Week of September 19-23, 2016

Hello Families!
We survived our first full week of school. The kids are most likely tired after a long week of lots of hard work and fun with their new school friends.
Thank you to everyone who came to Back-to-School night on Wednesday. It was great talking with many of you after my presentation. I am so excited about this class of bright, happy kids and the year we are having!

Here is what we have coming up:

Important dates:

Monday, 9/19: Room 4's second art class with Ms. Jane, 8:15-9:00. During this class Ms. Jane will introduce types of lines used in art. The kids will experiment with line using cooked spaghetti! It's lots of fun. Be sure to ask your child about this lesson on Monday afternoon.

Monday, 9/26 kindergarten apple day. 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, 9/30 Family movie night, 6:30 pm on the big field behind the school. This is such a fun night! Bring some low chairs, a blanket, and some snacks and watch a movie on the huge screen.
This will also be a free dress day (the last Friday of every month is a free dress day). Kids can wear school-appropriate clothes of their choice! All of the shoe and sock guidelines still apply.

Thursday, 10/20 Field trip to Dave's Pumpkin Patch, 9:00 am-12:30 pm.
The kids are going to love this! We will take a school bus with the other kinder classes to Dave's where everyone will take a hay ride, bounce on the bouncing pillow, and choose a pumpkin. We will have a picnic lunch before we head back on the bus. The cost for this trip is $5.50 per person, which includes the cost of the small pumpkin. You can send this in to school beginning today. The money is due no later than Thursday October 6. Parents, if you would like to accompany us on this trip and you have been fingerprinted with the district, please let me know as soon as possible. If you haven't done your fingerprinting yet, there is still plenty of time if you go within the next week. Please let me know if you have questions about this.

Language Arts
This week we will continue 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 so far. If they have an interest in practicing letter writing on their own, please encourage this! The back of the homework folders has a penmanship guide.
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
This week we will begin working on the concepts of more, fewer, and same as. Just like with letter writing, number writing can be difficult at this time of year. If kids want to practice writing numbers at home, this is fantastic.

Thank you for reading, everyone! Please don't hesitate to ask if you have questions or concerns.
Have a super weekend.