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
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Saturday, September 19, 2015
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
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
Friday, September 11, 2015
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
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!
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
Sunday, September 6, 2015
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!
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!