Week of 1/27

We have a big week this week with both 100 Day and Snow Day! Please see details below for these events. Also, I have sent out my sign-ups for Spring conferences. Please check out the schedule and sign up for a time if you haven't already done so. Please email me with your preferred time if you are having any trouble signing up.

Language Arts:
We will introduce the digraphs ch and wh this week. Our sight word is said.

As stated in Friday's email, a big emphasis right now is using our knowledge of letter sounds, digraphs, word families, and sight words to write simple sentences. Children need to be able to put together a readable sentence on their own by the end of kindergarten. I posted a picture of your child's latest writing response in SeeSaw, where they were writing one fact they had learned about Chinese New Year from books we had read in class. I gave them the prompt, "I learned that______" which they copied from the screen. The rest of the writing they did on their own by spelling phonetically and using sight words to share what they learned. Check out SeeSaw to see how your child is progressing. Encourage your children to write and spell phonetically as often as possible to build their abilities as independent writers. Try to resist the temptation to spell words for them if they ask, rather, encourage them to "stretch the word out" and put down all the sounds they hear themselves. They can write notes to you, grocery lists, cards for family members, etc.
 
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.

Math:
We are beginning Module 5 this week: Numbers 10-20; Count to 100 by 1s and 10s. We will be breaking teen numbers into "a ten and some ones," continuing to use number bonds and ten frames to model teen numbers as a ten and some ones, and continuing to reinforce counting to 100 by 10s and 1s, which we've been doing on a daily basis during calendar time. Parent tips for this module can be found here.

UPCOMING
100 Day:
100 Day will be on Tuesday, 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 Tuesday will be a special day, with special centers celebrating the number 100!

Snow Day:
Snow Day will be on Friday. 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" among all our K classes using wadded up recycled paper just after our 10:00 recess. Following the fight, we will enjoy some hot cocoa. Children should bring a separate bag for their snow gear for taking on and off, as it gets too warm wearing some of those items all day. They also tend to get lost if we don't have a place to put them. If they fit in your child's backpack, that is fine too. Our STEAM centers that day will all be snow-themed. It is always lots of fun.

Valentine's Day:
On Friday, 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. I prefer valentines without candy attached because it gets to be a bit much when everyone has candy. There are cute valentines that have mazes and stickers-- please consider those instead. Please send in 19 valentines so that there are enough for each child in the class. Thanks!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Tiffany & Patty)
Tuesday: 100 Day!, Daily 5, Centers (Claire & Daniel)
Wednesday: Trip to Makerspace, P.E, Music, Blue Bags go home

Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Naomi & Gomathi)
Friday: Snow Day!, Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Lisa & Hema)

Upcoming Events:

1/28-2/01: Frozen Play presented by AV Drama ClubFriday 1/31: Snow Day
Tuesday 2/04: STEAM Night @ 6:00
Wednesday 2/05: Global Play Day
Friday 2/14: Valentine's Day Family Dance
2/17-2/21: President's Week Vacation
3/5-3/13: Parent-Teacher Conferences
Monday 3/16: Professional Development Day: No School

Week of 1/21

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.

Language Arts:
This week, we will begin studying digraphs. We will look at the digraphs sh and th. Children will be reading and spelling words with those sounds.

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

Picture of the Day
We have been doing something since school resumed in 2020 called "Picture of the Day." Children look at a different picture each day, which is projected onto our classroom screen. Children then make observations and inferences about the picture. All inferences must be supported with a "because" statement using evidence from the picture. For example, "I think the people are skydiving because I see a parachute on their backs." This activity will help develop children's observation skills as well as language skills and deductive reasoning. Ask your children about the picture of the day and see what they have to say about it!

Math:
We are wrapping up the addition portion of Module 4 this week. We will next start working with numbers in the teens (Module 5), then we will return to Module 4 for the subtraction piece.

Cornerstone
We have a Cornerstone lesson on Tuesday. Thanks again to Jessica for presenting these lessons.

Kindness Assembly
We will have an assembly on Wednesday on spreading kindness. This group came to the school last year and it was a very enjoyable assembly with a great message. Following this, next week is "Kindness Week" at Alta Vista, where we will be giving special focus to acts of kindness. In our classroom, I will have a kindness chain going across the top of our whiteboard. Every time the children do something kind that they'd like to report, they may write it down or tell me and add a chain to our kindness chain. The children are so excited to see the chain grow and can visually see all the acts of kindness we are doing together to help make the world a better place.

We still have two openings left for centers in early February! Please check the Sign-Up Genius.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: No School
Tuesday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Cornerstone (Jessica), Centers (Claire & David W.)
Wednesday: P.E., Kindness Assembly, Music, Blue Bags go home

Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Lauren & Sara)
Friday:Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Rosemary & Hema)

Upcoming Events:

Monday 01/20: No School: MLK Day
Wednesday 01/22: Kindergarten Registration Night at 6:00 for Incoming Parents
Tuesday 01/28: 100 Day
01/28-02/01: Frozen Play presented by AV Drama Club
Friday 01/31: Snow Day
Tuesday 02/04: STEAM Night @ 6:00
Friday 02/14: Valentine's Day Family Dance
02/17-02/21: President's Week Vacation

Week of 1/13

**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 17th and Monday, January 20th. Enjoy your 4-day weekend!

Last Friday, we 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. Reading to your children and asking them questions about what they are reading, helping them blend and read/write short vowel words (eg: hop, can, rat, etc.) 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 :).

A real emphasis at this time of year is sentence writing. In class, we are working daily on either handwriting skills or sentence writing skills. Children should be able to put together a simple sentence using a mixture of sight words and phonetic spelling (for example, "bej" for "beach" is totally normal/expected at this time).  Children will have a writing assessment this trimester where they will be expected to write a minimum of one sentence to the topic. The sentence should have appropriate capitalization and punctuation at the end. If you notice that your child is still using a lot of capital letters in his/her writing or is unable to put together a simple sentence, please reinforce this further at home.

Language Arts
Our story this week is a classic, Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats. We will also be reading other snow-themed stories. We will introduce the sight word for.  Please review the "High Frequency Word" tab on the right to learn which words we've introduced so far this year. We will also be working with the word families og/od to read and write words such as: log, hog, dog, rod, and sod. 

Math
We are still on the addition component of Module 4: Number Pairs, Addition & Subtraction to 10. Parent tips for this module can be found here.

STEAM
This week, we will be taking a trip to the Makerspace to build and create with a product called the Rigamajig. Last year, the creations children made using the pieces from Rigamajig were truly amazing! We are looking forward to our upcoming lessons using this fun building center.

Upcoming 

• Kindergarten Registration Info Night 1/22 6:00:  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 2020-21 school year.
• 100 Day 1/28-- we celebrate the 100th day of school with some special activities.  
• Snow Day 1/31: children will dress up in whatever snow gear they have-- hats, mittens, coats, scarves, etc. and we will have a fake snowball fight with the other K classes.
• Alta Vista Family Valentine's Dance 2/14: 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. You can buy tickets for this event at the Membership Toolkit site.

**There are just two center spots left for the next five weeks! Thank you so much for your support! Please check the Sign-Up Genius to see if you are able to fill those last two spots.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Return Blue Bags, Daily 5, Centers (Tiffany & Agnieszka)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & Pauline)
Wednesday: P.E., Rigamajig in the Makerspace, Music, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Hema & Doreen)
Friday: NO SCHOOL

Upcoming Events:

Friday 01/17: No School: Professional Development Day
Monday 01/20: No School: MLK Day
Wednesday 01/22: Kindergarten Registration Night at 6:00 for Incoming Parents
Tuesday 01/28: 100 Day
Friday 01/31: Snow Day
02/17-02/21: President's Week Vacation

Week of 1/6

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 and class party. 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 holiday party the next day. Special thanks to Jessica & Carole for a wonderful send-off to break. 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 2020 with all of you.

There are just seven openings in our helper calendar for the first part of 2020. Thank you so much for all the sign-ups! If you can fill any of those final spots, please check the Sign-Up Genius.

Smart Re-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 both fiction and non-fiction stories 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 and and not. We will also be focusing on the word families ot, op, ox, reading words such as hot, not, hop, mop, fox and box.

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

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 (no centers)
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Claire & Agnieszka)
Wednesday: Rhythm & Moves P.E., Music, Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Lisa & Sara)
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Lauren & Carlene)

Upcoming Events:
Monday 01/06: Smart Re-start Day

Friday 01/17: No School: Professional Development Day
Monday 01/20: No School: MLK Day
Tuesday 01/28: 100 Day
Friday 01/31: Snow Day
02/17-02/21: President's Week Vacation