Week of 9/12

 It was so fun to see many of you and your children at movie night. That was my, and my preschool age son Zachary's first AV movie night!

Please help me in welcoming new student Aaron Yang and his family. His parents are Albert and Martina. He will start in our class on Monday. A couple students asked if they could draw him a welcome picture over the weekend, so I said I would tell the parents this. I thought that was so thoughtful. :) If your child wants to draw Aaron a picture or write a note welcoming him to our class, they can bring it on Monday. 

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 do so here. When you arrive for your assessment, please wait by Gate E (the gate we enter through in the morning). I will meet you out there and let you in when you arrive. 

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 and refer to the better alphabet song. For example, if your child is asking how to spell "cat", you could say, "Let's think about the sounds we hear in the word cat and the letter sounds we sing in the better alphabet song. What letter says /c/?" and then "/a/ and /t/." Once you've heard the better alphabet song a dozen times you could sing, "_____ says /c/, /c/, /c/. ____ can also say /s/, /s/, /s/." It's ok if their spelling is not correct at this time! If they spell cat like any of these: c, ct, kat, kt, then that's great for right now!  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. They can also label their pictures (something we will work on explicitly during writing time in class soon). 

Thank you for returning those Wednesday envelopes. You might be wondering what are the papers that come home in my child's backpack on days other than Wednesday? Any papers that are a part of our morning tub play time activities go home that same day. They are usually cutting funny pictures, pokey pins, etc. Your child may also choose to draw or write during choice time, which can contribute to papers in the backpack. Any work in the Wednesday envelope is work your child turned in that I have reviewed. They are great discussion points to begin with when going over their classwork with them.

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. You will need to remind your child  to pack that book into their backpack every Tuesday. :)  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. A big thank you to Romeo's mom/our room parent, Lia for sending out a Sign-Up Genius later this week for library story readers (our library time is 9:30 to 9:50). Thank you to Jacob's mom, Bora, for volunteering to be our book check in/check out parent. We decided that since we only had one parent sign up to be the reader, we would open it up to everyone. I know it's hard for families to commit to an every week volunteer event. If you can come in once a month to read, or just once here and there, please sign up It's a fun, engaging way to get to know these kiddos. They LOVE listening to read alouds and from more people, that's exposure to a variety of different books. Look for that sign up genius later this week.

Classroom centers begin when we extend our day the week of 10/3. I run centers on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays 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!

Week of 9/6

 Hello room 1 parents, I hope you are continuing to enjoy your long weekend and are finding a way to stay cool! We will get right back into the swing of things on Tuesday, with another fun week ahead, including Movie Night on Friday the 9th, hosted by the home and school club.

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 many of the assessments of extended care students last week, and I look forward to meeting with the rest of the students in the upcoming weeks. If you still need to sign up or check your scheduled day/time, you can edit/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. The posters can be assembled into a book that you and your child can reference at home throughout the year.

 

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.

 

Collaboration/STEAM Projects

This week, we will be reading several different fairy tales & nursery rhymes, and then doing follow-up STEAM challenges. These challenges will be done in small groups, so we will discuss big subjects like collaboration, teamwork, and compromise. 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 the envelopes on Thursday, 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 is a huge hit! 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

Enrichment Update

Thank you for signing up to volunteer for our enrichment programs, however we are still in need of a couple volunteer assignments:

- 1 or 2 more Art Vista helpers

- clay lead parent, we could also use 

- 1 more library reader (this would be shared with another parent so would be every other week). Library visits are every Wednesday, beginning September 21st, and our scheduled time each week is 9:30 to 9:50. 

- 1 more cornerstone parent

- and most importantly room parent! This position is REALLY helpful for me. 

*** If you are thinking about a position and have questions after reading about them on the home and school club site: https://altavistahsc.membershiptoolkit.com/home, feel free to reach out to me. 

New Bike Rack

A few parents have asked about locking bikes that their children ride to school. We love to encourage children to ride bikes to school, and we are happy to share that Mr. Manny moved a bicycle rack into our playground! If your child rides a bike to school, please feel free to wheel it in when we open Gate F in the morning and park it on the rack located right next to the gate.

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!

Week of 8/29

We made it through our first 5-day week in kindergarten!  Everyone is adjusting to the new routines well and making new friends.

Apologies in advance for this long email-- there is a lot of new information at the beginning of the school year.

Language Arts
We launched the Fundations program last week, and the children are doing so well with learning the routines and language of Fundations. As stated last week, a big focus is learning the correct formation of letters, hand-in-hand with learning their sounds. Handwriting serves to link visual processing with motor experience, facilitating subsequent letter recognition skills. The expectation is that by the end of the first trimester (early November) students know all their letters & sounds.

We worked on a book last week where we practiced correct name-writing every day. Continue to encourage your children to write their name using only one upper-case letter. 

Math
Over the next few weeks, we will introduce numbers 1-10. We will learn how to write them correctly, and learn different ways to represent their value. For more information on this math module, please see the parent tips here.

  

Afternoon Assessments
In order to best support your children in their learning, I will be assessing them in the upcoming weeks so that I can group them appropriately for both reading groups and math groups. In order to do this, I will need you to bring your child back to school after dismissal for a one-on-one assessment. However, if your child attends USD Extended Care, please do not sign up for these assessments, because I will be working with students over there.

For everyone else, please see this sign-up to choose a time during the weeks after Labor Day to bring your children back to school for a brief assessment. Please sign up for two different times (one math, one reading). However, I often finish both assessments in one sitting, so you likely will only have to come once. I will tell you after I complete your child's first assessment whether I need you to come back again. While your child is being assessed, you are welcome to wait on the lawn in front of the school, under the redwood trees, or wherever you are most comfortable waiting for approximately 30 minutes.  

Wednesday Envelopes
This Wednesday, you will receive your child's first "Wednesday Envelope." Since most communications from the school are now online, this will mostly contain completed work from the classroom. Please look this over to see any areas where your child may need additional support. Every Thursday, please return the empty envelope to school so that we can send their work home each Wednesday in that envelope. Your child will put it in a bin on Thursday mornings, so please remind them to take it out of their backpack on Thursdays after they hang it on their hook. Of course, I will remind them too. :)

Snacks

We are still noticing several students with too many snack items to manage during our 10 minute snack time. This week, we will start really tightening up our timeline, so please pack a snack that can be consumed in 10 minutes. Please also work with your children on opening snack wrappers and snack boxes independently. They will need to learn how to do this, especially once we start staying for lunch.

AVHSC CAGE Drive

As presented at Back-to-School Night, the Alta Vista Home & School Club needs you! All the enrichment programs at our school need parent volunteers, as well as financial support. The kindergarten classes have a long-standing tradition of winning the CAGE Drive competition by getting the most families to join & support the AVHSC. Please support the wonderful enrichment programs at our school by going to this link. In looking over our volunteers so far, we have a lot of holes! We need a head classroom parent, more Art Vista Docents, a Clay program leader, a library reader coordinator (this can be done from home & just involves creating a signup schedule for parents to come in weekly to read a story to us at library time), and Cornerstone volunteers. Please check out the link above & volunteer if you can! If you need more information about any of the volunteer positions, feel free to email me. 

Upcoming Events
Friday, 9/2: Staff Development Day, no school
Monday, 9/5: Labor Day, no school

Friday, 9/9 @ 6:00: Alta Vista Outdoor Movie Night