We had a great 2nd week of school & now have eight school days
under our belts! The children are doing well with learning the routines
and following the rules of kindergarten.
I am working
on the parent helper schedule, and hope to have my first draft to you
this weekend. I did want to remind you that if you signed up to help
with a school wide enrichment program (Art Vistas, Clay, Cornerstone,
Room Parent, etc.) that you need to make sure to sign up and indicate
that on MSA (MySchoolAnywhere). Those programs all have informational
meetings to get you started, and if you only signed up with me in the
classroom, you won't receive information about those meetings. To sign
up for MSA for the first time, click here: https://www.myschoolanywhere.com/new-family.a5w?fam=AltaVistaElem19550
If you already have an account and just need to sign up to volunteer, click here: https://www.myschoolanywhere.com/volunteer-new.a5w?vol=AltaVistaElem19550
Thank you in advance for signing up! I believe I have all enrichment activities covered!
Language Arts
In
language arts this year, we will be introducing two letters per week,
wrapping up our isolated letter & sound study by November. This
week, we will be covering letters Cc & Dd. We will also continue
reading familiar fairy tales and nursery rhymes. We also will be reading and having activities around the story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Additionally, we will
introduce our first sight word, I.
This week, we will
begin introducing more activities in our "Daily 5" reading program. All
the kindergarten teachers attended a week-long training last summer in
this program. It was highly successful last year, and we are excited to continue implementing it. You can read a
little summary of it here. Last week, we began working on "read to self." This week, we will introduce some word work.
Math
In
math, we will continue studying numbers to 5. We will have some
hands-on activities in class as well as several educational YouTubes.
More information on this math module can be found here.
Music & Movement
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 we have a song and movement for each individual letter as well. We also will be learning how to spell color words through singing some
catchy tunes. We are introducing a new song each week. Last week we learned the "red" song, and 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.
:)
Additionally, Union School District subscribes to a
great educational movement online site called "Go Noodle." We have
already used Go Noodle quite a bit for our classroom brain breaks.
Educational research has shown that when we take brain breaks, it
refreshes our thinking and helps us discover another solution to the
problem, or see a situation through a different lens. In K2, we love
getting the children up and moving through music and other brain breaks.
STEAM
Hopefully, your children shared with you our Fairy Tale STEAM activity last week where we had them building a house for the Three Pigs using KEVA Planks. Then we tested the house to see if it could withstand "huffing & puffing" (a hair dryer). As you can imagine, there was lots of excitement around this! I posted a short video of one test on my Twitter account. This week, we will continue with the Fairy Tale STEAM by building a new bridge for the Three Billy Goats. We will be using the toilet paper tubes you've been sending in for this activity. Thank you again for continuing to send those in through Wednesday.
Reminder: We have this Friday the 31st off school, as well as Monday the 3rd.
Upcoming Events:
Friday 8/31: Staff Development Day
Monday 9/3: Labor Day Holiday
Friday 9/7: Picture Day
Friday 9/7: Alta Vista Movie Night
Week of 9/10: Classroom Centers Begin
Wednesday 9/12: First Blue Book Bag goes home
Tuesday 10/2: Alta Vista STEAM Night
Tuesday 10/9: PM Class attends "Elephant & Piggie" Play
Saturday 10/17: Alta Vista Walkathon
Wednesday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party
