
6/9: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony
6/10: June's Wacky Wednesday & Olympic Day
6/11: Last Day of School: All Kindergartners come from 8:05-11:25