Week of 12/16

The main business of this week is all things Nutcracker! We will be practicing daily this week, so there will be no centers. There will also be no blue bags this Wednesday.

For the Nutcracker performance, we have Gomathi, Claire, and Carole helping with make-up and costuming. If costume parents could please come at around 8:45 or so and begin calling kids back individually and get them ready for the stage, that would be great. Thank you!

Language Arts:
We will be reviewing word families that we've already introduced: at, an, and ap. We will be mixing the words in these families up to see how students are doing with blending using the different word families. We will also have a new sight word: you. Our stories this week will be different holiday stories.

Math:
We will continue with Module 4, Number Pairs, Addition & Subtraction to 10. Parent tips for this module can be found here.

Center Help
Thank you for such wonderful parent support in centers for all of 2019. There are still 14 spots left for those who are interested in joining us for centers in early 2020. Please see the Sign-Up Genius to sign up.

Art Vistas
We have an Art Vista lesson on Monday, where we will be creating animals out of modeling clay. Thank you to Tiffany, Agnieszka, Carole & Hema for their help with Art Vistas this year.

Cornerstone
We have a Cornerstone lesson this Tuesday afternoon. Thank you to Jessica for leading Cornerstone this year.

This Week's Special Events
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 two weeks ago. Children should come to school dressed in these items on Thursday. Girls who are wearing leotards 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
NUTCRACKER/SOLDIERS/RUSSIAN DANCERS: White Shirt & Dark Pants w/ dark shoes
MICE/MOUSE KING: 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 w/ no tutu (we provide the Harem pants)
CHINESE DANCERS: Shirt doesn't matter so much (will be wearing jacket we provide) dark pants, dark shoes.

Please borrow whatever you need to borrow-- we don't intend for anyone to have to buy anything.  I have several 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. I will send them home with children who want to borrow one on Monday. Please email me to let me know you'd like to borrow one.

Please arrive promptly in the cafeteria for the Nutcracker, as we intend to start the show right at 10:00. 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. There are plenty of seats for everyone, so no need to stress. We want everyone to enjoy the performance, so please refrain from standing and blocking the aisles. It is no fun to watch a performance with a raised camera in front of you blocking your view-- I've had this happen to me at several performances, and I ask that you refrain from this behavior. If you want to take pictures, please go to the back row. Also remember that school-aged siblings are not to be pulled out of class to watch the performance. Thank you!

On another photography note, we will have Anne Marie Hart (yearbook photographer) at the performance recording a video of it on an iPad. She & I will also be taking photographs of the children in their costumes both before & during the performance. You will have access to these photos & the video, so that you can spend your time on Thursday enjoying the performance.

Holiday Party
We will have our holiday party and gift exchange on Friday the 20th. I believe a Sign-Up Genius has gone out to sign up for sending in food for the party. This is a pajama party! Children are encouraged to wear their pajamas and bring a stuffed animal with them as we enjoy a fun breakfast and games. For lunch that day, we will be having pizza in the classroom. This is our pizza party celebration for bringing in the most money in the Consolidated Classroom Payment drive at the beginning of the year. No need to pack any food for your child on the 20th since breakfast & lunch are covered. However, please do send water bottles so your child has something to drink. Please also remember to send in your gift for the gift exchange, marked "boy" or "girl" (even if it is a gender-neutral toy, please just mark with the gender of your child). Thank you!

Remember to bring your blue bags tomorrow. No blue bags this Wednesday due to the upcoming holiday.

Upcoming
When we return from Winter Break on January 6th, we are having a special district-wide day called "Smart Start." Basically, it's a fun day of activities to get children excited about returning to school. We will be doing some hands-on projects and having time to play to ease our way back into school.

Happy Holidays and enjoy your break!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, No Centers
Tuesday: Daily 5, No Centers
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., No Blue Bags
Thursday: Return Weds. Envelopes, Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00
Friday:Holiday Party (wear pjs and bring wrapped gift), pizza lunch

Upcoming Events:Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00
Friday 12/20: Classroom Holiday Party/Pajama Day
12/21-01/05: Winter Break

Friday 01/17: No School: Professional Development Day
Monday 01/20: No School: MLK Day
Tuesday 01/28: 100 Day
02/17-02/21: President's Week Vacation

Week of 12/09

This is the last week for parent helpers in 2019! Thank you for making centers run so smoothly and volunteering your time in our classroom. The Sign-Up Genius for early 2020 still has plenty of spots. Please check that out and see if you can join us for centers between 12:25 and 1:40 in 2020.

Your child should have received his/her part assignment for the Nutcracker in last week's Wednesday envelope. Please let me know if there are any problems gathering the clothes we've asked them to wear. I do have several leotards that my daughter outgrew from her dance days in the classroom, as well as a few pairs of ballet slippers. We do not intend for you to have to buy anything. We are looking forward to a memorable performance on the 19th at 10:00!

Thank you for answering the call to help with make-up and costumes at the Nutcracker performance.  Please let me know if I'm forgetting anyone because a couple of people told me in person they could help, and I'm not as good at remembering those as on email. I have: Claire, Gomathi, and Carole.

Language Arts
This week's sight words are on and we. Our word family is the ap family. Children will be reading words such as cap, rap, and map. We will be reading stories in the Bear series by Karma Wilson.

Math
We will continue with Module 4, Number Pairs, Addition & Subtraction to 10. This is an extremely important part of our kindergarten math program, and we dedicate a large amount of time to this module. In fact, we will be on this module until the end of January. Parent tips for this module can be found here. I do recommend that you look these over, because there will be some new vocabulary for those of you who do not have older students who have done the Eureka math program. Of particular importance are the words "compose" (finding numbers that add up to a given number-- like 3 & 2 compose 5) "decompose" (take apart a number-- like 5 can be 4 & 1) and number bonds (a model to show mathematical thinking)

STEAM
This week, our class will participate in an exciting movement called Hour of Code. Students have become very proficient at coding using apps, and last week, they did an amazing job with CodeSpark. This week we will be writing code for our Bee Bot, and using the Osmos again to do Osmo Coding Jam.  We will also do some "off the grid" programming using a game called "Hopscotch Coding." We are excited to be a part of this global movement!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Carole & Tiffany H.)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & Gomathi)
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., Music, Blue Bags go home (last of 2019!)
Thursday: Return Weds. Envelopes, Daily 5, Centers (Agnieszka & Gomathi)
Friday: Daily 5, Hour of Code STEAM Centers (Patty & Carole)

Upcoming Events:
12/9-12/15: Hour of Code/Computer Science Week 
Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00
Friday 12/20: Classroom Holiday Party/Pajama Day
12/21-01/05: Winter Break

Friday 01/17: No School: Professional Development Day
Monday 01/20: No School: MLK Day
Tuesday 01/28: 100 Day
02/17-02/21: President's Week Vacation

Week of 12/2

I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving break. I'd like to thank all of you for making the Feast such a success! We had a wonderful spread of food, and the children all looked darling! Thanks to the MANY parents who helped with that event.

Now...onto a very busy but exciting time in kindergarten as we prepare for our Nutcracker performance on the 19th, as well as continue with all the academics & exciting literature!

Language Arts
We will continue working with word families this week, using the ending an. Children will read and write words such as: can, ran, fan, and man. Our sight words this week are big and in. In our literature this week, we will be comparing various versions of The Gingerbread Man and doing crafts and activities around the gingerbread theme.

Parent helpers, we will continue centers for the next two weeks, then we take a break from centers again the week of December 16th. I have sent out the link for dates through February 2020 for centers-- please check the Sign-Up Genius if you can volunteer some time!

Writer's Workshop
As I shared with you at conferences, we have been working on personal narratives in Writer's Workshop. We will be wrapping these stories up in the upcoming week, and then the children will have an opportunity to share their stories with the class. Each child will get to sit on the teacher's chair and read their story to the class on Friday the 6th. While some upper grade classes have invited parents in for these celebrations, we feel that is too intimidating for our budding kindergarten writers, so this will just be a reading with classmates only. I am so excited with the progress children have made so far in their writing!

Math
We will continue with Module 4, Number Pairs, Addition & Subtraction to 10. This is an extremely important part of our kindergarten math program, and we dedicate a large amount of time to this module. In fact, we will be on this module until the end of January. Parent tips for this module can be found here. I do recommend that you look these over, because there will be some new vocabulary for those of you who do not have older students who have done the Eureka math program. Of particular importance are the words "compose" (finding numbers that add up to a given number-- like 3 & 2 compose 5) "decompose" (take apart a number-- like 5 can be 4 & 1) and number bonds (a model to show mathematical thinking).

STEAM
STEAM centers are back this Friday, and we are looking forward to Hour of Code the week of 12/9. In preparation, we will be using a new coding program in the Makerspace this week called CodeSpark.

Upcoming
You will be receiving a note regarding your child's Nutcracker part, and what s/he should wear for the performance in this 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 that used to be my daughter's that can be borrowed.  Again, the performance of the Nutcracker will be at 10:00 on the 19th. Please plan on joining us for this memorable event!

On another Nutcracker note, I am in need of a few people who can help with make-up and costuming on the day of the show. You will come into the classroom at about 8:45 and call children back one-by-one to get them ready for the stage. Please email me if you can help with this!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Daily 5, Centers (Doreen & Agnieszka)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & John)
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., CodeSpark in the Makerspace, Music, Blue Bags go home w/ Nutcracker parts
Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Tiffany G. & Hema)
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Suman & Carlene)

Upcoming Events:
11/25-11/29: Thanksgiving Break
12/9-12/15: Hour of Code/Computer Science Week 

Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00
12/21-01/05: Winter Break

Friday 01/17: No School: Professional Development Day
Monday 01/20: No School: MLK Day
Tuesday 01/28: 100 Day
02/17-02/21: President's Week Vacation

Week of 11/18

We are excited for our Friendship Feast this Friday! It would be wonderful if you could all join us at 10:00 in the cafeteria on Friday, even if you can only come briefly. The children look so cute in their costumes & love sharing the meal with family members. They will sing a few songs for you and then we will get started with the meal. Younger siblings are welcome if there is a child care issue. Thank you to those of you who have signed up to help with the event. We do have some "holes" in our sign-ups. You can check out the sign-ups here.

Please send in your child's Blue Bag on Monday, but they will not go home this Wednesday due to the upcoming Thanksgiving break. White envelopes will go home, so please make every effort to return those on Thursday so that they don't get misplaced over the break.

We will be taking a look at Fall leaves this week. Please have your child go on a "leaf walk" and bring in a small baggie of 5-10 leaves by Tuesday. We will be looking at them and doing some leaf rubbings.

Centers and our regular schedule will resume this week. Please see below for our center helpers this week. Additionally, I have added dates to the helper calendar for early 2020. Please check the Sign-Up Genius.

Language Arts
We have now completed the introduction of all isolated letters & letter sounds. At this point in the school year, your children should recognize all letters and know all of the sounds. If you think your child needs more reinforcement, please use websites such as starfall.com, or review at home using the letters & sounds songs we used in class, which can be found here. Although we will continue reviewing letter sounds, this is no longer our main focus at this time.

We are now moving onto word families-- encouraging children to read by "chunking" these sounds. For example, using the endings "an" and "at," children will manipulate the beginning sounds of words and create words such as fan, man, ran, can, pan or mat, bat, cat, rat, etc.

Our sight words this week are no and my. At the side of this webpage, there is a tab for "High Frequency Words." Each week, I add an asterisk to the words we've introduced. It would be good to check in on this list with your child to see if s/he recognizes all the starred words.

Our stories this week will be about Fall and Thanksgiving. We began a non-fiction book last week about life in Plymouth for the Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower. The children have been very interested in this! We will continue reading from that book this week.

Math
We will begin Module 4, Number Pairs, Addition & Subtraction to 10. This is an extremely important part of our kindergarten math program, and we dedicate a large amount of time to this module. In fact, we will be on this module until the end of January. Parent tips for this module can be found here. I do recommend that you look these over, because there will be some new vocabulary for those of you who do not have older students who have done the Eureka math program. Of particular importance are the words "compose" (finding numbers that add up to a given number-- like 3 & 2 compose 5) "decompose" (take apart a number-- like 5 can be 4 & 1) and number bonds (a model to show mathematical thinking).

Upcoming
Please be setting aside time out of your busy holiday schedules to join us for our presentation of The Nutcracker on December 19th at 10:00 a.m.!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Hema & Claire)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & John)
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., Music, No Blue Bags
Thursday: Return Weds. Envelopes, Daily 5, Centers (Naomi & Carole)
Friday:Tabletop Turkey Project (Tiffany H., Claire, Zoe), Feast @ 10:00

Upcoming Events:
Friday 11/22: Friendship Feast at 10:0011/25-11/29: Thanksgiving Break
12/9-12/15: Hour of Code/Computer Science Week 

Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00
12/21-01/05: Winter Break

Friday 01/17: No School: Professional Development Day
Monday 01/20: No School: MLK Day
Tuesday 01/28: 100 Day
02/17-02/21: President's Week Vacation

Week of 11/12

I hope you are all enjoying a long weekend. In the upcoming week, we will continue parent-teacher conferences through Thursday. I have enjoyed meeting with many of you so far, and have gained some great insights about your children from you. Thank you for meeting with me and being such active participants in your child's education. I look forward to meeting with the rest of you this week. For this week, early dismissal at 1:15 continues through Thursday. Friday the 15th, the children will attend school until 1:40.

There will be no classroom centers this week, due to the early dismissal. Centers will resume on Monday the 18th.

Please remember to return your Blue Bags on Tuesday, with your child's special turkey project in the bag. We are going to make a book out of the turkey project to circulate around so everyone can see the fun ways that the turkeys were disguised!

Language Arts
Our final letters will be introduced this week-- Yy and Zz. This means that we will be doing much more blending and spelling short-vowel words now. We will focus on word endings, such as "at," "an," etc. to read and spell words like cat, bat, rat, fan, man, pan, etc. Our sight word his week is up.

Math
We will continue comparing numbers to look at which has more, less, and which groups are equal. This topic is a part of Module 3: Comparison of Weigh, Length, Capacity, and Numbers to 10. Parent tips for this module can be found here.

Friendship Feast
We are getting excited for our Friendship Feast on the 22nd. It would be wonderful if you can all join us for the Feast on Friday, even if you can only come briefly. The children look so cute in their costumes & love sharing the meal with family members. They will sing a couple of songs for you and then we will get started with the meal. Younger siblings are welcome if there is a child care issue. Thank you to those of you who have signed up to help with the event. We still need many more sign-ups to make this event a success! Please check out the sign-up form here to see how you can help. Thank you!

Upcoming Events 
Cornerstone:
We have our November Cornerstone lesson on Tuesday. Thank you to Jessica for presenting. She is still looking for another volunteer for this great program! Please contact her if you are interested in helping.

Clay:
We are glazing our clay projects this Friday. Please don't send your children in any special outfits that day, as the clay glaze does stain. Please contact Gomathi if you can help with this. We will be glazing at about 10:25 at the picnic table outside our classroom.

Nutcracker:
Looking ahead on your calendars at this busy time of year, I wanted to make sure that you are all marking your calendars for Thursday, December 19th at 10:00 a.m.-- our annual performance of The Nutcracker. This is something that you will not want to miss. Hopefully, those of you who are heading out of town have let me know by now so that I can plan parts accordingly. If you haven't, please let me know!

This Week's Helpers & Activities
Monday: No School: Veteran's Day
Tuesday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Cornerstone, Dismissal @ 1:15
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., Music with Mrs. Threet, Dismissal @ 1:15
Thursday: Daily 5, Writer's Workshop, Dismissal @ 1:15
Friday: Daily 5, Clay Glazing, Dismissal @ 1:40

Upcoming Events:
Nov. 4th-14th: Parent-Teacher Conferences & Early Dismissal
Monday, 11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
Friday 11/22: Friendship Feast at 10:00
11/25-11/29: Thanksgiving Break
Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00
12/21-01/05: Winter Break

Friday 01/17: No School: Professional Development Day
Monday 01/20: No School: MLK Day

Week of 11/4

I am looking forward to meeting with each of you beginning Monday for your child's conference. Remember that for the next two weeks (except Friday, 11/15), the whole school dismisses daily at 1:15 to accommodate conferences. It will be harder to park at dismissal time and it is important to be on time since I begin meeting with parents almost immediately after school. To confirm your conference time, please click here. Please note that you can no longer edit this form. If you need to change your conference time, please email me.

Due to conferences, we will not be having center time for the next two weeks. Centers will resume on November 18th. If you'd like to come in and help, we do need a few helpers for Art Vistas on Monday the 4th at 10:25 and for Clay Glazing on Friday 11/15 at 10:25. Please contact Tiffany Heintz if you can help with Art and Gomathi if you can help with Clay.

Language Arts
Our letters this week are Ww and Xx. Our new sight word is look. We are now reading sentences with the words: I, see, me, like, a, can, to, go, the, am, at, he, is, it. and now look. I have been sending home a list of sentences each week in your child's Wednesday envelope that they are reading in class. Please be sure to have your child read these sentences to you so that you can see how they are doing with sight word recognition and reading fluency. Sight word recognition is one thing we will be discussing at your child's conference.

We will be focusing on the season of Fall this week as well as reading the book, Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano. We have a few projects around this book, including a special homework assignment (more on this below).

Math
In math this week, we will begin comparing numbers to look at which has more, less, and which groups are equal. This topic is a part of Module 3: Comparison of Weigh, Length, Capacity, and Numbers to 10. Parent tips for this module can be found here.

Special Homework
This week, we will have some special homework, which will be inside your child's Blue Bag this Wednesday and will be due back on Tuesday the 12th (no school Monday). The project is based on the book Turkey Trouble, which is a funny story about a turkey who wants to avoid becoming Thanksgiving dinner, so he disguises himself as different animals on the farm. Your child will have the opportunity to disguise a turkey, just as the turkey in Turkey Trouble disguises himself. Feel free to get creative with these disguises! Add some dimension to the pictures with construction paper, stickers, craft items, etc. Finished turkeys will need to be cut out and glued down on a 9X12 piece of construction paper, which will be provided. Here is a picture of a sample project I found on Pinterest:

Upcoming Events
As you know, our next big event is the Friendship Feast at 10:00 on November 22nd. Children will dress as turkeys and come together with their friends in K1 and 2 to sing a few songs and share some food. A sign-up form for the food and helping at that event can be found here. Ideally, we would like each family to contribute something from this list, and if possible, more than one item. We need many helpers and plenty of food to make this a success. We are looking forward to a fun event!

This Week's Helpers & Activities
Monday: Daily 5, Art Vistas, Dismissal @ 1:15
Tuesday: Daily 5, Writer's Workshop, Dismissal @ 1:15
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., Music with Mrs. Threet, Dismissal @ 1:15
Thursday: Daily 5, Writer's Workshop, Dismissal @ 1:15
Friday: Daily 5, Writer's Workshop, Dismissal @ 1:15

Upcoming Events:
Nov. 4th-14th: Parent-Teacher Conferences & Early Dismissal
Monday, 11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
Friday 11/22: Friendship Feast at 10:00
11/25-11/29: Thanksgiving Break
Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00
12/21-01/05: Winter Break

Week of 10/28

We have an exciting week ahead of us with Cornerstone, a trip to the Makerspace, and the Halloween parade & party on Thursday!

Blue Bags
There will be no Blue Bags this week due to the Union School District No Homework Night on Halloween. 

Halloween

Please send your children to school on Thursday dressed in their Halloween costumes. We will have a school-wide parade at 8:30 on the blacktop in front of rooms 7, 8, and 9. Please remember that children's costumes cannot include weapons of any kind or fake blood, and masks can only be warn for the parade. Afterwards, children will return to K2 for special Halloween-themed centers. The fun ends at approximately 10:00, when we will return to a "normal" school day. If your child is going to Extended Care or other day cares after the party, you will want to pack an extra bag for party items and costume pieces.

Language Arts

Our letters this week are Uu and Vv. Our sight words are he and it. Including this week's words, we have now introduced fourteen sight words that your children should recognize: I, see, me, like, a, can, to, go, the, am, at, he, is and it. Your children should be using these words to both read and write simple sentences like "I can go to the store." or "I see my mom." Please encourage them to read the sentences to you each week that come home in the Wednesday envelope.

Our stories this week will be Halloween-themed.

Math

We are spending the next couple of weeks reinforcing number concepts. These include knowing what one more and one less than a number is, recognizing written numbers to 10, recognizing instantly how many dots are on a ten frame, and counting objects.

Science/STEAM

We wrapped up our unit on pumpkins last Friday with pumpkin-themed STEAM centers. Children measured height and circumference of their pumpkins, and counted the ribs on their pumpkins. They also dissected a pumpkin. Additionally, they constructed bridges that could support a small pumpkin. Finally, they carved a virtual pumpkin using the Quiver app. Hopefully, you were able to view the Google album I sent of Friday's activities. It was a fun day of exploration and learning!

Upcoming

Conferences:
I am looking forward to meeting with each of you beginning Monday, November 4th for your child's conference. All conferences will be held in the classroom.  To confirm your conference time, please click here. Please note that you can no longer edit this form. If you need to change your conference time, please email me.

Friendship Feast:

The Friendship Feast will be on Friday, November 22nd at 10:00. If you can take some time off work to join us, this is a pretty fun and special event. We ask each family to send in a dish for the event-- either a traditional Thanksgiving dish or a dish from your family's cultural background.  We always enjoy the wonderful mix of foods that we get.  All the kindergartners will come together for this event, and sing some songs at the beginning. This event is definitely a great photo-op!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Gomathi & Doreen)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Cornerstone (Jessica), Centers (Lisa & Claire)
Wednesday: Ozobots in the Makerspace, Rhythm & Moves P.E., Music, No Blue Bags
Thursday: Halloween Parade & Party
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Suman & Carlene)

Upcoming Events:
Thursday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party@ 8:30
Nov. 4th-14th: Parent-Teacher Conferences & Early Dismissal
Monday, 11/11: No School: Veteran's Day
Friday 11/22: Friendship Feast at 10:00
Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00
12/21-01/05: Winter Break

Week of 10/21

It was so great to see nearly every Grasshopper out on the field at the walkathon on Saturday! I hope a fun time was had by all and that this is the first of many walkathons for all Grasshoppers!
The school book fair continues this week through Wednesday. It is open from 2:30 to 3:30 on both Monday & Tuesday.

Language Arts
Our letters this week are Ss and Tt. Our sight words are see and like. We will read a variety of pumpkin-themed  books this week, both fiction and non-fiction. We will start off with Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell.

We continue to post work to our See Saw accounts. Last week, we posted a Chatterpix project of your child voicing a "Creepy Carrot." This is based on the book Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds. If you haven't had a chance to check this out, please do! The children did such a great job with their animated voices.

Math
We are wrapping up our module on numbers to 10. Some kindergarten year-end standards that you should be aware of are:

• Children should be able to count to 100
• Children should be able to count on from any given number between 1 and 100. For example: 49, 50, 51, 52, 53.
• Children should be able to write numbers to 20
• Children should be able to recognize numbers to 20 and count out objects to 20, no matter what the arrangement of those objects (in a line, scattered, in a circle)

Science/STEAM
We will be reading non-fiction books about pumpkins. At the end of the week, we will end our pumpkin unit with some pumpkin STEAM activities to further explore pumpkins. We will even be dissecting a pumpkin to check out all the different parts of a pumpkin that we've been studying!

Upcoming Events
Halloween:
The Halloween Party & parade is on Thursday, October 31st. Children are encouraged to wear costumes to school. However, they will probably want to bring a change of clothes for after the party to be comfortable for the remainder of the day. Just a reminder that Halloween costumes worn at school cannot have any weapons as accessories. Also, fake blood or masks that prevent children from being able to see are not allowed. The school-wide parade is at 8:30, on the primary blacktop (near rooms 7, 8, and 9). Come out and watch the fun! Our classroom party will follow at approximately 9:00 until about 10:00. Afterward, we will resume a (somewhat!) normal school day.

Conferences:
I am looking forward to meeting with each of you beginning Monday, November 4th for your child's conference. All conferences will be held in the classroom. To confirm your conference time, please click here. Please note that you can no longer edit this form. If you need to change your conference time, please email me.

Friendship Feast:

To give you an opportunity to plan ahead, the Friendship Feast will be on Friday, November 22nd at 10:00. If you can take some time off work to join us, this is a pretty fun and special event.  We ask each family to send in a dish for the event-- either a traditional Thanksgiving dish or a dish from your family's cultural background. We always enjoy the wonderful mix of foods that we get. All kindergarten classes come together for this event, and sing some songs at the beginning.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Gomathi & Adam)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & Agnieszka)
Wednesday: P.E, Music, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Hema & Daniel)
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Gomathi & Devyani)

Upcoming Events:
10/21-10/23: Book Fair Continues 
Thursday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party@ 8:30
Nov. 4th-14th: Parent-Teacher Conferences & Early Dismissal
Friday 11/22: Friendship Feast at 10:00
Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00
12/21-01/05: Winter Break

Week of 10/14

It's Walk-a-thon week!! There's still time to sign up if you haven't already! You won't want to miss out on the fun! Even if you can't join us, please consider signing up so that your child can receive a t-shirt to wear and you can also help support all the great enrichment programs at Alta Vista. We will be doing one practice lap this week so that the kids have an idea of the lap length and what to expect.  On Friday, the kids will receive both their walk-a-thon t-shirt (if they have signed up online) and their lanyard with the first charm. Please be sure to wear both the t-shirt & lanyard on Saturday. Every 5 laps, the kids get a different plastic foot on the lanyard/necklace. The kindergartners get a special charm already on their necklace for the practice lap that they did. These plastic feet are very motivating for the children! You will see them walk many more laps than you ever thought they could walk, all for a plastic foot! :)  There are also treats every five laps and plenty of other fun things on campus like face painting and a crazy hair booth.  The walk-a-thon runs from 9:00 to 3:00, but you can arrive and leave any time that fits with your schedule.  Don't forget that if you are coming from a soccer game, etc., to mention that at check-in.  Even if you can only come for an hour or so, please join in for a fun day that supports all of the enrichment programs at our school!

Another big event is the school book fair starting this Thursday. You may check it out after school (for grades 1-5) through Wednesday the 23rd. *Special Shopping Hour for Kindergarten Families
Please note that the book fair will be open on Friday, October 18th at 1:40pm. This will give you the opportunity to visit before the busy after school crowd. There are many great offerings, and a percentage of every dollar you spend there will go toward our school and classroom libraries, so please check it out!

Spirit Week
Leading up to the walkathon, we have a whole week of spirit days next week. Remember that participation is entirely optional, but a fun way to show Alta Vista pride. Here is the rundown:
MONDAY: Mustache Monday:  Either draw on a mustache or stick one on and join in the fun!
TUESDAY: Twin Day: Get with a friend or several and plan a similar outfit!
WEDNESDAY: Pajama Day! Wear your PJs with your sneakers (we still have P.E.)!
THURSDAY: Crazy Hair Day: Wear a silly pony-tail, spike your hair, or whatever silly style you'd like!
FRIDAY:  Color Day: Kindergartners wear orange.

Language Arts
Our letters this week are Qq and Rr. Our sight word is is. Our story this week is Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds, and his follow-up book, Creepy Pair of Underwear.

Our guided reading groups are meeting with a teacher for differentiated, small group instruction four days a week. During this time, children are working on phonics, reviewing sight words, and working on reading fluency & comprehension. There are five different reading groups and children work on different books and activities depending on their reading ability.

Math
We continue to work on Module 1 in Eureka Math. We have been learning about numbers to 10, writing those numbers, and learning what one more and one less than a given number would be. We are also learning to recognize the dots on a 10 frame by sight as the number that they represent.

Clay
We have our first clay project coming up this Friday the 18th. Alta Vista is one of the few schools in USD that have a clay program. Children get to do two clay projects per year and glaze those projects. On Friday, they will be making pinch pots. Thank you to Gomathi for being our clay lead, and everyone who is helping out.

Upcoming
Halloween: The planning & organizing for our Halloween party on Thursday the 31st is well underway. Thank you to Carole, Jessica, Tara, and Gomathi for heading up this event. The school-wide parade is at 8:30, on the primary blacktop (near rooms 7, 8, and 9.) Come out and watch the fun! We will have he party immediately afterward.

Conferences: I am looking forward to meeting with each of you beginning Monday, November 4th for your child's conference. To confirm your conference time, please click here. Please note that you can no longer edit this document. If you need to change your conference time, please email me.

Friendship Feast:
To give you an opportunity to plan ahead, the Friendship Feast will be on November 22nd at 10:00. If you can take some time off work to join us, this is a pretty fun and special event.  We ask each family to send in a dish for the event-- either a traditional Thanksgiving dish or a dish from your family's cultural background. We always enjoy the wonderful mix of foods that we get. All the kindergarten classes will come together for this event. The children will be wearing a turkey costume (self-made!) and they will sing a couple of songs when they arrive in the cafeteria.  This event is definitely a great photo-op!
 **Please send in your child's blue bag Monday.**

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Agnieszka & Tiffany H.)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Agnieszka & Claire)
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves, Trip to the Makerspace, Music, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Lisa W. & Lauren)
Friday: Daily 5, Clay Project, STEAM Centers (Hema & Gary)

Upcoming Events:
Saturday 10/19: Alta Vista Walkathon 
Thursday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party@ 8:30
Nov. 4th-14th: Parent-Teacher Conferences & Early Dismissal
Friday 11/22: Friendship Feast at 10:00
Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00
12/21-01/05: Winter Break

Week of 10/7

Our first week of extended day went so well! Thank you everyone for letting your children know what is for snack vs. lunch. The children were all well-fed & prepared for the longer day. We have a lot going on this week, so bear with me for this long update!

Art Vistas:
We will have our first Art Vista lesson on Monday. This is a program that is paid for by the Home & School Club through your generous donation to the CCP and fundraisers like the Walkathon. In Art Vistas, children look at a group of lithographs by various artists. They look for a particular element in those pictures, like colors, lines, shading, etc.  Then they create their own art project modeled after the prints they saw. Thank you to the many parents who are assisting with Art Vistas this year, and to Tiffany Heintz for leading.

Be Seen & Heard Assembly
Hopefully, you all received the green flyer I sent home last Thursday about the assembly this Wednesday called, "Be Seen and Heard." The goal of this program (from the website) is: "To create a safe and engaging environment where children will learn about the dangers of abuse and the difference between safe and unsafe touch." You can view the primary content here: bit.ly/BSAHK2 Please be sure to fill out the permission slip that was sent home last week if for any reason you do NOT want your child participating in this assembly. The form is an opt-out form, so there is no need to fill it out if you have no objection to your child participating. I have not received any opt-out forms at this point. If that is incorrect, please be sure to email me.

Field Trip
We are so excited for our field trip this Friday! We will be traveling by bus to YSI Vasona to learn about "Animal Adaptations." Thanks to Daniel, Sunder, and Lauren for chaperoning. We will leave school just before 9:00, so chaperones, please arrive at about 8:50. We will return to school in time for lunch, so no need to worry about a brown bag lunch. **If your child has an Alta Vista t-shirt or sweatshirt, please send them in that. This year, we are not doing class t-shirts, but we are all getting Alta Vista t-shirts. Unfortunately, they haven't arrived yet, so for now, please wear any Alta Vista gear you may already have or simply wear a navy t-shirt. If you don't have a navy shirt, please do not worry.

Conferences
Thank you for all signing up for a conference time. The conference schedule can be viewed here. I look forward to meeting with you all in November!

Cornerstone
We had our first Cornerstone reading last Thursday. Project Cornerstone  is a program that helps develop respect and positive messages toward others. Thank you to Jessica Kazmucha for leading this program. If you'd like to assist, please email me or her.

Language Arts
This week's letters are Oo and Pp. Our new sight words are can and go. We have launched the Writer's Workshop, and are encouraging children to write or draw a narrative story during the entire session of writer's workshop. The message is that we are all writers and we all have a story to tell. Please have your students read any writing they bring home to you, even if you are unable to read it. You will find that they often can "read" the whole thing to you and have a wonderful story to tell. This is the first step in writing fluency, so please encourage your developing writers! It is very fun to watch their writing progress at this level.

Our literature this week will be about spiders, both fiction and non-fiction.

Math
We continue to work through Module 1 in Eureka Math. We have been learning about numbers to 10, writing those numbers, and learning what one more and one less than a given number would be. We are also learning to recognize the dots on a 10 frame by sight as the number that they represent. Parent tips for this module can be found here.

Upcoming
Walkathon: The walkathon is coming right up on October 19th! Our Grasshopper team has over half the class participating! You won't want to miss out on this fun community event. Sign up here: https://altavistawalkathon.dojiggy.com/b42ff92/regPages/pages/?p=bd1c3028

Halloween: Just a reminder that we will be celebrating Halloween on Thursday the 31st. The school-wide parade is at 8:30, and our class party will follow at about 9:00. Thank you to Carole, Tara, Gomathi, and Jessica for their work on the Halloween party.

**Please send in your child's Blue Bag on Monday, and your child's envelope if you haven't already.

**Thank you so much for filling the 2019 parent helper calendar!! I think we only have a few December openings remaining. Wow!! You can find the sign-up here.
 
This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Art Vistas, Centers (Gomathi & Doreen)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Writer's Workshop, Centers (Lauren & Jessica K.)
Wednesday: Be Seen & Heard Assembly, Rhythm & Moves, Music, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Daily 5, Writer's Workshop, Centers (David & Hema)
Friday: Daily 5, Field Trip, STEAM Centers (Gomathi & Hema)

Upcoming Events:
Wednesday 10/9: Be Seen & Heard Assembly
Friday 10/11: YSI Field Trip "Animal Adaptations"
Saturday 10/19: Alta Vista Walkathon
Thursday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party@ 8:30
Nov. 4th-14th: Parent-Teacher Conferences & Early Dismissal
Friday 11/22: Friendship Feast at 10:00
Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00
12/21-01/05: Winter Break

Week of 9/30

Our extended days begin on Monday! Our schedule for the remainder of the year will be:

• Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays: 8:15 to 1:40
• Wednesdays and modified days during conference weeks: 8:15 to 1:15. **Please plan accordingly on these days as the rest of the school releases at this time, so parking will not be available on the street in front of our classroom.

We are looking forward to the additional time with your children. Centers will now move to 12:25 until 1:30-- thank you parent helpers. I have now added dates to the helper calendar through the end of 2019. Please sign up here. 

Lunch will be from 11:30 to 12:15. If you haven't let me know whether or not your child will be buying hot lunch in the next two weeks, please do so here. I see about 2-3 children buying hot lunch each day this week, and those are the only children I will send to the hot lunch line. Please help us reduce confusion for your child during the upcoming weeks by letting me know your plans for hot lunch. Thank you for your help during this transition.

**Please continue signing up for parent-teacher conferences.

Walkathon
Alta Vista's Walkathon is coming right up, and I hope to see everyone out there! The Grasshopper Team continues to get more and more members. Go Grasshoppers! Continue registering at this link. Please mark your calendars for Saturday, October 19th, and plan to come out for this great community-building day-- your child won't want to miss it!

And...since I've heard many of your children talking about soccer, I wanted to let you know that if you have to leave for a soccer game (or come a little later because of soccer) please let the people at the check-in desk know. Your child gets 10 laps of credit for soccer games or other outside sports obligations that they have during the walkathon event.

Language Arts:

We have now launched all of our Daily 5 activities, and this week, we will begin meeting with the teacher for guided reading lessons. Your child will be receiving lessons targeted for his/her ability level in a small group instruction setting. It is a very hands-on program, and we have been pleased with the results.

In class this week, we will be focusing on the letters Mm and Nn. Our plan is to have all letters introduced by the end of the first trimester, which is coming up in early November. If you are noticing that your child is having difficulty recognizing letters and knowing letter sounds, especially those that we've introduced already (A-L), please provide additional reinforcement at home. As the kindergarten year continues, it becomes very difficult to keep up with the pace of the curriculum if your child is still not mastering letter recognition and sounds. Good reinforcement is available by watching Leap Frog's The Letter Factory, which is available on Netflix streaming or on YouTube. There is also a website & app called starfall.com which is excellent. Finally the video series we are using in class, called HeidiSongs, is available here, and streams on Vimeo.

Our sight word this week is am. The sight words we've introduced so far are: I, a, at, me, the to and am. Please also continue reinforcing these words at home and listening to your child read the sight word sentences that come home weekly. These are in your child's Wednesday envelope each week.

Our stories this week will be the various versions of Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems. We will have a SeeSaw activity posted this Friday that is a response to this story.

Math:

In math, we continue our topic on numbers to 10.  Children will continue counting objects and writing numbers to 10. Most of our math involves hands-on activities in small-group centers. That is why you often don't see math papers in the Wednesday envelopes, but we do have daily math activities and lessons in class.

STEAM:
We will be going to the Makerspace this Wednesday to do an activity around the poem, Jack be Nimble. Children will be launching "Jack" over the candlestick. We visit the Alta Vista Makerspace approximately every other week.

**Please send in your child's Blue Bag tomorrow, and your child's envelope if you haven't already. They will go home as usual this week on Wednesday. Children will need to come into the classroom on Wednesday after music (music goes right until the end of our day) to collect their blue bags & backpacks.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Gomathi & Patty H.)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & Lisa)
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., Music with Mrs. Threet, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Hema & Carole)
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Hema & Carlene)

Upcoming Events:
Friday 10/11: YSI Field Trip "Animal Adaptations"
Saturday 10/19: Alta Vista Walkathon
Thursday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party@ 8:30
Nov. 4th-14th: Parent-Teacher Conferences & Early Dismissal
Friday 11/22: Friendship Feast at 10:00
Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00

Week of 9/23

We had a great first week of centers! 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. Everything went so smoothly last week!

**Remember to send in your child's Blue Bag on Monday, with the book, reference folder, and its contents inside. Just leave that in there all year long. You will receive a new book again on Wednesday.

**In this week's Wednesday envelope will be a permission slip for the upcoming field trip to YSI Vasona on October 11th. I can take 3 chaperones on this field trip. Please email me if you are interested in joining-- we will leave at 9:00 and return by 11:00. It is against school district policy to have younger siblings on a field trip, so chaperones would need to be solo.

**I am also sending home your child's school pictures in this week's Wednesday envelope. If you'd like them sooner than Wednesday, please come by and pick them up. 

Walkathon
Alta Vista's Walkathon is coming right up, and I hope to see everyone out there! The students had a kickoff assembly last Wednesday, and registration opened that night. I see the Grasshopper Team already has many participants! Go Grasshoppers! Continue registering at this link. Please mark your calendars for Saturday, October 19th, and plan to come out for this great community-building day-- your child won't want to miss it!

Language Arts
We have been introducing the sight words (also called high-frequency words) for several weeks now. So far, we have introduced a, I, at, me and the. This week, we will introduce to. Sight words 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. We have also been sending home a list of sentences for your child to read to you that have the sight words. Please listen to your child read these sentences each week when they come home. There are about 50 words that we will be covering this year. 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.

We will be introducing the writing center in our "Daily 5" reading program this week. At the writing center, children have many choices for writing activities, from labeling pictures to writing short stories. Next week, I will begin meeting with students daily for targeted reading lessons during this time, and they will receive differentiated lessons depending on their ability as we continue with this program.

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 and US Screen) can be found here.

Our stories this week will center around Johnny Appleseed (his birthday is Thursday) and apples.

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.

STEAM
This week's STEAM centers will be apple-themed, and we have some exciting investigations lined up. We will be seeing how many apples we can balance, dissecting apples, weighing & measuring apples, and seeing how far apples roll! Thank you to the Jaskierny-Wintrup family for their donation of a large box of apples from their tree for our apple projects this week.

**There are still a few open spots on the helper calendar, which can be found here.

**Please note that the dates and times have been set below for both the Friendship Feast & The Nutcracker. Mark your calendars-- you won't want to miss these events!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Daniel, Papa Dan & Kerby)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Gomathi & Tiffany H.)
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Hema & Carole)
Friday: Daily 5, Apple STEAM Centers (Gomathi, Zoe, and John)

Upcoming Events:
Friday 10/11: YSI Field Trip "Animal Adaptations"
Saturday 10/19: Alta Vista Walkathon
Thursday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party@ 8:30
Nov. 4th-14th: Parent-Teacher Conferences & Early Dismissal
Friday 11/22: Friendship Feast at 10:00
Thursday 12/19: Nutcracker Performance at 10:00

Week of 9/16

We are excited to have parent helpers start in the classroom this week for centers! As a reminder to center helpers, for the next two weeks, centers run from about 10:30 to the end of the day (basically). When you arrive, please go to the office to sign in & get a visitor's sticker (the gates will be locked, and this is how you must enter the campus during the school day). Then just come straight to the classroom-- enter through the front door (it's propped open partially) & 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, I'd appreciate it. Thank you so much-- the schedule for centers each week will always be posted below, in addition to the link on the right, "Helper Schedule."

We begin our unit on apples this week. I have heard from a couple of you that you have apple trees. If you could please send in apples that you don't plan on eating any time this week (most of our apple activities will be next week) we'd appreciate it. We'll use those for apple stamping, apple rolling, and apple dissecting. The other apples that we plan on tasting will be purchased with your generous CCP donations. Thank you!

**Remember to send in your child's Blue Bag on Monday, with the book, reference folder, and its contents inside. Just leave that in there all year long. You will receive a new book again on Wednesday.

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's letters are Ii and Jj, and our sight word is the. Keep reading & reviewing the sight word sentences as they come home each week in the Wednesday envelope. Our books this week will be about apples, both fiction and non-fiction.

Math:
We will be 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. Parent tips for this unit can be found here.

Science
We will begin reading and learning about apples and apple trees.

STEAM/Dot Day (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math)
We will have our first STEAM centers on Friday. Coincidentally, Friday also follows "Dot Day." Dot Day is named in honor of the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. It is a day "celebrating all that creativity inspires and invites." In one of our STEAM centers Friday, children will be designing their own dot and then viewing it using the augmented reality app Quiver. I will post their images from that project on SeeSaw, which you should've hopefully already joined. We posted another item in SeeSaw last Friday, where children designed a sneaker for Pete the Cat.

In addition to that, children will also be programming a Bee-Bot. We will be using a number grid to build our familiarity with numbers while we program the Bee-Bot to go to different numbers on the grid.

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.

**This is the final week of assessments! Thank you for bringing your children for this-- it is a huge help to me. The link is here to confirm your time.

**There are still a few open spots on the helper calendar, which can be found here.


This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Gomathi & Tiffany H.)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & Marylu)
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., Visit to the Makerspace, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Doreen & Lauren)
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Gomathi & Hema)

Upcoming Events:
Week of 9/16: Classroom Centers Begin
Friday 10/11: YSI Field Trip "Animal Adaptations"
Saturday 10/19: Alta Vista Walkathon
Thursday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party@ 8:30

Week of 9/9

I hope all who attended Movie Night had a great time at their first Alta Vista outing with your kindergartner! Next up, the Walk-a-thon on October 19th-- you won't want to miss it!

This week, we will send home our first blue bag on Wednesday. Blue bags go home on Wednesdays and are due back on Monday (in case you need the weekend to get in a few good readings of the book). However, the Wednesday envelope, which will now be inside the blue bag, is still due back (empty) on Thursdays, if possible. If you forget, it's ok to send it in on Friday or with the blue bag on Monday.

Thank you for volunteering for classroom centers, which begin next Monday the 16th. There are still some spots to fill, especially on Monday the 23rd. If you are able to help, please sign up here. Thank you also for bringing your children in for the afternoon assessments-- I really appreciate it. If you need to confirm your child's time, please check here.

MATH

We will continue with our math topic on 2D and 3D shapes, wrapping it up at the end of this week. The 3D shapes that we have been focusing on are: cube, cylinder, cone, and sphere. Children need to not only identify the shape, but describe it by discussing the number of sides, vertices, and surfaces. I am also 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
Our stories this week will be from the "Pete the Cat" series by Eric Litwin. We will be reading and doing activities around Pete the Cat, who is a favorite literary character. We will also introduce letters Gg & Hh. We will introduce the sight word, me.  You should have received your child's sentence sheet for the words I and a in last week's Wednesday envelope. Please have your child read those to you at home. No need to send them back-- those are for you to keep. We will also continue working on name writing. We really want to ensure that children are forming the letters in their names correctly, and using only one capital letter. The sooner they break any bad habits, the better. Any reinforcement you can provide at home with this is appreciated.

WRITING
On Monday, we will be launching "Writer's Workshop" in our classroom with a visit from some guest teachers who have been trained in the Writer's Workshop method at the Teacher's College in New York. Here is a bit about this program from their website: The mission of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project is to help young people become avid and skilled readers, writers, and inquirers. We accomplish this goal through research, curriculum development, and through working shoulder-to-shoulder with students, teachers, and school leaders. The organization has developed state-of-the-art tools and methods for teaching reading and writing, for using performance assessments and learning progressions to accelerate progress, and for literacy-rich content-area instruction. The guest teachers will be presenting a lesson to your students, and I will be observing the lesson with the other kindergarten teachers at Alta Vista so that we can all learn together and perfect our techniques in teaching using the Writer's Workshop method. I am looking forward to an exciting morning on Monday!

Upcoming Events:
Wednesday 9/11: First Blue Book Bag goes home
Week of 9/16: Classroom Centers Begin
Friday 10/11: YSI Field Trip "Animal Adaptations"
Saturday 10/19: Alta Vista Walkathon
Thursday 10/31: Halloween Parade & Party

Week of 9/3

I hope you are having a wonderful long weekend. We will get right back into the swing of things on Tuesday, with another fun week ahead, including picture day & Movie Night on Friday.

Hopefully, you have all had a chance to check out the link to the helper schedule and sign up for a slot or several. There are still plenty of openings for those who are interested. 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. We are so excited to have the helpers all join us starting on the 16th!

Thank you also for signing up on my assessment schedule. This will help me to best meet the differing needs of the students in my class during small group instruction. If you need to check the schedule, please email me.

Language Arts
In language arts, we continue introducing letters and letter sounds with letters Ee and Ff this week. We will have a great read-aloud this week called The Recess Queen, which is about bullying, and ultimately, making friendships and connections by being a good friend.

We also introduced our first sight words, I and a last week. The children will come home with a sheet of sentences using these sight words on Wednesday (in their envelope). These sentence sheets will come home weekly, as we add more sight words. I would love for you to take time to listen to your children read through these sentences each week. As they master more and more sight words, they are very proud of all the reading they are doing, and it is great for them to share this with their families. This week's sight word is at. We will send home our "at" sentence sheet in next week's Wednesday envelope.

Math
In math, we will continue with the topic: 2D and 3D Shapes. We will be moving onto 3D shapes this week. The shapes we focus on are cube, cone, cylinder, and sphere. You can find more information about this math topic here.

Science/STEAM
We had another storybook STEAM activity last Thursday that your child may have told you about. The children had to work in pairs to build a "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" tree that would support as many letters as possible. We had some great trees that held over 10 letters!

We are about to begin a whole unit on apples. We will be reading non-fiction apple books and having apple-themed STEAM centers in four weeks. Does anyone have an apple tree who can bring in a bunch of apples for us to use during this unit? They do not have to be edible, as many of the projects just involve using the apples for crafts & experiments. Let me know if you have an apple tree and can share some apples with us!

P.E.
We had our second P.E. lesson with Mr. Thomas last week, and the children all seemed to enjoy themselves. Our P.E. program is weekly on Wednesdays. Please send your children in shoes and clothes appropriate for fitness on Wednesdays.

I hope you continue to enjoy your weekend!

Upcoming Events:
Monday 9/2: Labor Day Holiday
Friday 9/6: Picture Day
Friday 9/6: Alta Vista Movie Night
Wednesday 9/11: First Blue Book Bag goes home
Week of 9/16: Classroom Centers Begin
Friday 10/11: YSI Field Trip "Animal Adaptations"
Saturday 10/19: Alta Vista Walkathon

Week of 8/26

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 currently putting together two sign-ups, which I will get out to you by Monday. The first sign-up will be for classroom centers, which will begin on 9/16. We will have just two weeks of those centers running from 10:25-11:25, before we begin our extended schedule. At that time, centers will run from 12:25-1:30. Centers will run every day except Wednesdays, when we have both P.E. and music.

The second sign-up is an assessment sign-up. During the next four weeks, while we are still on the shortened day schedule, I will be asking you to bring your child back to school for some assessments. These assessments will help me group the children for differentiated instruction. If your child attends USD Extended Care, I will be able to assess him/her without asking you to come back, as I will just walk over there and work with your child. For those students, there is no need to sign up. For those who attend other after school programs, if there are any days that you can find to bring your child back to school, I'd appreciate it. If you cannot work this out, please let me know, and I will make other arrangements for your child's assessment. Thank you for your help with this!

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 be reading and having activities around the story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Additionally, we will introduce our first two sight words, I and a. Being able to read high frequency words without hesitation is important to your child's reading fluency, and we will be introducing sight words throughout the year. You will receive a paper in your child's Wednesday envelope each week (starting next week) with sentences that contain the sight word(s) we are studying. Please have your child read through these several times with you for additional reinforcement.

This week, we will begin introducing more activities in our "Daily 5" reading program. We are excited to continue implementing Guided Reading/Daily 5 in our classroom this year, as it is a fantastic way to address the varying literacy needs in our classroom. 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 2D shapes, moving onto 3D shapes by next week. We will also begin introducing number writing to 10.  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 use 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 kindergarten, we love getting the children up and moving through music and other brain breaks.

Once we extend our day this year, we will also be having music class with Mrs. Threet. We are very excited that kindergarten is now able to participate in formal music classes with the rest of the school.

STEAM
Hopefully, you were able to view the album I sent to you of our Fairy Tale STEAM activity last week where teams built 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! This week, we will have a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom STEAM activity, where they will build a tree that supports as many alphabet letters as possible.

Reminder: We have this Friday the 30th off school, as well as Monday the 2nd.

Upcoming Events:
Friday 8/30: Staff Development Day
Monday 9/2: Labor Day Holiday
Friday 9/6: Picture Day
Friday 9/6: Alta Vista Movie Night
Wednesday 9/11: First Blue Book Bag goes home
Week of 9/16: Classroom Centers Begin
Friday 10/11: YSI Field Trip "Animal Adaptations"
Saturday 10/19: Alta Vista Walkathon

Week of 8/19

Apologies in advance for the long post, but I know that many of you are new parents to Alta Vista, and as I mentioned, I tend to err on the side of over-communication ;)

We had a great first week reading back-to-school themed books and alphabet books, as well as "No David" books. We did a fun art project to go along with No David. Next week, we will begin formally introducing the letters Aa and Bb. We will also begin our first math topic on shapes.

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 (Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, Twinkle Little Star, etc) and doing some STEAM activities that go along with these stories & poems. 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 fine motor skills, including 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 this week by tracing our names in a Rainbow Book, 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.

To strengthen fine motor skills, this week, we will start "Morning Tubs." These tubs will be out for the first 10 minutes of class and will have fun hands-on activities for strengthening hand-eye coordination and muscles. You will want to be on time because the children won't want to miss their turn at each tub!

Please continue to sign up to join the Home & School Club via the "Membership Toolkit" system. You can sign up by clicking here. 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 "Membership Toolkit" account to sign up to volunteer in our classroom for school-wide programs, as well as the Google form I had in the classroom at both the orientation and Back-to-School Night. The Google form can be found here. As we get closer to time to begin classroom centers, I will send out a Sign-Up Genius link to have you sign up for specific days that are good for you that month. 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. Even if you're only able to help once or twice, I highly recommend it!

Finally, I ask that you please make every effort to support our kindergarten activities by continuing to  contribute to the Consolidated Classroom Payment (CCP) online via the "Membership Toolkit" account. This money goes to support your own child's portion of items like field trip entrance fees, bus fees, supplemental art supplies, parts of your child's costume for the Nutcracker performance, etc. Instead of asking you for money every time we have an event or special activity, 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.

I am looking forward to another fun week with your children!

Upcoming Events
Friday, 8/30: No School: PD Day for Staff
Monday, 9/2: No School: Labor Day
Friday, 9/6: Picture Day
Friday, 9/6: Alta Vista Movie Night
Wednesday, 9/11: Blue Bag Program begins
Saturday, 10/19: Walkathon

Week of 8/14

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.

Through September 27th:

• 8:15 to 11:35

Starting September 30th:

• 8:15 to 1:40 Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays
• 8:15 to 1:15 Wednesdays

For tomorrow:

• 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. I will 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!
• 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 all pick-up times. This is due to traffic congestion problems.  Please plan on walking or parking on Westchester. At pick-up time (11:35 and 1:40), you are permitted to park at the curb in front of the school on Blossom Valley.
• NEW THIS YEAR: The kindergarten playground gates will be locked for the duration of the school day. We will be entering AND exiting through the door on the redwood tree-side of kindergarten.
• This week in class will of course be all about procedures and getting to know the children.  We will be reading many Back-to-School stories, as well as "No David" to familiarize your students with school routines. 

I hope you are all coming to Back-to-School Night tomorrow night, August 14th.   The schedule is as follows:

• 5:30-6:15 PM Class Presentation in K2
• 6:15-6:45 Home & School Club Presentation in the Cafeteria

I will go over classroom policies and procedures, discuss the curriculum, and answer any questions that you may have. Of course, if you have any questions after that, please feel free to ask! I am very responsive over e-mail.

You have received the Alta Vista Parent Handbook electronically. If you have not had a chance to review that yet, please do and then sign the back page of the handbook. Some of you turned those in today. The District Parent's Rights Handbook will likely be received tomorrow at Back-to-School Night.  Please return the final page of these booklets as soon as possible, as well as sign up for a Membership Toolkit account to receive communications from the Home & School Club.

I am looking forward to an exciting year!

Back-to-School 2019

We are all looking forward to meeting our new kindergartners on Tuesday, August 13th!

Kindergarten Orientation is Tuesday, August 13th, from 10:00 to 10:30. Class lists will be posted at 9:45.

Supplies that we usually ask for in kindergarten include glue sticks, white board markers, baby wipes, liquid hand soap, and hand sanitizer. These are not mandatory, but just appreciated donations. Check Back-to-School sales for these items-- we appreciate it!!

School begins on Wednesday, August 14, 2019-- ALL KINDERGARTEN SESSIONS WILL RUN FROM 8:15 to 11:35. Child care is available at Union School District Extended Care or Holy Cross (408) 356-6828.

Kindergarten Back-to-School Night, a meeting for parents only, is Wednesday, August 14th at 5:30 p.m.: This is an important informational night where the teachers will go over the curriculum and program for the year and answer any questions you may have. Please plan accordingly and book those babysitters! The schedule is:
5:30-6:15: p.m. class presentation in rooms K1 & K2 & 2
6:15:6:45: Home & School Club presentation in the cafeteria

You should have received a letter, welcoming you to kindergarten at Alta Vista via email.

For kindergarten readiness, the AV kindergarten team highly recommends that your child comes into kindergarten:

• recognizing most letters
• writing his/her name legibly, using one upper-case & the rest lower-case letters
• recognizing numbers to 10 & beyond
• knowing names of basic shapes
• having good cutting/scissor skills
• able to sit attentively for the duration of a picture book

We highly recommend reviewing letter sounds with videos such as this or apps/sites such as starfall.com for a good review of letter recognition and letter sounds.

If you have any other questions about our program, please feel free to e-mail me at: gristn@unionsd.org

Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you in August!

Week of 6/3

It's exciting and a little sad at the same time, but we are heading into our last week together. What a wonderful year it's been! I'd like to thank you for the fantastic support you've given me all year long.

Here is a day-by-day run-down of the week:

MONDAY:"Splash Bash" This is a water play day (sprinklers, wading pools and water table). Please send your children with a towel, a swimsuit under their clothes (or boys just wear their swimsuits as shorts) water shoes or flip flops or old shoes you don't mind having them get wet. We don't like them to go barefoot on the blacktop, so we need them to be wearing shoes that will work with the water. Please coat them in sunscreen before their arrival. Children who are going to daycare before or after class should have a change of clothes and shoes. Thank you to Erika, Claire, and Ruby for coordinating this party. Pizza & ice cream will be served, so no need to pack a big lunch if your child is going to daycare. **Children with food allergies: cheese pizza (not Costco) and ice cream will be served. Please send an alternate food if you think your child cannot eat these items, and please let me know about it. I've had a couple of children recently tell me they are allergic to dairy, and I do not have that information noted in my files. Thank you!!

TUESDAY: No special activities. Please send your child with a backpack and a snack as usual.

WEDNESDAY: Olympic Day. This is a school-wide event. Please wear class t-shirts and appropriate footwear! Also, if you can come at 9:45 on Wednesday, it would be appreciated, as the event starts at 9:50. Sunblock would also be a good idea, and hats, too. The event starts at 9:50 and goes on until about 11:15.  We will have snack time, so please send snacks and backpacks on this day. Thank you to Mary & Claire for helping walk around with us this day. Children who ordered yearbooks will also be receiving them at the end of the day. You can send pens with your child for yearbook signing. This is also the day that we will send the grocery bags home with your child, full of all their open house art, plus other items.

THURSDAY: Promotion Ceremony in K2 @ 1:15 p.m. Be prepared for a brief presentation from the children and a great walk down memory lane of our wonderful year together. Please plan on attending this event or sending another family member who can attend! This is a special time to share with your children. No snacks or backpacks needed-- refreshments will be served. Approximate schedule of events for those who need to arrange around work schedules:

• 1:15 to about 1:35: Children perform songs we've learned throughout the year, followed by presentation of memory binders
• 1:30 to about 1:50: Video review of our year. If you need to leave after the 1:15 presentation, this would be a good time to leave, as I will be sharing out the video presentation.
• 1:50 to 2:30 or so: Refreshments and conversation!
• If you need to take your child home after the ceremony, please be sure to sign him/her out in the office. Otherwise, children will stay at school and have choice time and outside fun for the rest of the day.

A final note about the Promotion Ceremony: Because this event will be in the classroom, space is extremely limited. I really like to keep this event to parents and preschool siblings only-- if two parents come and a handful of younger siblings, that's already around 70 people in our classroom. Unfortunately, we simply don't have the space for many more people than that. If you have a special circumstance, please email me. Per school policy, older siblings are not to be taken out of class for this event.

FRIDAY: All children in kindergarten are on an early schedule (8:05-11:25), so we will have 44 children in the room! Wake your children up early and get them to school at 8:05! :) Children will clean the classroom, sign yearbooks, and have some last day fun with their friends from the a.m. class. Please send a snack on this day if you think your child will get hungry. Otherwise, with so many kids in the room, it would be better to forego the snack bags and backpacks.

Happy Summer!!!

Week of 5/28

I hope you are all enjoying this long weekend. With only 9 days to go in kindergarten, this post will mostly just remind you of upcoming special events, and a few "lasts" happening this week.

This is our last week with Coach Justin. Our last Wednesday envelope will also go home this week. If you did not return it last week, please send it on Tuesday so that we can pack it for the final time. Please review the papers, and then keep the envelope-- no need to send it back again. However, please DO send in a paper grocery bag with your child's name on it as soon as possible. I am going to be taking all the art and projects off the walls and would like them to be safely transported home. Thank you!

YSI Presentation
On Tuesday, we will have a special presentation by YSI (Youth Science Institute) called "Life in the Pond." A docent from YSI will come with some pond animals and do a talk on pond life.

Sharing
This is our final week of sharing. I have really enjoyed watching your children present the various topics in front of the class. For our last week, we will return to "toy in a bag." Please have your children hide the toy in a bag or their backpack, write three clues about it, and be prepared to read those clues to the class. Children who normally share on Monday can share any other day of the week this upcoming week. 

Roundup
This Friday the 31st, all four K teachers will be out of the classroom (but on campus) to work with our incoming kindergartners at our Kindergarten Roundup (remember that?)

Week of 6/3

Class Party
We have our class party coming up Monday the 3rd.  This is a water play day (sprinklers and water table). Please send your children with a towel, a swimsuit under their clothes (or boys just wear their swimsuits as shorts) water shoes or flip flops or old shoes you don't mind having them get wet. We don't like them to go barefoot on the blacktop, so we need them to be wearing shoes that will work with the water. Please coat them in sunscreen before their arrival. Children who are going to daycare after class should have a change of clothes and shoes. Thank you to Erika, Claire, and Ruby for coordinating  this party. Pizza & treats will be served, so no need to pack a big lunch if your child is going to daycare.

Olympic Day
Wednesday the 5th, we have a school-wide Olympic Day. It starts at 10:00. This is another day with a lot of outdoor time, so hats and sunscreen are highly recommended. I could still use 1-2 parents to walk around with us and help keep everyone together & organized. Please email me if you can help with this.

Promotion Ceremony
Our last big event (parental attendance strongly encouraged) together is on Thursday the 6th at 1:15 for our Promotion Day celebration. This should wrap up before class is out (my guess is approximately an hour or so), and then the kids can stay and sign yearbooks, etc. If you want them to leave early that day, please sign them out in the office. Please plan on joining us as we have a small presentation and a video look back on our wonderful year together!

Last Day

There are no events on Friday the 7th, but all kindergarten classes attend from 8:05 to 11:25. Both the morning class and the afternoon class will be in the room together, cleaning up, signing yearbooks, and wrapping up our year together.

Looking forward to lots of fun & memories in these final weeks!