Week of September 26-30, 2016

Hello everyone! Happy Friday. This week we started centers with our awesome parent volunteers. We've been writing, comparing numbers, working on penmanship, reading lots of books, singing, and working together.
Parents are always welcome to drop in and help. Just let me know by the day before so I can be sure to have things for you to do.

Here is what we have coming up:

Important Dates

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.

Thursday, 9/29 "Green Out" spirit day. Kids are encouraged to come in all green to show school spirit.

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. Thank you to those parents who have already volunteered.

Golden Dragon awards
Each month one student from each Phoebe classroom is given the Golden Dragon award. The Golden Dragon is someone who models the Phoebe Hearst Dragon Values (check them out on the poster in Room 4) and of course fills others' buckets. For the first couple of months I will choose the Golden Dragon and later in the year I will have the kids vote. The Golden Dragon winners are announced at morning announcements in front of the school and then have a celebration breakfast in the library with Mr. McGill. September's awards should happen during the first week of October.

Language Arts
This week we will continue focusing on one letter sound and shape each day.
The kids are gaining confidence with penmanship, and some are beginning to take risks with sounding out their own words. When kids write independently they will use phonetic spelling, meaning they will write the sounds they hear. For example, if your child spells the word cake as "kak" this is fine. Encouraging them to sound out their words builds their writing and spelling skills tremendously.
Letter focus: Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll
New sight words: This week I introduced a, an, here, and is. Next week will be I and see.
Comprehension lessons will focus on telling stories from wordless books. The kids are having fun with these. We will talk about authors, illustrators, characters, setting, the beginning, middle and end, and the problem or conflict in the story.

Math
This week we will continue to work on comparing numbers and then will do work with the number 0 and ordering numbers 0-5. The kids will take the chapter 2 test on Friday.

Thanks for reading, everyone! Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions or concerns.
carrie.relles@gmail.com