Newsletter for October 21- November 1st

Because we have two short weeks coming up we have combined the next two weeks worth of Newsletters into one Newsletter.  We hope having this on the blog helps you in case you accidentally misplace your hard copy.

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!



 

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

Newsletter and Updates

We will post the newsletter on the blog each Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.  We hope this helps you in case you misplace the paper copy.

We have been working hard on learning the letter sound and how to write a capital and lower case letter Ll. We are going to add a page with video links for our letter of the week so your child can practice at home by watching educational videos that support the letter sound concept.  If you see that your child is having difficulty mastering a letter sound please use these additional supports at home.  The extra practice will really help your child learn the new sounds.  This is the foundation for later blending letter sounds together to read words.  We are in the process of assessing each child for letter identification (capital and lower case) and their ability to produce each letters appropriate sound.  We are also assessing number recognition, if they can write their name (first name with first letter capital and the rest lower case).  Please practice with your child at home if they are struggling with any of these concepts.

This was the first week for our Mystery Readers to come in and read in the classrooms.  This was also the first week to have the Letter of the Week bags sent in.  Thank you for taking your time to support your child's education by volunteering for these activities.  These are exciting activities for the children and when your child sees you at school they know that you and their teacher are a team that works together to provide the best educational experience possible for them.

Next week the students do not have class on Monday or Tuesday.  Please make sure you have made alternative plans if you need child care for that time.  Chautauqua sent home a paper earlier this month for you to fill out if you needed child care at school that day.  Make sure you sent it in if you need to use that service.

Please make sure your child is wearing appropriate shoes on PE days.  Also, the PE teachers are spending a lot of time tying shoes and ask that you work with your child at home so they can tie their shoes independently.  This will help to make PE a more enjoyable experience for your child.  They hate to sit out of a fun activity because they do not have on proper shoes (flip flops are dangerous for many of the PE activities).

The school nurse asks that if you have any clothes that were sent home from school (due to accidents at school) that you please turn the clothes back in.  She is already out of Kindergarten size shorts and underwear.  If you have any additional Kindergarten sized clothes would you please consider donating them to the nurses office?  We would really appreciate your help.

Next week we will be learning all about the letter Oo and the color word BLUE.  Our site words for this month are "see", "I", "and" "red" and "blue".  Your new Kindergarten Binder should arrive home on Friday after school with your child.  Please read through the information on the front page so you know how to use this binder with your child.  The binder has a list of all of the "popcorn" words they will need to learn this year (words that are sight words, they need to memorize because they cannot be sounded out).  These words are critical for them to learn so they can become independent readers.  Words will be added each week or you may have received them all at once so you can make flash cards out of the.  Please keep them on a ring or in a zip lock bag (or both) and keep them with the binder so your child can practice at least three times a week.  In the binder you will find the poems we use each week for learning letter sounds and color concepts.  They will be added each week if they are not all inside the binder when you receive it this week. The poems they are familiar with are the letter Ll poem (about Larry the Lion) and the R-E-D poem.  Please read those with your child.  They should have them memorized because we read these together each day. The binders are an amazing tool to help your child academically and we encourage that you use the binder at least three times each week.  Have your child review the letter of the week poem with you and as they are introduced to more letters have them read the additional poems to you.

Thank you for remembering to initial your child's behavior calendar each night.  Please check the Take Home Folder each day.  This is the easiest way to stay in constant communication with us.  If things are in the Left At Home side of the folder please keep those items at home.  Please check the Send Right Back side of the binder for homework and important information that needs to be returned to school.  Please continue to make sure your child knows their lunch pin so they can get through the lunch line quicker and have more time to eat lunch.  Thank you for your hard work in helping your child memorize their number.

Please send in a labeled snack next week for three days.  Labeling the snacks help the kids learn each other's names and keeps the kids form eating the wrong snack.  Explain to your child that there is only one snack each day.

We all hope you have a safe and happy Labor Day Weekend.  Please drive safely if you are traveling.  Keep safe in this heat and enjoy your time together.  Don't forget to read 20 minutes each day with your child!

The Kindergarten Team

August 23rd Newsletter

I hope this posts well enough for you to read.  It is a picture of the newsletter coming home tomorrow.  Please make a note of important upcoming dates.  Have a great weekend and remember to read at least 20 minutes a night with your child!  We also added several of the You Tube video songs we use in math and to teach letter sounds.  Please go to our video pages and watch with your child!  As a special treat go to our Read Aloud page and watch the teacher's read books to you.  Mrs. Otzenberger will be adding her video soon.  We hope you enjoy the additional resources to use at home.  Don't forget, Scholastic book orders are due soon and you can link to Scholastic directly from the website.  Each classroom has a unique code so you can order on-line.  If you have misplaced the code just email your teacher and they will send it to you.  Ordering books through Scholastic is one of the best ways to help your child develop a lifelong love of reading and you support the classroom. Every time you order the classroom earns free books!  Please consider ordering.  We appreciate your support in opening up an exciting world of reading for your child.