Week of 11/29

I hope everyone is enjoying a nice week off, and were able to get together with friends and family. We have just three short & busy weeks before we will be headed off for winter break-- it will go by quickly.

Language Arts
Our word families this week are ob and ot. Children will read and spell words such as job, cob, hot, and dot. Our sight words this week are my and on. 

This week, we will begin circulating a book of all the turkey projects we made at the beginning of November so that you can enjoy them at home with your child. When your child brings home the book, please read it with your child, add a comment to the pages in the back that we can share with the class, and return it to school the next day.

Math
In math this week, we will begin the long module on addition, and eventually, subtraction. There is a lot of terminology you may want to familiarize yourself with, such as composing (putting together two numbers to make another) and decomposing (taking apart a number and putting it in two parts). Parent tips for this unit can be found here.

Nutcracker
Looking ahead on your calendars at this busy time of year, I wanted to make sure that you are all marking your calendars for Tuesday, December 14th at 9:30 a.m.-- our performance of The Nutcracker. This is something that you will not want to miss. This week, you will receive a note in your child's Wednesday envelope, telling you what their part will be in the show, and what items you may need to round up for your child to wear for the performance. We don't want you to have to buy anything. If you are in need of a leotard, I have many leotards from when my daughter was a kindergartner that you are welcome to borrow. Please contact us if you are having trouble getting any of the clothes for the performance. 

Reminders
**P.E. is every Monday-- please send your children in shoes & clothes appropriate for fitness.
**Library is every Wednesday. Please send your child's book back to school by Tuesday each week.

Upcoming Events
Week of 11/22: Thanksgiving Vacation
Monday, 12/6: Virtual author visit: Rosemary Wells
Tuesday, 12/14: Nutcracker Performance @ 9:30
12/20-12/31: Winter Break

Week of 11/15

I hope you are all enjoying a long weekend. In the upcoming week, we will continue parent-teacher conferences through Thursday. I have enjoyed meeting with many of you so far, and have gained some great insights about your children from you. Thank you for meeting with me and being such active participants in your child's education. I look forward to meeting with the rest of you this week. For this week, early dismissal at 1:15 continues through Friday.

There will be no classroom centers again this week, due to the early dismissal. Centers will resume on Tuesday the 30th.

Language Arts
Our word families this week are op and og. Children will read and spell words such as mop, hop, dog and log. Our sight words this week are look and big. Please see the "high frequency words" page on my website for the complete list of words we've introduced. We are now up to 25 words! Most of these words can be sounded out phonetically, so if your children have a good mastery of letter sounds, they should be able to use that knowledge to read these words. Also, continue reviewing the sight word sentences with them that are sent home weekly in the Wednesday envelope.

This week, children will be sharing the turkeys that they disguised. They will do a little presentation in front of the class where they will talk about their turkey. After Thanksgiving, we will begin circulating a book of all the turkey projects so that you can enjoy them at home with your child.

Math
In math this week, we will continue reviewing all concepts we've covered so far. We will begin "composing" and "decomposing" numbers (pre-addition & subtraction skills) after Thanksgiving.

California Academy of Sciences: Sharks
We have the second virtual presentation on sharks from California Academy of Sciences this Wednesday. Children enjoyed learning a little more about sharks through a combination of the California Academy, Mystery Science, and some shark books.

Nutcracker
Looking ahead on your calendars at this busy time of year, I wanted to make sure that you are all marking your calendars for Tuesday, December 14th at 9:30 a.m.-- our performance of The Nutcracker. This is something that you will not want to miss. If you are heading out of town that week and your child won't be at school on the 14th, please let me know so that I can plan parts accordingly.

Reminders
**P.E. is every Monday-- please send your children in shoes & clothes appropriate for fitness.
**Library is every Wednesday. Please send your child's book back to school by Tuesday each week.

Upcoming Events
11/15-11/19: Parent-Teacher Conferences Continue, 1:15 dismissal
Wednesday, 11/17: CA Academy of Science presents: Sharks
Week of 11/22: Thanksgiving Vacation
Tuesday, 12/14: Nutcracker Performance @ 9:30
12/20-12/31: Winter Break

Week of 11/8

I am looking forward to meeting with each of you beginning Monday for your child's conference. Remember that for the next two weeks, the whole school dismisses daily at 1:15 to accommodate conferences. It will be harder to park at dismissal time and it is important to be on time since I begin meeting with parents over Zoom almost immediately after school. To confirm your conference time, and find the Zoom link, please see the sign-up schedule. Please note that you can no longer edit this form. If you need to change your conference time, please email me.

Due to conferences, we will not be having center time for the next two school weeks. Centers will resume after Thanksgiving, on November 30th. 

This is a short week due to the long Veteran's Day weekend. Since we only have three days of school, this will be a review week in all academic areas. We will also not have any Kimochi lessons this week.

Language Arts
We will not introduce any new word families this week, but we do have a new sight word: up. We are now reading sentences with the words: I, see, me, like, a, can, to, go, the, am, at, he, is, it. no, ran, she, we, that, and, in and now up . I have been sending home a list of sentences each week in your child's Wednesday envelope that they are reading in class. Please be sure to have your child read these sentences to you so that you can see how they are doing with sight word recognition and reading fluency. Sight word recognition is one thing we will be discussing at your child's conference. 

Math
In math this week, we will continue reviewing numbers to 10, counting, 2D and 3D shapes, and measurement. We will begin "composing" and "decomposing" numbers (pre-addition & subtraction skills) after Thanksgiving.

Turkey Project
This week, the weekly envelopes that usually come home on Wednesday, will come home on Tuesday. When you return the envelope on Wednesday the 10th, please put your child's turkey project in the envelope. We are going to make a book out of the turkey project to circulate around so everyone can see the fun ways that the turkeys were disguised!

California Academy of Sciences: Sharks
We have the first of a two part virtual presentation from California Academy of Sciences this Wednesday. We will be learning about sharks and doing some follow-up activities.

Nutcracker
I am very excited to announce that there WILL be a Nutcracker performance this year!! After a year's hiatus, this annual kindergarten performance is back, and we are thrilled. For those of you new to Alta Vista, this is an extremely improvisational and abbreviated version of the original that is always a crowd-pleaser. It will be a smaller performance this year, because each kindergarten class will do their own performance (in year's past, we all combined together). Also, there will be a limit of 2 guests per performer so that we can spread guests out in the cafeteria. There may be some other requirements of guests, but we are so pleased that this seasonal favorite is back, and we wanted to give you advanced notice so that you can clear your calendars and join us. Our class's performance will be on Tuesday, December 14th at 9:30 a.m.  

Reminders
**P.E. is every Monday-- please send your children in shoes & clothes appropriate for fitness. (PE is canceled this week due to the shortened days, but will return next week at a rescheduled time)
**Library is every Wednesday. Please send your child's book back to school by Tuesday each week.

Upcoming Events
Monday, 11/8: Parent-Teacher Conferences Begin
Wednesday, 11/10: CA Academy of Science presents: Sharks
11/11 &11/12: No School: Veteran's Day
Week of 11/22: Thanksgiving Vacation
Tuesday, 12/14: Nutcracker Performance @ 9:30
12/20-12/31: Winter Break