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
