Hello parents, it was so great to see so many of you celebrating Vidhayini's birthday! As you may have seen in Mrs. Bailey's weekly update, we are kicking off "The Great Kindness Challenge" this week at school. This is an opportunity to really focus as a family on how our kind acts can help make everyone's day a little better. In kindergarten, we will be keeping track of kind acts with a "kindness chain." Children can come in each morning and tell me about a kind act they did at home, and we will also celebrate kind acts done at school. When children tell me about a kind act, they will receive a loop for our kindness chain. They write their name on the loop, and we will add it to our classroom chain. We are hoping that by the end of the week, our chain gets all the way across the classroom! You can support children at home by reminding them to tell me about a kind act you saw them do and brainstorming ways that they can be kind & helpful, both at home and at school. You can find a list of some simple ideas here.
There are still some openings on our classroom volunteering Sign-Up Genius, including this week. Please check it out if you have any availability. Volunteers are needed for Tuesday and Thursday centers please!
Spring parent-teacher conferences are coming up on March 2 through March 9. I will send the sign-ups out for those this week. These are optional conferences, but are available to anyone who would like an update on their child's progress.
Language Arts
We will continue reading snow-themed stories and do writing projects and crafts around this theme. This week we will focus on the book, Snowmen at Night. The culmination of this theme will end with "Snow Day" on February 9th. Children can come to school dressed up in any winter gear they have, and we'll have some snow-themed fun! Our sight words this week are this and that. We have also been introducing digraphs. So far, we have focused on the digraphs sh and th. This week, we will take a look at ch.
We are beginning Unit 3 of Fundations. Blending sounds to read words is now the main focus in our reading curriculum. If your child has not mastered letter sounds yet, it is really important to continue reviewing those since we are now spending the majority of our time working on blending skills and building fluency. There are some great resources in the Unit 3 Fundations Home Support letter.
Math
We will continue with Module 4 this week; just the addition portion of this module will last up until President's Week Break. Parent tips for this module can be found here.
Kimochis
This week, your child will learn the fourth Kimochis® Key to Communication: Choose helping words. This key helps us to both think before we speak and consider our word choices. Typically, children acquire a basic ability to understand another’s perspective between 3 and 4 years of age.This allows them to become caring people. However, they will need modeling and practice to do so. In our lesson, we will talk about words that make hearts feel good and words that hurt feelings and your hearts. Your child knows that everybody makes mistakes and can accidentally use words that hurt. Your child will learn to use the following communication tool when hurting words are used: 1. Place your hand over your heart. 2. Show a gentle, but hurt facial expression. 3. Make eye contact with the person who hurt you. 4. Say, “Ouch” in a soft, but hurt tone. The children now know that this is a safe, kind way to express hurt feelings. If a mistake is made, family members can use this tool so they can apologize and make things better.
Upcoming Events
100 Day: We will be celebrating our 100th day of school on February 2nd! Next week, our center activities will be around the number 100. The 100th day celebration is just a fun way to celebrate 100 days of school after we've been counting up to this day during calendar time.
Valentines Day: I know that valentines are now available in most stores, and children will be asking about our celebration. We will exchange cards in class on February 14th, but this is not a "party." We have a fun celebration of friendship, exchange valentines, and take them home to show our families. So that you can prepare for this event, I wanted to share some information:
- Please send in a card for each child. There are 24 total students in our class: 13 girls and 11 boys.
- Please ONLY sign the card & put nothing in the TO box. It is challenging enough for kindergartners to pass out valentines to all their classmates. Having the "to" part filled out makes this extremely challenging and it takes far too long. Thank you for your help with this!
- Please try to purchase valentines that do not have candy attached. I know those can sometimes be hard to find, but there are good choices with stickers, play tattoos, and other non-food goodies.
Reminders
**P.E. is every Friday-- 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.
** Alta Vista shirt or blue/yellow on Wednesdays
**Panda t-shirt day is Friday each week.
This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Math centers (Amy and need one more!)
Tuesday: Centers (need 2 volunteers!)
Wednesday: Library (Amorette & Bora), dismissal @ 1:15
Thursday: Return Weds. envelopes, centers (need 2 volunteers!)
Friday: PE with Ms. Amy, Music Program begins next week
Upcoming Events
Monday, 1/30: No School: Professional Development Day
Thursday, 2/2: 100 Day
Thursday, 2/9: Snow Day
Tuesday, 2/14: Valentines Exchange
Week of 2/20: Presidents Week Vacation
3/2-3/9: Spring Conferences
