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

Week of 5/3

Dear Parents,

We had a very successful trip to Emma Prusch Farm last week. There were many animals on display, including an 800 pound pig! The kids really enjoyed themselves. Thank you to our chaperones for helping make this trip a success.

Our Cinco de Mayo dance will be this Tuesday, May 5th, at 11:15 a.m. Parents, please arrive on time so that you don't miss it!  All four kindergarten classes are involved in this dance, so parking may be tricky.  The afternoon class should probably arrive even slightly beforehand so that they are ready to dance by 11:20.  We have some costume items to hand out, so please arrive with that in mind.  If your children have any festive, bright dresses or bright colorful tops and pants, those always make the scene even more vibrant. We do have paper serapes to pass out to the children to wear over the top. All the costuming and preparing takes a few minutes, so again, please arrive on time, especially afternoon class children. Please also let Holy Cross & Champions know to come early.

Remember that if work constraints only allow you occasional days off that we would prefer that you are present for the Muffins with Mom event on Friday the 8th. We are looking forward to celebrating with all the moms or other "representatives" at 8:30 for the morning class, and at 2:00 for the afternoon class. We have a short presentation of a mini-play and a few songs, and then you can enjoy some treats with your child. This is an event the kindergartners always look forward to sharing with their moms/someone special, so please try to have someone come. Thank you!

We are now getting to that time in the school year where there are several events each week, so please keep your calendar updated & come and enjoy all the school has to offer!  Next week is another great school-wide event, the Fantasy Faire, on Friday, May 15th.  This is a super fun school-wide carnival that your child will not want to miss.  I also really encourage you to participate in the cake-making competition that morning (cakes must be submitted by 8:15, so bring yours early if you are in the afternoon class).  It is really fun to participate, and the cakes are so amazing!  Don't be intimidated-- this is definitely a child-friendly competition :)  Finally, the Fantasy Fair still needs a lot of help.  Please check out the online sign-up to offer your assistance: http://cosmith.ivolunteer.com/fantasyfair15

This week, we introduce our final two letters.  The consonant is Jj and the Alphafriend is Jumping Jill.  Our final vowel is Uu, and the Alphafriend is Umbie Umbrella.  We will also have a new word, are. We are also continuing our math topic on weight, volume, and capacity.  Similar to the measuring unit, children will need to identify which container holds more/less, which container would be appropriate given the item it needs to hold, etc.  We will soon be reviewing numbers to 100,. One thing many children struggled with was writing numbers in a sequence from a random starting point.  We had papers that had, for example, 66, 67, ____, ____....  Filling in these blanks was quite difficult for some students.  Continue reviewing numbers and number sequences with your children.

The sharing this week is toy in a bag. Please encourage your child to write his or her own clues or a word or two to help them remember the clues. We have been finding that when parents are writing the clues, the children often do not know what these clues say. At the very least, please go over the clues with your child so that s/he is prepared for the oral presentation.

In science, we are beginning our unit on the life cycle of a butterfly. We will have some real caterpillars arrive in class next week, and we will watch the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly. This is a very exciting unit for the children.

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!

For your future planning-- please review all dates in the "Upcoming Events" section below. Critical dates (where I'd really like a parent to try to come) are: Muffins with Mom (this Friday), Open House (May 27th),  and the Promotion Ceremony (June 9th). The Promotion Ceremony is our big last "hurrah" together, where we look back on our year & celebrate the children. Also, please be aware that the last day of school, Thursday the 11th, all K classes are on a MORNING schedule (8:05 to 11:25)-- there are no celebrations or parties as we will have 42 kids in the classroom and don't have room for any extra bodies!  

Please send in your Blue Bags tomorrow-- there are only three weeks left of homework!

Upcoming Events:
5/5: All-Kindergarten Cinco de Mayo dance @ 11:15
5/8: Mother's Day Tea-- moms, mark your calendars!
5/15: Alta Vista Hoedown 5:00-8:30 pm
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