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
