Week of 9/25

Dear Parents,

We had another great week in K2, culminating in the apple-themed STEAM Day, from which I sent out a video to you last week. I hope you were all able to view it!

This Tuesday is a district-wide "no homework night." Since our homework bags are due on Monday, we don't typically have homework in kindergarten on a Tuesday anyway, but the intent of "no homework nights" is that you enjoy some family time, like a game night, an evening walk, etc. If you have older students, nobody should have homework, so I hope you do something fun as a family!

Wednesday the 28th is another school-wide Spirit Day. The theme is "Wacky Wednesday." Children can wear silly clothes and hats, backwards clothes, etc. Participation is totally optional. Since we normally do Grasshopper t-shirts on Wednesday, your child can decide whether or not s/he wants to wear it that day. However, we still do have P.E. with Coach Sierra, so please make sure that the Wacky outfit is one that they can participate in P.E. with.

This Friday is Picture Day.  The order forms went home in last 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. Typically, they take the kindergarten picture right away so that you don't have to worry about clothes getting messy at snack or recess. :)

Language Arts:
We have begun introducing the sight words (also called high-frequency words). So far, we have introduced I and like. This week, we will introduce my. 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. 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. We have also begun sending home a list of sentences for your child to read to you that have the sight words. Every time they read the sentences, they color a star at the bottom of the page. The first of these sight word sentence sheets should come home in this week's Wednesday envelope. 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.

This week's letters are Kk and Ll. We continue to use Heidisongs Singalong Songs for Letters to introduce/review the letters and sounds. If you'd like to offer further reinforcement at home, information on this DVD (it can also be streamed on Vimeo) can be found here.

This week's sharing will be "Letter of the Week share" for Kk or Ll. This is similar to toy share, except that the item hidden in the bag has to start with Kk or Ll. Remember that if you aren't sure of your child's sharing day or need more information about the sharing topic, to please go to the sharing link on the website.

Math:
We are still working our way through Module 1 in Eureka Math, "Numbers to 10." We are in the section "Numerals to 5 in Different Configurations." You can find a link for helping your children at home here.

Science:
We have begun our FOSS Science unit on trees. On Friday, the children went around the school and looked at two different trees during center time. This week, they will be learning the parts of trees and talking about how trees change during the different seasons. We will also be putting together some tree puzzles.

I want to remind you again that the Walkathon is coming up quickly on Saturday, October 15th! The children will do a practice lap with me some time before the 15th.  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 (Ting), Centers (Anna R. & Annie), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Claire K. & Anna G.), Sharing
Wednesday: Wacky Wednesday, Recess 101 with Coach Sierra, Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Centers (Susan & Alison), Sharing
Friday: Picture Day, STEAM Centers (Marylu), Sharing

Upcoming Events:
Wednesday, 9/28: "Wacky Wednesday" Spirit Day
Friday 9/30: Picture Day

Monday 10/10: Field trip to see a play
Saturday 10/15: Alta Vista Walkathon
Friday 10/28: Halloween Parade & Party
Monday 10/31: No School: Staff Development Day

11/1-11/10: Parent-Teacher Conferences

Friday 11/11: No School: Veteran's Day

Friday 11/18: Friendship Feast

11/21-11/25: Thanksgiving Vacation

Friday 12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performances

Week of 9/18

Dear Parents,

We had a great first week of centers and sharing! 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 several parent helpers 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.

We have an assembly this week called "Be a Hero," followed by "Character Day" on the 22nd. Character Day is a global initiative that Alta Vista is becoming a part of this year. For more information about it, go to the website here.

Alta Vista's Walkathon is coming right up, and I hope to see everyone out there! The students had a kickoff assembly this past Friday (kindergarten didn't attend due to STEAM centers) and we will be talking to the kindergartners this week about this amazing school-wide event. Please mark your calendars for Saturday, October 15th, and plan to come out for this great community-building day-- your child won't want to miss it!

Language Arts:
Our "Daily Phonemic Awareness" activities have been focusing on many different skills. We've been breaking apart compound words and putting them back together. We've been deleting parts of words and stating what is left. We have also been identifying beginning and ending sounds, and working on rhyming.

This week, we will be reading the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. In this book, the main character is teased because of her long name. By the end of the story, she learns to be proud of her name and its meaning. We will do some fun activities around the story, and for homework, the children will be comparing their own names to Chrysanthemum's in various ways.

We will be focusing on the letters Ii and Jj and our sight word this week is like. 

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)________________

Math:
We will continue looking at numbers to 5 and begin 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. We will also be learning some counting skills so that children can count one-to-one, no matter what the arrangement of the items is (scattered, in a circle, in a grid, etc.)

Science:
We will wrap up our apple study this week, and begin our FOSS science unit on Trees & Leaves at the end of the week.We will be 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.

STEAM:
This week's STEAM centers will be apple-themed, and our Alta Vista STEAM TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment) Ms. Puliese, will be leading these exciting investigations. We will be building structures with apple pieces & toothpicks, investigating whether apples sink or float, dissecting apples, and seeing how far apples roll! Last week, we had a ball investigation, where we looked at different types of balls and made predictions about which bounced the highest, which rolled the farthest, etc. We also programmed our Bee-Bot again, this time writing the code on a whiteboard. Finally, we used Osmo again, but this time we did some elementary physics using the Newton kit.

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 (Asma), Centers (Marylu & Minna), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers cancelled due to "Be a Hero"Assembly, Sharing
Wednesday: Recess 101 with Coach Sierra, Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: STEAM Centers (Anna G. & Claire K.), Global Character Day, Sharing
Friday: Centers (Gus), Sharing

Upcoming Events:
Tuesday 9/20: "Be a Hero" assembly

Thursday 9/22: Character Day
Friday 9/30: Picture Day
Monday 10/10: Field trip to see a play
Saturday 10/15: Alta Vista Walkathon
Friday 10/28: Halloween Parade & Party
Monday 10/31: No School: Staff Development Day

11/1-11/10: Parent-Teacher Conferences

Friday 11/11: No School: Veteran's Day

Friday 11/18: Friendship Feast

11/21-11/25: Thanksgiving Vacation

Friday 12/16: Kindergarten Nutcracker Performances

Week of 9/12

Dear Parents,

We've made it to an exciting week in kindergarten, where we start centers and sharing and our first homework bag will be returned on Monday!

As a reminder to center helpers, centers run from about 9:00 to 10:15. Please come a little before 9:00 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."

Please return your child's blue bag tomorrow, and this will become your routine every Monday. The book should be inside the bag, as well as the homework folder. Your child will get a new book and a new page in the homework folder on Wednesday each week.

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. Sharing days 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 you ever forget which day is your child's sharing day, or if you need more information about the sharing topic, please click on the link on the right-hand side called "Sharing Info."  Sharing topics each week are posted under the "calendar" link.

MATH:

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.

LANGUAGE ARTS:
We will introduce letters Gg & Hh plus continue working on rhyming. We will read more non-fiction books about apples. We will introduce our first sight word, I. We will begin our handwriting program, Handwriting without Tears, this week. We will work on correctly forming the letter Bb. We will continue working on name writing and we will have a name writing page again for homework this week. We really want to ensure that children are forming the letters in their names correctly. The sooner they break any bad habits, the better.

SCIENCE:
We will look at how the change in seasons affect how an apple tree looks throughout the year. We will continue learning about apples and apple trees.

STEAM: (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math)
We had our first STEAM centers on Friday, and the children were excited! They worked with Keva Planks, designed a marble run, used Osmo, and programmed a Bee-Bot. We are incorporating STEAM centers into our program once a week, and we look forward to much collaboration, innovation, trial & error, and excitement in the process! For more information on STEM/STEAM (used interchangeably) in the primary classroom, read this article.

Helpers & Activities This Week
Monday: Blue Bags returned (HoSun), Centers (Anna R. & Annie), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Claire K. & Anne-Marie), Sharing
Wednesday: Sharing, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Centers (Alison & Susan), Sharing
Friday: STEAM Centers (Barry)

Upcoming Events:

Monday 9/12: Centers begin
Friday 9/16: Alta Vista Movie Night Inside Out

Friday 9/30: Picture Day
Monday 10/10: Field trip to see a play
Saturday 10/15: Alta Vista Walkathon
Friday 10/28: Halloween Parade & Party

Monday 10/31: No School: Staff Development Day

Week of 9/5

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 31st.

In language arts, we continue introducing letters and letter sounds with letters Ee and Ff this week. We will switch gears to non-fiction books this week and begin reading and learning about apples and apple trees. We will also continue reading familiar tales-- The Three Pigs is up this week!

In math, we will continue with the topic: Numbers 1-10. 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. :)

I have forgotten to mention previously that we have a program called Recess 101 this year in kindergarten. It is a weekly P.E. program on Wednesdays, led by "Coach Sierra." Please send your children in shoes appropriate for fitness on Wednesdays each week.

Our first homework bag will go home this Wednesday! We will have a name writing practice sheet for your child in the homework folder. The blue bag will contain the first book in our weekly book program. Please return both the homework folder and the book in the bag after you use them each night so that when you return the bag every Monday, everything is easy to find.

Next week, the week of 9/11, we will begin centers and sharing. It's a big week! Parent helpers, this is when you will begin coming in. Please check over the helper schedule (link to the right) and let me know if there are 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!

Upcoming Events:

Monday 9/12: Centers begin
Friday 9/16: Alta Vista Movie Night Inside Out

Friday 9/30: Picture Day
Monday 10/10: Field trip to see a play
Saturday 10/15: Alta Vista Walkathon
Friday 10/28: Halloween Parade & Party