Week of 9/27

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.

I am looking forward to the additional time with your children. The first week+ will probably be very tiring for your students. Please make sure they get to bed early so they are well-rested and ready for their longer day.

Lunch will be from 11:30 to 12:15.  Children will be supervised by yard duties at that time, and will play on the playground before eating. When they are done with their lunch, we pick them up from the lunch tables and take them back to class. Please help us reduce confusion for your child during the upcoming weeks by letting your child know which item(s) are for snack, and which item(s) are for lunch. If your child is getting one of the free school lunches (available to all students), please make sure they know that as well.

Rhythm & Moves P.E.

Beginning Monday, students will have weekly P.E. with Mr. Field from Rhythm & Moves. Children should wear shoes and clothing appropriate for fitness on Mondays.

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. 

 

Our letters this week are Uu, Ss, Pp, Xx, and Kk. By the end of next week, we will have introduced all of the letters & sounds! Of course, there will be plenty of review and reinforcement of these letters, but if you are noticing that your child is having difficulty recognizing letters and knowing letter sounds, please provide additional reinforcement at home. Watching and singing The Better Alphabet Song is a great way to continually review letters and sounds.

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

Our stories this week will be about apples, both fiction and non-fiction.

Math

In math, will begin a new module on shapes. We will be covering both 2D and 3D shapes over the next few weeks. We will learn shape names and attributes of those shapes. Going forward, most of our math involves hands-on activities in small-group centers, so you won't see as many math papers in the Wednesday envelopes. Parent tips for this math module can be found here. 

 

Kimochis
This week, Huggtopus will join our classroom to teach your child about the feelings silly, frustrated, excited, and proud. Huggtopus (or Huggs) is our Kimochis® Character who is strong and affectionate, but she sometimes gets a little carried away with her big, friendly personality. She might hug too tightly or play too roughly, which upsets her friends. This can be confusing and frustrating to Huggs because she doesn’t know why her friends say, “Don’t bother me.” With Huggtopus, your child is learning to read social cues, such as facial expressions, body language, and sounds from peers. Huggtopus also teaches children how to celebrate our differences.

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, 10/12: Virtual Field Trip: Mission to the Moon

Monday, 11/1: No School: Staff Development Day

Monday, 11/8: Parent-Teacher Conferences Begin

11/11 &11/12: No School: Veteran's Day

Week of 9/20

Thank you for your patience while we work out the parent helper schedule. We are still waiting for clarification from the district regarding how many helpers can be in the room at once, and whether we may need to have the same group of people assigned to a day of the week for contact tracing purposes. We do want you to be aware that a negative COVID test for the month that you will be volunteering is required. The district is offering COVID tests through their partnership with Grapefruit, so we are also awaiting information on when and where that will take place. Due to all of these questions, we may need to wait an additional week before starting with parent helpers, and push it out until the week of October 4th. If I can launch helpers the week of 9/27, and you are able to get a COVID test during the upcoming week through the county at these sites: https://covid19.sccgov.org/covid-19-testing OR through a facility of your choice (cannot be a home test), please let me know. I have already spoken to a couple of people who do testing through their work sites anyway who said they might be able to help the week of the 27th. If I have a few people ready to go with their COVID testing completed, and the clarifications come through from the district, I might be able to get centers going on 9/27. For your scheduling purposes, I am planning to run centers on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 12:25 to 1:30. 

I will be wrapping up assessments this week. Thank you again to everyone for coming back to school for these. The updated assessment schedule can be found here. 

Language Arts
This is a review week for letters and sounds. We have now introduced 17 letters/sounds: Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Qq, Rr, and Tt. With the letter sounds we've learned so far, we are able to spell & sound out a large number of CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) such as: hot, ham, ran, mat, dot, bit, rig, etc. Encourage your children to try to blend/sound out CVC words that you come across while reading. Decodable books such as Bob Books are great for beginning readers to practice this skill. We have two new sight words this week, that and ran. 

Math
We are wrapping up the topic on Numbers to 10. This week, we introduced the concept of one more & one less. This was quite hard for many students. Number writing in general is very difficult for most of my students and could use extra reinforcement. 

Kimochis
On Friday, your child came home with a picture of Lovey Dove. We didn't end up having time to color this in class, but I told the children they could color it at home and hang it in their house so that they know that Lovey Dove is sending them warm & loving feelings while at home too. This week, we will introduce Cloud. Cloud is moody & unpredictable, and helps children understand how to manage upset feelings. Cloud also helps children develop patience, tolerance, and understanding for friends who are still learning how to express upset feelings in positive, healthy ways.

Virtual Field Trip
Our first virtual field trip is on Tuesday. We will be exploring shadows using the book Bear's Shadow by Frank Asch. I am looking forward to seeing this presentation offered by the California Academy of Sciences.

Upcoming Events
Tuesday 9/21: Virtual Field Trip: "Moonbear's Shadow"
Monday, 9/27: Extended Kindergarten Days begin (8:15-1:40, except Wednesdays, dismissal is at 1:15)
Wednesday, 10/11: Virtual Field Trip: "Mission to the Moon"

Week of 9/13

I can't believe we are only two weeks from extending our kindergarten day! I'd like to ask that parents who have submitted their vaccination card via "Informed K-12" to please email me to let me know that you have done so. There seems to be a glitch in the system, and I am not receiving any confirmations of uploads. If you email me and let me know you have completed the form, I will follow up to make sure I am receiving that information so that I can roll out my helper sign-ups ASAP. I will send out the helper sign-up just to those who have submitted the form & vaccination card to the district. I am so excited to have the helpers all join us starting on the week of the 27th!

Thank you also for signing your child 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. I am continuing to meet with students both this week and next week. If you need to check the schedule, you can view it here. Please note that you can no longer edit this document. If you need to reschedule your child's time, please email me in advance of the appointment. I have had several students miss their appointments, and it is getting really difficult to reschedule, so please make every effort to mark this on your calendars and come at the time you signed up for. Thank you.

Language Arts
In language arts, we continue introducing letters and letter sounds with letters Jj, Ee, Oo and Qq this week. We will also introduce the sight words can and and. You will continue to receive the sight word sentences for the words we've introduced each week in your child's Wednesday envelope. Please have your child read those to you at home. If you're also interested in further review of the letter sounds with your child, you can find the letter sound video we watch in class, called "The Better Alphabet Song" here. 

Math
In math, we will continue with the topic Numbers to 10. This week, we will continue to focus more on 10 frames as a way to quickly visualize a number. More information on this topic can be found here.

Kimochis
I hope you were able to hang your child's feelings/Zones of regulation poster somewhere in your house so that you can start using that language to talk to your children about how they are feeling. This week, we will introduce our first Kimochi (Kimochi means "Feeling" in Japanese), Lovey Dove. 

Virtual Field Trip
We have scheduled a couple of virtual field trips through the California Academy of Sciences. We have our first one on Tuesday the 21st. We will be exploring shadows using the book Bear's Shadow by Frank Asch. These were great programs last year during Distance Learning, and I am looking forward to seeing Tuesday's program. 

C.A.G.E. Drive
Tomorrow is the last day to contribute to the C.A.G.E. drive if you want to help the Grasshoppers win a pizza party! These funds go toward all the enrichment programs offered at Alta Vista, such as special classroom projects, P.E., Art Vistas, and Cornerstone. If you haven't had a chance to donate yet, please consider donating by going to this link: https://altavistahsc.membershiptoolkit.com/store 

Upcoming Events
Tuesday 9/21: Virtual Field Trip: "Moonbear's Shadow"
Monday, 9/27: Extended Kindergarten Days begin (8:15-1:40, except Wednesdays, dismissal is at 1:15)
Wednesday, 10/11: Virtual Field Trip: "Mission to the Moon"

Week of 9/6

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful long weekend. We will get right back into the swing of things on Tuesday, with another fun week ahead, including Movie Night on Friday the 9th!

Thank you for signing your child 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. I was able to complete about half of the assessments of all extended care students last week, and I look forward to meeting with the rest of the students in the upcoming weeks. If you need to check the schedule, you can view it here. Please note that you can no longer edit this document. If you need to reschedule your child's time, please email me.

Language Arts 

In language arts, we continue introducing letters and letter sounds, along with the handwriting of those letters, using the Fundations program. We have introduced Tt, Bb, and Ff, which are all "sky-line letters" and this week, we will introduce Mm and Nn, which are "plane-line letters." If you'd like more information about the formation of these letters to support your student at home, as well as posters that are similar to the ones we use in the classroom, please read this week's home support letter. 

 

We will also introduce our first sight word, I this week. We will introduce 1 to 2 sight words per week now, and children are expected to master the reading of 40+ sight words by the end of kindergarten. The complete list (there are more than 40 words listed here, but they will be exposed to all of them) can be found on the "High Frequency Words" tab of my website.

 

STEAM Projects

This week, we will be reading several different fairy tales & nursery rhymes, and then doing follow-up STEAM challenges. We will be testing which materials will protect Humpty Dumpty from breaking, building houses that will stand up to the Big Bad Wolf, building bridges for the Three Billy Goats, and making webs to keep the spiders away from Little Miss Muffett. We look forward to learning how to collaborate as a group to solve these challenges.

Math
In math, we will continue with the topic Numbers to 10. This week, we will continue looking at each number and different ways to represent them (numeral, 10 frames, etc.) More information on this topic can be found here. 

Wednesday Envelopes

Thank you so much for returning all the envelopes on Thursday, and for signing the permission slips for Miss Howe's student teaching video recordings. She likely will only do 2-3 recordings during the school year, so we appreciate your cooperation with this. If you were not able to return your envelope on Thursday, please return it on Tuesday, when it will already be time to pack them again.

P.E.
Beginning the week of October 3rd, we will get to have P.E. lessons with the Rhythm & Moves P.E. program. This program is funded by your donations to the AVHSC C.A.G.E. drive. Children will participate twice a month in P.E., and this program was a huge hit in the past! Thank you for your continued donations to the C.A.G.E. drive for programs like this. If you haven't had a chance to donate yet, please consider donating by going to this link: https://altavistahsc.membershiptoolkit.com/home

Thank you for answering the call for supporting our enrichment programs! I think the only opening we have now is for Cornerstone & I believe we need some people who are willing to read stories in the library each week. 

I hope you continue to enjoy your weekend!

Upcoming Events

Monday, 9/5: Labor Day, no school

Friday, 9/9: Movie Night

Friday, 9/16: Picture Day