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