Week of 1/28

I wanted to thank parents and students for having such a great first month of book reports with the Blue Bags! Everyone is working on letting their children do all their own spelling, and are encouraging them so well in their efforts! I already see improvement in the writing just in this short time. Remember that the focus in kindergarten is giving kids the ability to use their phonics skills to write on their own and get their thoughts down on paper. As they move through the grade levels, spelling will become more of a focus. Right now the focus is the process and applying phonetic sounds so that they have that framework to fall back on whenever they need to write on their own.

We had a wonderful "Snow Day" on Friday-- thank you!  The kids all looked so cute in their snow gear and I think they enjoyed all the snow-themed activities. I have sent a snowy portrait of each child through SeeSaw, and other pictures from the day will come soon!

Language Arts:
We will work on the word families it and in this week, reading and spelling words like sit, fit, pin, and fin. We are now up to 30 sight words.  Please check the "High Frequency Word" link on this website and make sure that your child knows the words we've introduced, as this is a heavy emphasis at this time. If your child is needing more practice with these words, a good website to go to is: http://www.spellingcity.com/k2grist There are several good games on this site for reinforcing the sight words. Another site to continue taking advantage of is lexia.com. There are a lot of great reading skill-building activities in Lexia. Please email me if you are having trouble getting your child logged onto this site. 
 
We will continue reading and writing with a snow theme. We will read Elmer in the Snow by David McKee this week and do a fun art project. We will also read many 100 Day-themed books. Finally, we will sneak in a few Groundhog-themed books, in honor of Groundhog's Day on Friday.

Math:
We will continue working in Module 4, Number Pairs, Addition, and Subtraction to 10. Parent tips for this unit can be found here.

UPCOMING

100 Day:
100 Day will be on Thursday, and the students are very excited about it! Because another main focus of kindergarten math is number sense, number recognition, and counting, we count out the number of days we've been in school as part of our calendar activities each day. During this time, we study place value and number recognition to 100. We study patterns on the 1-100 number chart and do mental math using the chart. On the 100th day, we have a fun celebration and look at the value of 100 in different ways. We have been looking forward to filling our 1-100 chart for quite a while now, so Thursday will be a special day!

Valentine's Day:
On Thursday, February 14th, we will be celebrating Valentine's Day in class. We do not have a party, we just pass out valentine cards. Just to give you some advanced notice (since I know your children will be eagerly shopping for/making Valentines soon!) in kindergarten, we have the kids sign their valentines, but we do not have them write who the valentine is "to." This makes distribution MUCH easier. So please sign the cards, but leave the "to" box blank. Please send in 21 valentines so that there are enough for each child in the class. Thanks!

Conferences:
I will be sending out a sign-up for Spring conferences this week. Conferences run from March 7th to March 13th. I will not be conferencing on March 14th or 15th (even though those dates are in the Spring conference window) due to my attendance at the CUE Conference. Conferences will be scheduled just like in the Fall-- take a look at the schedule and type in your child's name in a slot that works for you.

 This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags (Hiromi), Daily 5, Centers (Sarah & Jenny)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Hiromi & Barbara)
Wednesday: Recess 101, Blue Bags go home

Thursday: 100 Day!, Daily 5, Centers (Erika/Pablo & Brandie)
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Mary & Claire)

Upcoming Events
Thursday 1/31: 100 Day
Wednesday, 2/6: Global Play Day
Friday, 2/8: AV Family Valentiine's Dance
2/18-2/22: President's Week Vacation
3/7-3/13: Spring Conferences

Week of 1/22

I hope you are enjoying some fun family time on this long weekend. We have Monday off school in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On Tuesday, it will be very important to return the Blue Bags on time since we only have a day to turn them back around. So please put them by the door or wherever you will remember them Tuesday morning.

We have Snow Day this week. It will be on Friday, at the beginning of school, for both K1 & K2. This is a day when the children come to school all dressed in their snow gear-- whatever items you have. Mittens, knit hats, jackets, snow boots, scarves, goggles, etc. are all welcome! Please do not buy anything special for this day, just use what you have or borrow from a friend. They wear their gear, and then we will be having a "snowball fight" using wadded up recycled paper & later we'll have some hot cocoa at snack!  Our STEAM centers that day will all be snow-themed. It is always lots of fun. If you want to stick around to collect snow gear back up or just to watch the fun, feel free.

Language Arts:
This week, we will return to word families. The two word families we will work on are ot and op. Children will be reading and spelling words like hot, rot, got and mop, hop, top. We will also have two new sight words: not and said. A good way to practice reading and spelling the sight words is by logging onto http://www.spellingcity.com/k2grist, where I have uploaded our complete sight word list, as well as broken it in half to study a list with the first 25 words.  "Missing Letter" and "Audio Word Match" are great games for younger players.

Our story this week is Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner. We will write our own "Snowmen at Night" adventures after reading this story.

Math:
We are currently working on 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 for the remainder of this trimester. 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).

Blue Bag Book Reports
The book reports  in the blue bags looked great last week! I just want to reiterate that your children should be writing as independently as possible on the journal page. If they become over-dependent on an adult spelling words for them, they will have great difficulty when we write in class. We do have a writing assessment coming up in February. I want all the children to be comfortable and able to put a sentence together on their own so that this assessment is not stressful for them.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: No School
Tuesday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Chris H. & Barbara)
Wednesday: Recess 101, Blue Bags go home

Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Erika/Pablo & Ellen)
Friday: Snow Day Fun, Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Virginia & Claire)

Upcoming Events
Monday 1/21: Martin Luther King Day, No School
Wednesday 1/23 @ 5:30: Kindergarten Registration Info Night
Friday 1/25: Snow Day
Thursday 1/31: 100 Day
Friday, 2/8: AV Family Valentiine's Dance
2/18-2/22: President's Week Vacation

Week of 1/14

**Please note that this is a four-day week, due to a staff professional development day on Friday. There is no school on both Friday, January 18th and Monday, January 21st. Enjoy your 4-day weekend!

This week, we will hit the half-way mark in our kindergarten year. This is where the kindergarten curriculum really takes off, and your continued support with the curriculum will be especially important at this time. Helping children complete their writing journals, reading to your children and asking them questions about what they are reading, and reinforcing math facts and sight words is really important at this time. I want to ensure that everyone is prepared for first grade, and I definitely need your help :).

Speaking of journal writing, I hope that it has gone successfully this week. My goal is that the children are excited about writing, not stressed out by it, so please let me know if there were any problems. A few other reminders about the journal page:

• Writing should always be in PENCIL.
• Above the writing, in the blank box, children should draw a neat, (at least) four-color picture.
• Encourage your children to spell high-frequency words that we've introduced correctly.
• Please DO NOT copy a sentence from the book.

Language Arts:
Our story this week is a classic, Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats. We will introduce the sight words are and ran.  Please review the "High Frequency Word" tab on the right to learn which words we've introduced so far this year.

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 for the remainder of this trimester. 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).

Also-- please take note below at some upcoming events that have been posted.  They are:

• Kindergarten Registration Info Night 1/23 5:30 to 6:15:  If you have friends or neighbors with incoming kindergartners who live in the AV attendance area, please let them know about this informational evening about the upcoming 2019-20 school year.
• Snow Day 1/25: children will dress up in whatever snow gear they have-- hats, mittens, coats, scarves, etc. and we will have a fake snowball fight with K1.  
• 100 Day 1/31-- we celebrate the 100th day of school with some special activities.  
• Alta Vista Family Valentine's Dance 2/08: Come to the Alta Vista Cafeteria from 6:00 to 8:30 pm for this fun family evening. There will be a DJ, photo booth, desserts & drinks. Tickets are on sale now at MySchoolAnywhere for $5.42/person.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
 Monday: Return Blue Bags, with completed book report in folder (Hiromi), Daily 5, Centers (Nisha & Hiromi
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Mary & Kassie)
Wednesday: Recess 101, Cornerstone (Erika/Pablo & Kassie), Blue Bags w/ Book Report go home

Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & Pablo/Erika)
Friday: NO SCHOOL

Upcoming Events
Friday 1/18: Professional Development Day: No School
Monday 1/21: Martin Luther King Day, No School
Wednesday 1/23 @ 5:30: Kindergarten Registration Info Night
Friday 1/25: Snow Day
Thursday 1/31: 100 Day
Friday, 2/8: AV Family Valentiine's Dance
2/18-2/22: President's Week Vacation

Week of 1/7

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful vacation & are rested and ready to get back into the swing of things!

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for all the help I received with the Nutcracker performance. From applying the make-up and helping children get dressed, to providing food-- every job was covered! The kids did a wonderful job and they all looked amazing! We had a great cast party afterward, thanks especially to Claire for coordinating and to those who donated cookies & drinks. Finally, a huge thanks again to everyone for their generosity and thoughtfulness with the wonderful gifts I received. Thank you so much! I am looking forward to a fun & productive 2019 with all of you.

There are still just a few openings in our helper calendar for the first part of 2019. Most immediately, there are no helpers scheduled for the Tuesday after MLK Day. Please check the Sign-Up Genius if you can help.

School Gates
If you haven't already read it, please see this important letter about the school's new gates.

Smart Start:
We are excited to start the year off with a district-wide fun day of hands-on learning. Children will get to make play-doh and play with it, as well as participate in a school-wide art project. The idea behind this day is to ease into the school year after two weeks off with some engaging, hands-on learning.

Language Arts:
This week, we will focus on the story Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson. We will also read some non-fiction texts about bears. We will put together a fact book of our own with information we've learned about bears. Our sight words this week are here and big. We will also be focusing on the digraphs sh and ch this week.

Math:
We are finishing Module 3, Comparison of Weight, Length, Capacity, and Numbers to 10. Parent tips for this module can be found here. We will be focusing on comparing numbers this week.

Upcoming:
Now that we are coming up on our half-year mark, we do need to refresh a few of our supplies.  Especially needed are glue sticks.  If you can donate any glue sticks, we'd appreciate it.

Blue bags will go home on Wednesday, with a new component. From now on, the blue bags will contain a "book report." Very specific directions about our expectations with the book report will be in your child's reference folder this week. Please leave the directions there for your continued reference. Basically, your child will use the journal page (in the reference folder) to respond to the book that's in the blue bag. Children need to write at least one sentence about the book-- what they liked/didn't like, who their favorite character was, etc. If it is a non-fiction book, they will be writing a fact they learned. We DO NOT want children to copy a sentence from the book or copy a sentence that you have written for them. This is their chance for developing writing skills, which will help their confidence when we take our first writing assessment in February. A sentence written: "I like the fune got" for "I like the funny goat." is great and is what is expected from them at this time. If you would like to go over spelling with them once they are done, you can pencil it in underneath their words and show them what the conventional spelling looks like. However, do not make them correct their writing at this time. We want to encourage them in their thinking before we start focusing on the mechanics.

Enjoy your final days of vacation, and I look forward to seeing your children on Monday!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Smart Start Day (Elena, Barbara S.)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & Sarah)
Wednesday: Recess 101, Trip to MakerSpace, Blue Bags w/ Journals go home

Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Brandie & Karla)
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Rob & Barbara)

Upcoming Events
Monday 01/07: School Resumes: District-wide Smart Start Day
Friday 01/18: Professional Development Day: No School
Monday 01/21: Martin Luther King Day, No School
Friday 01/25: Snow Day
Thursday 01/31: 100 Day
02/18-02/22: President's Week Vacation