Week of 3/29

Thank you for your continued patience and support as we work out the ins & outs of @HomeLearning. The past week and this week are weeks where we are experimenting with different tools and the week after Spring Break, we will be pushing out a program designed entirely by our AV Kindergarten team. For the upcoming week, we will continue to use the district's learning template,  which can be found here. Please note that this program is intended to be about 40 minutes per day, plus 20 additional minutes of reading. You can supplement as you wish with other online learning programs & apps you have access to. Additional ideas, especially for math,  are retweeted on my Twitter account. Finally, please keep having your children checking SeeSaw, as I plan to continue to push out activities there. This week, I will also add the district learning template to SeeSaw as well, so that your children can start practicing accessing the various links on their own. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need any support with SeeSaw, acquiring an iPad through the school, Zoom, or anything else!

Curriculum
This week's sight word is back. I will send the back video out over SeeSaw, as I did last week for his. In math, we are working on fluency in addition & subtraction, so whatever you can do to reinforce addition within 10 and subtraction from numbers 10 & less, will be very helpful.

Based on the results of the survey, I plan on:

1. Maintaining the daily, whole-class Zoom time of 10:00 (unless I get called to a staff/district meeting). I will begin password-protecting the Zoom next week, so there will be an additional step for joining. Please know that Zoom is optional-- if there is ever a time your child cannot make the Zoom meeting, it is totally fine. I will simply be reading a story on Zoom and not doing major instructional activities.
2. Likely adding a small group meeting with each child's reading group one day per week. These will probably not begin until the week after Spring Break (4/13),  as I work out the content & logistics of these with the kindergarten team.
3. Pushing out more activities over SeeSaw that children can complete on paper and submit later with a photograph (like the house-drawing activities) to offer a break from screen time. There will be no need to have a printer for these activities-- just a piece of paper for drawing or writing on, or using the tools within SeeSaw.
4. Continued use of Lexia, KidsA-Z, and Happynumbers for reading and math reinforcement. Utilizing Lexia & Happynumbers is especially important for children who are not currently meeting grade level expectations (as discussed at conferences) as these programs both adjust the curriculum to areas needing reinforcement. KidsA-Z is important for all students, as it offers a huge library of leveled books appropriate to your child's reading abilities, along with comprehension questions.

Stay healthy, stay well, and stay in touch virtually!

Week of 3/23

We are entering into a whole new world of at-home learning this week! Thank you for your patience & well-wishes as we waited to launch our program. You can find the link to the kindergarten program here. Please note that this program is intended to be about 40 minutes per day, plus 20 additional minutes of reading. You can supplement as you wish with other online learning programs you have access to. Many are mentioned on my Twitter account. I will also be sending out information today via email about a math website that I made a class account for. Information will also go out about our next Zoom meeting on Monday. Finally, keep checking SeeSaw, as I do plan to push out some enrichment activities there this week as well. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need any support with SeeSaw, acquiring an iPad through the school, Zoom, or anything else!

Upcoming Events
I am going to hold off on sending out any further sign-ups for classroom help right now until we have a better picture of how long the shelter-in-place will last. If we do need to launch classroom help with short notice, I know I can count on my Grasshopper parents to act quickly.

Stay healthy, stay well, and stay in touch virtually!

Week of 3/9

I have enjoyed meeting with half of you already for parent-teacher conferences, and I am looking forward to meeting with the rest of you this week-- it's great to share your child's successes with you. It's hard to believe that we are already in our last trimester of kindergarten. The time will pass quickly in this last 3 months, and before you know it, we will be moving on to first grade! After we meet, please be sure to praise your children for the progress they've made, and also continue to support them in areas where they still need reinforcement to meet end-of-year standards. If you need to confirm your time next week, click here. Remember that the 1:15 dismissal time will continue through Friday the 13th.

There will continue to be no centers this week due to parent-teacher conferences, except Friday, when we will have leprechaun trap building as our STEAM center at 10:25. All other centers will resume on Tuesday, March 17 (no school on March 16th). The Sign-Up Genius can be found here.

Language Arts
Our sight words this week are be and she. We will introduce the r-controlled vowels (also called the "Bossy R")ir, er, and er.  Children will read & spell words such as bird, hurt, and faster.  We will be reading many leprechaun-themed books this week.

Math
We continue with subtraction. This can be a difficult concept that will need reinforcement. Parent tips for this unit can be found here.

STEAM
This Friday, we will have our annual classroom leprechaun trap build! The children are really excited about designing and building leprechaun traps. Thank you for all the supplies you've been sending!

Upcoming Events
Our "Spring Fling" event is coming up on Friday, April 3rd. We will have special spring-themed centers for a fun send-off to Spring Break. We will have planting, spin art, painting garden stakes, and outdoor fun, to name a few. We need lots of helpers to make this event a success! So far, I have Zoe, Carlene, and Agnieszka. We definitely could use a few more helpers if you are available!

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Blue Bags Returned, Daily 5, No Centers
Tuesday: Daily 5, No Centers
Wednesday: P.E., Blue Bags go home
Thursday: Daily 5, No Centers
Friday: Daily 5, Leprechaun Trap Building (Tiffany H., Carole, Agnieszka)

Upcoming Events:

3/5-3/13: Parent-Teacher Conferences, 1:15 Dismissal
Friday, 3/13: Leprechaun Trap Making in class
Monday 3/16: Professional Development Day: No School
3/25-4/01: Spring Book Fair
Friday 4/03: Spring Fling
4/06-4/10: Spring Break
Friday 5/01: Multicultural Night
Friday 5/08: Mother's Day Celebration