Week of September 17-21, 2018

Hello Families!
I am exhausted after this busy school week, and I'm sure your children are as well! It's been so much fun writing, reading, counting, drawing, practicing routines and getting to know one another better. Thank you to everyone who came to Back-to-School night. I hope you found the evening informative; so sorry to have rushed at the end of the first session!

Here is what we have coming up:

Important Dates 
Today, 9/14: Movie night! I hope to see all of you here tonight!

Monday, 9/17: First art lesson with Ms. Jane, 8:15-9:00 am

Tuesday, 9/18: First day of centers with adult helpers, 8:00-8:50 am. Thank you to everyone who signed up to help with centers this year! For the first time in a few years we have more helpers than volunteer positions, and this is wonderful! This is a big part of the kindergarten day, and the kids love this time. I couldn't make it happen without parents who are so generous with their time.
As a reminder, our volunteers are as follows:
Tuesdays:
Alves
Frazee/Hammond
Brokaw
Apostolidis

Wednesdays:
Kain
Mulligan
Lindsey
Richards

Thursdays
Williams
Murawski
Jaske
O'Brien

If any volunteers would be willing to work in the room every other week, please let me know. We have one more parent who would like to join the fun.

If you have a day when you can't make your centers commitment, please let me know! I will find a replacement for you.

Friday, 9/21: Room 4 will work in the school garden, 8:50-9:20. Please join us if you can! Younger siblings are welcome.

Wednesday, 9/26: Kindergarten Apple Day. Please send your child to school with one apple. We will read a little bit about Johnny Appleseed and do several lessons with our apples before we eat them. The kids' apples can be any size, variety or color.

Friday, 9/28: class picture day/free dress
Photo ordering envelopes went home Friday.

Jog-a-Thon
Today we went to morning announcements on the big yard with the rest of the school for the Jog-a-Thon kickoff. The Jog-a-Thon is our school's biggest fundraiser, and completely funds our art program plus other enrichment activities. Your child will take home their Jog-a-Thon pledge envelope on Friday. The more pledges kids get, the more Phoebe swag they earn, and they have chances to win awesome prizes!
We will run in the morning on October 19.

Language Arts
This week we will begin to focus on one letter shape per day. The kids are building their fine motor skills with lots of writing practice. Many have difficulty with lower case letters, especially b and d. If they have an interest in practicing letter writing on their own, please encourage this! Look for a penmanship guide in thour homework folder that will go home Monday.
We have been reading lots of rhyming poems and books about starting school.
The kids have been writing in their journals daily. We will continue this week with writing sentences and then drawing an illustration to go with the words. Writing can be very frustrating for kids at the beginning of kindergarten, but these kids have not let mistakes get them down! They always try their best, which I appreciate so much.

Math
We have been working on sorting objects, and this week we will work on numbers to 5 in different configurations, math drawings, and expressions. Look for this in the homework starting Monday!

Book Orders
If you plan on ordering from the September Scholastic Book Catalogs, please do so by Monday. I will submit the order on Tuesday 9/16. Just go to www.scholastic.com/readingclubs and enter my classroom code which is FNJKK.
Scholastic books are super affordable, and all of our class orders help to earn books for our classroom! In fact we are only $108 in orders away from earning TONS of bonus points which means TONS  of free books for our classroom! This offer is only good during September, so please order away!
You can order online at www.scholastic.com/readingclubs


Thanks for reading, everyone. Enjoy the weekend.
Please do not hesitate to email if you have questions or concerns. carrie.relles@gmail.com