Week of 9/12

Thank you everyone for bringing your children for their afternoon assessments. 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. When you arrive for your assessment, please wait by Gate F (the gate we enter through in the morning). I will see you out there and let you in when you arrive. If you need to reschedule your child's time, please email me.

Language Arts
In language arts, we continue introducing letters and letter sounds and will introduce our first vowels this week, Ii and Uu. For information about the formation of these letters, please see the Fundations Family Letter. We will also introduce the sight words in and it. 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.

We will also launch our beginning writing unit, which starts with teaching drawing. We will be working on directed drawings of people this week. As children take an interest in writing more, parents can support them by encouraging independent spelling. If your child asks, "How do you spell ____?" respond by asking them how they think it is spelled. It's ok if their spelling is not correct at this time! We want children to go through the process of connecting sounds to spelling themselves at this age. Encourage your children in their writing by having them make lists or write notes to friends and family.

Math
In math, we will continue with the topic Numbers to 10. More information on this topic can be found here.

SEL

We begin our SEL (social-emotional learning) curriculum this week by discussing the "Zones of Regulation." If you'd like more information about the Zones, this website has a lot of good resources. Your children will make their own poster representing the Zones in class on Friday, which they will bring home. This is a great tool for you to use at home to encourage children to talk about how they are feeling. 

Picture Day

Picture Day is Friday, September 16th. There is no need to pre-order. Proofs will be emailed to you in about two weeks, and you can choose to order at that time.

Classroom Centers & Library Time

Beginning on September 21st, we will take weekly trips to the Alta Vista library. Children will check out one book each week, and return it the following week. We also get to have a "guest reader" each week in the library, who reads a favorite story to the students before they check out books. I am going to send out a Sign-Up Genius this week for both library story readers (our library time is 9:10 to 9:30) and classroom center helpers. Classroom centers begin when we extend our day the week of 10/3. I run centers on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, from 12:25-1:40. I hope you will all be able to join us at least once for classroom centers! In order to volunteer this year, you must complete the Volunteer Code of Conduct Form, and either upload your vaccination card (if vaccinated) or provide a negative COVID test (if not vaccinated) 24 hours before volunteering. Information about the process for volunteering can be found here. I am looking forward to having parents in the classroom beginning 10/4. Please keep an eye out for the Sign-Up Genius!