Dear Parents,
Thank you so much for your attendance at Back-to-School Night. It was so wonderful to have most of you 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. Centers will not start until the week of September 11th, so you have a couple of weeks before coming into the classroom. 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.
One thing that I forgot to cover was sharing. Sharing will begin on September 12th. There are various sharing topics: toy in a bag, letter(s) of the week, homemade item, book share, and song/poem/nursery rhyme share. For a description of what is expected for each of these topics, please go to the sharing tab on the website. The sharing topic stays the same all week, and can be found on the class calendar on my website. The sharing days do not change. They are:
MONDAY: Aiden, Alexandre, Anna, Bodie
TUESDAY: Brett, Cameron, Cody, David
WEDNESDAY: Emil, Isabella, Joseph, Keigo
THURSDAY: Liam, Lila, Madison, Mimi
FRIDAY: Peyton, Rez, Safa, Sophie
*If we have a Monday or Friday holiday, children can share any day that week
In language arts this year, we will be introducing two letters per week, wrapping up our isolated letter & sound study by November. From there, we will move onto digraphs, blends, and word families.
This week, we will be covering letters Cc & Dd. 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 continue studying numbers to 5. We will have some hands-on activities in class as well as several educational YouTubes.
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 "yellow" 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 2nd off school, as well as Monday the 5th. For other important dates, specific to kindergarten, please check the class calendar on my website. I have added the dates of many of our big events in there for your future planning!
Upcoming Events:
Friday 9/2: Staff Development Day
Monday 9/5: Labor Day Holiday
Friday 9/16: Alta Vista Movie Night
Monday 10/10: Field trip to see a play
Saturday 10/15: Alta Vista Walkathon
Friday 10/28: Halloween Parade & Party
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Week of 8/21
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 playing some letter recognition games. Next week, we will begin formally introducing the letters Aa and Bb. We familiarize ourselves with all the names of our classmates by looking for those letters in each person’s name.
We also began our first math topic on numbers to five. This topic also introduces shapes, which we will focus more on this week.
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 have a handwriting center weekly when we start academic centers in September.
Back-to-School Night is this Wednesday, starting at 6:00 in the classroom. Following my presentation, there will be a meeting in the cafeteria to talk about Alta Vista's Home & School Club and all the great enrichment programs it supports. 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.
Please continue to sign up to join the Home & School Club via the "My School Anywhere" system. You can sign up by clicking here. The invitation code is AltaVista. This is how you will keep informed with what is going on at the school, as well as have access to contact info for other parents in the class to arrange playdates, etc. PLEASE try and sign up as soon as possible, if you haven't done so already.
Additionally, some of you have asked for more details about classroom help. You can use the "My School Anywhere" account to sign up to volunteer in our classroom. 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 11th. 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.
Finally, I ask that you please make every effort to support our kindergarten activities by contributing to the Consolidated Classroom Payment (CCP) online via the "My School Anywhere" account. This money goes to support your own child's portion of items like field trip entrance fees, bus fees, your child's class t-shirt, your child's costume for the Friendship Feast, parts of your child's costume for the Nutcracker performance, etc. Instead of asking you for money every time we have an event, we ask for this money up front. We would not be able to provide many of these enrichment opportunities without your support, so please make every effort to donate to this fund, even if it is only a partial payment.
For your upcoming scheduling: There is no school on Friday the 2nd or Monday the 5th.
I am looking forward to another fun week with your children, and I am excited to meet and talk with you all Wednesday night!
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 playing some letter recognition games. Next week, we will begin formally introducing the letters Aa and Bb. We familiarize ourselves with all the names of our classmates by looking for those letters in each person’s name.
We also began our first math topic on numbers to five. This topic also introduces shapes, which we will focus more on this week.
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 have a handwriting center weekly when we start academic centers in September.
Back-to-School Night is this Wednesday, starting at 6:00 in the classroom. Following my presentation, there will be a meeting in the cafeteria to talk about Alta Vista's Home & School Club and all the great enrichment programs it supports. 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.
Please continue to sign up to join the Home & School Club via the "My School Anywhere" system. You can sign up by clicking here. The invitation code is AltaVista. This is how you will keep informed with what is going on at the school, as well as have access to contact info for other parents in the class to arrange playdates, etc. PLEASE try and sign up as soon as possible, if you haven't done so already.
Additionally, some of you have asked for more details about classroom help. You can use the "My School Anywhere" account to sign up to volunteer in our classroom. 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 11th. 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.
Finally, I ask that you please make every effort to support our kindergarten activities by contributing to the Consolidated Classroom Payment (CCP) online via the "My School Anywhere" account. This money goes to support your own child's portion of items like field trip entrance fees, bus fees, your child's class t-shirt, your child's costume for the Friendship Feast, parts of your child's costume for the Nutcracker performance, etc. Instead of asking you for money every time we have an event, we ask for this money up front. We would not be able to provide many of these enrichment opportunities without your support, so please make every effort to donate to this fund, even if it is only a partial payment.
For your upcoming scheduling: There is no school on Friday the 2nd or Monday the 5th.
I am looking forward to another fun week with your children, and I am excited to meet and talk with you all Wednesday night!
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Week of 8/15
Dear Parents,
I'd like to welcome you and your children to my kindergarten class, and I enjoyed meeting you and your child at the orientation today!
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 pay the "Consolidated Classroom Payment" (a one-time fee we ask you to please try and contribute to, which allows us to offer many extras such as field trips, special class projects, etc.) You can sign up and pay here The invitation code is AltaVista. We greatly appreciate your support with this.
The kindergarten daily schedule is:
At the orientation, I provided you with the Alta Vista handbook, the Union School District handout, and the Home & School Club information. Please look over both handbooks with your child (as appropriate). Please return the final page of these booklets as soon as possible. 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!
I'd like to welcome you and your children to my kindergarten class, and I enjoyed meeting you and your child at the orientation today!
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 pay the "Consolidated Classroom Payment" (a one-time fee we ask you to please try and contribute to, which allows us to offer many extras such as field trips, special class projects, etc.) You can sign up and pay here The invitation code is AltaVista. We greatly appreciate your support with this.
The kindergarten daily schedule is:
- 8:05-11:25 AM Session
- 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. Barbara & 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" as well as "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom." We will also be reading many familiar stories as well as nursery rhymes to create that sense of familiarity for your children.
- 6:00-6:45 AM Class Presentation in K2
- 6:45-7:15 Home & School Club Presentation in the Cafeteria
- 7:15-8:00 PM Class Presentation in K2
At the orientation, I provided you with the Alta Vista handbook, the Union School District handout, and the Home & School Club information. Please look over both handbooks with your child (as appropriate). Please return the final page of these booklets as soon as possible. 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!