Newsletter for Week of September 23rd, 2013 and Dental Assembly

Here is the Newsletter for this week.

 

 

Don't forget to pack your snacks for the week.  Your child may have brought home a library book last week.  They were so excited to be able to check out books for the first time.  Please make sure they return to school in time for your child's library day.  This is part of them learning personal responsibility and a very important life-long skill for them to master.  They are so upset when they forget to bring back the book.  They cannot check out a new book until the old book is returned.  This makes them very unhappy so gently remind them to put their library book into their back packs.

 

Thank you to everyone that sent in apples and other items for our Apple Science Unit.  The hands on aspect of learning science and math is critical at this early age.  Hands-on items makes it easier for them to understand difficult concepts such as patterning, one-to-one correspondence (three apples equals the number 3) and using their senses to explore the world around them.  The get to practice making predictions, testing hypothesis and planning, sorting, counting, and using oral language to describe what they see, hear, smell, taste and feel.  Your support means so much to us and helps us create a stronger and more meaningful learning experience for them.  Thank you again for all of your help.

 

A special thank you goes out to all of the parents that have volunteered in the classrooms.  You have helped us make the 500 books each classroom received available to the children by sorting, labeling and marking the books by category, learning unit and reading level.  We could not have done it without you!  Thank you to those that have given their time to make copies, cut out learning materials and read to the students.  The children love seeing you involved in the classroom and we appreciate the time you give to us.  You make our lives so much easier and open our time to create more rigorous lessons for the classes.  Thank you, thank you, and thank you.

 

We will be getting conformation for our Fall Field Trip soon and we will give you that date as soon as we get approval from the Transportation Department.  We welcome parent volunteers to come with us to Pumpkins Galore for a fun filled day of learning and exploration.  Make sure you have all of your required paper work turned into the office well before the field trip date (mid October) so your background checks can be completed and returned in time to attend the field trip.  You must have this done before you are allowed to participate in the event.

 

We are looking for parent volunteers to head up our Fall Parties.  The date is October 31st for those parties.  Please contact your classroom teacher if you are willing to plan, donate materials or help supervise the party.  The kids love these events and enjoy having their parents attend.  The date will be here before you know it and early planning leads to a great time and lots of other parents to help when they have plenty of advanced notice of what is needed.

 

We had a dental assembly last week from Delta Dental.  Each child should have come home with a dental package from Delta Dental.  Please have them fight the evil Plaque Man by brushing at least two times a day and flossing between their teeth each day.  The students LOVED the presentation and really seemed to learn a lot from this play.  Here are a few photos so you can share them with your child and review what they learned.

 

 

 

 

Picture Proofs went home last week.  Make sure you send in the proofs and money if you would like any of the pictures.  The bags for the Boys vs Girls Reading Challenge went home as well.  Please check your child's take home folder every night for important information.  This is our best way to communicate with you.  Feel free to contact us if you ever have any questions about anything yourreceive in the take home folders.

 

Thank you for doing the homework with your child.  It is usually attached to the weekly newsletter and we send home homework for them to practice newly introduced skills.  This extra practice lets you know what we are working on at school, helps give them additional practice to learn the new skills and teaches them personal responsibility for being organized and responsible for getting information to home and back to school.

 

Don't forget to send back their signed Progress Reports.  We will be having Parent Teacher Conferences next month.  We will be sending a reminder for times and dates in a few weeks.

 

Enjoy the cooler weather this week and as always, don't forget to read for 20 minutes each day with your child.  This is the best thing you can do to help them become life-long learners!



 

September 16-20th Newsletter and Apples!

Here is our newsletter for next week.  Please read it and look for the homework on attached to the hard copy that will come home in your folders this weekend.  Practicing the skills at home by using the homework we provide will strengthen your child's understanding of important concepts they need to master this year.

 

We are so excited that the weather is getting cooler (finally) and we are looking forward to using the fall harvest to enrich our science, writing, math and reading curriculum.  We are in need of donations of apples (red, green and yellow) to help the children learn how to do the following:

 

Math:  We use the apples to sort and catoragize by size and color.  We taste the apples and graph our favorite kind to strengthen our number knowlege, introduce graphing and to introduce the concepts of least and most.  We use the apples to introduce patterning (red, green, red, green) and to teach them about one-to-one correspondence (giving them the number four and asking them to place four apples by that number symbol).

 

Science:  We use the apples to teach them that scientists use their five senses to explore, gather data, make predictions and experiment.  They will learn that there is a star inside the apple.  They will gather data about how apples are different by taste, texture, smell and sight.  They will learn about chemical reactions by making applesauce (adding heat to change the texture of the apples).  They will learn the life cycle of an apple (seed, blossom, fruit) and the parts of an apple.

 

Writing:  They will be exposed to enriched vocabulary by describing the apples (using adjectives) to enhance their writing (crunchy, sweet, green, red, yellow, soft, mushy, crispy, tart, sour).  They will use the apples to draw (enhancing their skills as illustrators) and they may chose to write a story about apples.

 

Reading:  They will get to listen to stories about apples such as Ten Apples On Top and others to learn about fiction (stories we read for entertainment and enjoyment) and informational text/non-fiction (stories that teach us something factual about the world.  We will be able to check what we learn using the actually apples!

 

We need the apples donated by Wednesday, September 18th so we can start using them in class.  Thank you so much for helping us with this unit of study.

 

We also wanted to send out a special thank you to all of our parent/adult volunteers that have given us so much of their time to help us organize our classroom libraries, make copies and cut out learning materials for us to use in the classroom.  You do not know how much that helps us enrich our curriculum.  You are amazing and we cannot find the words to thank you enough.  We are so lucky to have such a stong and helpful team of families this year.  Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

 

We will leave you with this great video from the Kid President.  Enjoy your weekend, spend some time out in nature, and as always, don't forget to read at least 20 minutes each day with your child and go through the Kindergarten Binder at least 3 times a week with your child.

 

We are all teachers.  Be awesome today!



 

More Mystery Reader fun! How Full Is Your Bucket?

Ms. O's class had a special Mystery Reader who taught us all about how to be a bucket filler!  She read this book, How Full Is Your Bucket to the class.  We learned all about our invisible buckets and how we each have one and everyone around us has one too.  We can either fill our buckets and the buckets of others or dip from them depending on how we act and what we say.  Part of the Kindergarten Experince is learning what kind of people we want to become.  Do we want to be positive, helpful and kind?  Do we want to become bullies and be mean?  We explore how those decisions make us and those around us feel.  We learn that we impact the world around us and we can make a difference in our own lives and the lives of others.  Remember the poem All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?  This book teaches in to that poem.  Character Education is an important part of our Curriculum at Peine Ridge and we thank you, our parents, families and friends for helping us develop the next generation of leaders.  Thank you so much for volunteering your time and helping the kids develop a love for reading AND their positive outlook on life.  We couldn't do it without you.  Have a great weekend and thank you again for giving some of your time to helping all of our students develop a life-long love for reading.  There is a video at the end of this post to help support the concepts taught in this book.  Please play it at home with your child to help them learn the concepts of bucket filling and bucket dipping.  How full is your bucket today?

 



 

Mrs.Clauss teaches us about how to fill a bucket.

Mrs. Clauss reading the story to us.

 



Mrs.Clauss shows us our "bucket" and teaches us about filling and dipping our buckets.

 

Mystery Reader Pigeon Style!

This week Ms. De Stephano's class had a special guest.  Pigeon from the books by Mo Willams!  The kids were thrilled when Pigeon (actually it was special parent reader Jill Sutton) came in during Reading Workshop.  Thank you so much for making reading so memorable and special for the children.  We have been learning that reading is exciting and you certainly made sure reading the book Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus and exciting adventure.  Being involved in your child's early education makes learning so much more meaningful for your child.  We can't thank you enough for taking your time to volunteer in the classroom during the year.  Enjoy this special picture of this special parent sharing a special book.  Thank you to all of our Mystery Readers.  We look forward to sharing more pictures of our volunteers on the blog this year.

 

Week of September 9th Newsletter and Updates

We are introducing the letter Oo and the color Blue this next week.  Our first popcorn (sight word) is AND. We will be adding new videos to support your child's learning at home on our video pages.  You can find those at the top of the home page of our blog.  These are great resources to help your child master letter recognition and letter sounds.  These are the foundations of decoding and reading words so your support at home is critical to develop reading skills for your child.  Please make sure to review the Letter Oo poem and the Color Blue poem in your child's Kindergarten Binder at home at least three times a week.  Also, please have your child practice their popcorn words each day.  These are words they need to memorize because they cannot be sounded out and these words are found in most of the early reader books they will be exposed to this year.

The nurse is in need of clothing donations for Kindergarten size pants and underwear.  If you have any clothing your child has outgrown, or if you like to garage sale please keep this in mind.  The nurse thanks you in advance for any donations you may send in.

We were lucky enough to receive 500 books per classroom to support our reading units.  All of the books have to be marked and labeled with stickers and this is a REALLY BIG PROJECT!  All of the teachers could use volunteers to help us with this project.  If you are interested please contact your child's teacher if you have a few moments to spare to help us with this project.  We really want to get those books into the hands of our young readers but need to have them labeled first so any volunteers would be greatly appreciated.  We are also looking for parents who would like to head up our Fall Parties and those who could give a little time each week to make copies for the following week or help cut out materials for learning games and activities.  We thank you in advance for supporting your child's education (and us as teachers) for donating a little time to help us with these projects.  If you cannot come in, but could do something at home for us (like cutting or stapling booklets together) please let us know and we will organize and send those projects home.  Your involvement helps us enrich our program for all of the children.  Thank you for considering giving a little of your time.

Don't forget to send your child in appropriate shoes on PE days.  Also, snacks are due on Mondays and Kindergarten Binders are due on Fridays.  Thank you to all of our Mystery Readers and those who are sending in Letter of the Week bags.  The students are LOVING these special activities that support literacy.

We all hope you have a great weekend.  You can help your child as we start assessments this week by having them count to 25, practice writing their name (first letter upper case and the rest in lower case) and reviewing their letters and letter sounds.  Please read 20 minutes a day with your child.  Here is some important information to show you how important reading with your child each day is for literacy development.

Enjoy your weekend!

Team Kindergarten

Picture Day is September 6th

Families,
Don't forget that Picture Day is tomorrow, Friday, September 6th.  Practice your smiles in the mirror!
Team Kindergarten

Mystery Readers have arrived!

We just wanted to take a small moment and thank all of the Mystery Readers who came to our rooms to read on Friday.  Our Mystery Readers are such an important part of our reading curriculum and they make reading so much fun for our young readers.  It always amazes us how hard our parent readers work to make this time exciting and meaningful for the students.  We appreciate all you do to support Peine Ridge and us as teachers.  We are looking forward to many more parents reading in our classrooms this year.  Please make sure you have filled out your Volunteer information and have had your criminal record check done so you can spend time in the classroom.  If you have any questions just contact Mrs. Reese or Mrs. Force in the office.  They can tell you if all of your paper work has cleared. 

We are almost ready for Room Parents, Copy Parents and other Parent Volunteers to start.  We will be contacting you soon if you offered to help.  Believe it or not party time will be here before you know it and we would love to have some parent volunteers put together these classroom celebrations.  The students are so excited to see their parents and families spend these special times with them during the school year.  Every one of the teachers appreciate your time, expertise and willingness to help with these projects! 

Our Field Trip to Pumpkins Galore will be coming up in October and we will send more information to you as soon as we have the final conformation.  We have already done our Bus Safety lesson (on the actual buses) with the children to get them ready for this great adventure.

We leave you with a picture of one of our parent volunteers acting as a Mystery Reader in Ms. Arrendale's class.  He read from the Frog and Toad book and used great character voices (complete with an English accent for both Frog and Toad).  We are learning how reading is an adventure and all of our Mystery Readers made reading a special adventure for the students on Friday.  Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day Weekend, stay cool, and as always, read at least 20 minutes a day with your child.  We will see all the students again on Wednesday.  Make sure you go through the new Kindergarten Binder that came home with your child on Friday while on break.