We have a fun week ahead with another virtual field trip, Mission to the Moon, through the California Academy of Sciences. We also will be making a special craft to decorate our banner for the "Monster Marathon" Alta Vista Walkathon. I am looking forward to being part of this new, reimagined event that will involve a kick-off at school on October 29th, followed by a weekend of walking! Help raise money for Alta Vista's enrichment programs as well as getting involved in a fun community event. Thank you to Deanna, Emily, and Van for getting us organized for this event. You will hear more about it as the date draws closer, but mark your calendars for Halloween weekend!
Language Arts
We have now 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. This is a review week of all the letter sounds, and then we will begin covering word families. We will start next week with the ap and at endings, reading and spelling words such as map, rat, bat, sap, etc.
Our sight words this week are me, we and he. This week our stories will be from the author Aaron Reynolds: Creepy Carrots and Creepy Pair of Underwear.
Math
In math, we will be wrapping up the module on shapes. The 2D shapes we have covered are: rectangle, square, circle, triangle, and hexagon. The 3D shapes we have covered are: cone, cube, sphere, and cylinder. We have been learning the 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, the Kimochis® Character named Cat will join our classroom to teach children about the feelings curious, cranky, and sorry. Cat is the Kimochis® Character who knows what she wants, when she wants it, and why she wants it! When Cat makes up her mind, there is no stopping her. When the group needs a leader, Cat is always ready to help. She loves to be in charge, but she can be a little bit bossy. Cat may seem mean on the outside, but on the inside, she is very sweet. Cat has lots of bandages to help her redo times when she makes a mistake and hurts someone’s feelings.
Self-Help Skills
We continue to need to practice self-help skills. A big one right now is packing up our backpacks. I am encouraging the children to get everything from the day into their backpacks, rather than holding it all in their hands and leaving the backpack empty. This has been very hard for many kids. Any reinforcement you can do at home with encouraging them in the morning to put their lunch and snack into the backpack on their own would be appreciated. Another skill we are working on is removing jackets and sweatshirts independently. Again, many children are struggling with zippers and sleeves that are inside out. Rather than just doing zippers and fixing sleeves for your children, show them how to do this so that they can do it on their own. Children feel very accomplished when they can do these things without help.
Upcoming Events
Tuesday, 10/12: Virtual Field Trip: Mission to the Moon
Friday, 10/29: Monster Marathon begins at school
Monday, 11/1: No School: Staff Development Day
Monday, 11/8: Parent-Teacher Conferences Begin\
11/11 &11/12: No School: Veteran's Day
