Something to Say from 102A

So, what do you think; does our hair look crazy or cute? I have no hesitation in saying that my own ‘do’ is decidedly crazy. A student suggested the photo of me and even took the picture! I think she did a good job. These photos also give you a glimpse of lunch time in the classroom.

This is the last week for bringing in clothes and school supplies for Uganda, so clean out those closets and bookshelves!

Next Tuesday, 11/17 is picture retake day and the photographers will be retaking our class photo. Here’s the shot that was captured on my camera. I do notice there are some turned heads and a few comical expressions but that’s the nature of kindergarten!

Look at the Pages section of the blog! Do you see the November Parent Letter? Click and read to get an early scoop. The hard copy will go home on Monday.

Look at the picture below. Do you know what these girls are doing? They are using their fingers to show 14. Yes, we introduce place value in kindergarten! Practice with your child at home. Those teens are tricky! Practice counting to 20 by rote and recognizing and giving the names for numbers to 20. You’ll see, yes, siree, those teens are tricky! SO PRACTICE PLEASE!

Our Third Grade friends parading through our room in their very creative masks were a highlight of Friday’s Halloween Activities.  We also enjoyed visiting the pumpkin carving contest in the Cascade Team (4th and 5th grades). In the morning our literacy theme was all Halloween with the story Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman. We have a taped version of the story and the voices of the characters and the music are very catchy.  We also went went ‘Looking for Dracula’ along with a tape by by songwriter and singer for children, Charlotte Diamond. Oh, how five and six year olds LOVE to pretend! And of course the thickly frosted cupcakes from Evee’s family were gobbled up in a flash at the end of our day.

Have a safe Halloween with your little ones out in our West Seattle community and set your clock back and enjoy that extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning!

Patterns here.

Patterns there!

We see patterns everywhere!

Hello Kindergarten Families,

Here it is October already.   We are always amazed at how quickly September slips by once school has started.    The Kindergartners are getting into our classroom routines and remembering our weekly schedules.   Of course, they never forget the days they go to P.E..   We will have two changes to our weekly schedules; both classes will now have Art twice a week opposite the days we go to P.E., and we will add our library times to our Tuesday afternoon schedules.  Thank you for seeing that your student gets plenty of rest. When the children come to school rested they are much  more able to learn and have more resiliency for changes and social situations. We have been teaching reading skills since the beginning of school and will very soon  begin our reading groups.   Starting groups have been delayed by the new MAPS testing for both reading and math for all grade levels.  Our classroom aide and tutor were pulled to assist in the computer lab during this time.   Now, all the testing has been completed and we will be able to get our reading group schedules underway.   We have introduced letter names and sounds for mM, bB, cC and this week tT.   You can help your student hear these letter sounds by having them tell you the letter name/sound that a word begins with.   You can also give them words that have that “ending” sound, too.  To encourage independent reading the children should save the little alphabet book that they bring home on Mondays and practice reading the sentences every night.   These little books reinforce the “letter of the week” and introduce the new sight word/s of the week.

In Math we are just beginning Section 2 of our Everyday Math.   This chapter continues with teen numbers (recognition, counting from 1, more, less, equal, longer, shorter, patterning, beginning number stories, graphing and measurement.   Please watch for the small Mathematics at Home activity booklet that we will send home soon.   It is full of  supplemental math activities that relate to activities that we work on in class.

We have begun our Science study of Fabric.   We are looking at 10 different fabrics; knit, corduroy, denim, fleece, organza, seersucker, terry cloth, rip stop nylon, satin and burlap.   The children are directed in observing likenesses and differences of the fabrics and noticing the effects of water on them, etc.   Much of our Kindergarten learning is observing how we learn using our five senses.

Some of you have sent in the classroom volunteer form.   Those classroom jobs will begin this week, if possible.    Mrs. Parker’s class still needs one parent who can commit to at least 10 weeks as a helper in Science on Wednesday mornings, 9:30 – 10:45 ish.

Many of you have returned the “class telephone” list  and it will be ready to send home very soon.    If you have changed your mind about being on the list, please let us know as soon as possible so we can add your name and phone number.

Here are some dates for your calendars:

Oct. 20            PTA meeting in Library – watch Sanislo Newsletter for the time.

Oct. 22            Curriculum Night – watch the Sanislo Newsletter for the times and schedule of grade level meetings with the classroom teachers
and with Mr. Seevers in the Library.

Oct. 31         Halloween (Saturday)  Just so you know, we do not dress up in costumes at Sanislo for Halloween.   Your Kindergarten teachers
have  not yet decided what will be done to acknowledge  this day.

Thanks for helping your children and us off to a great start.

School is Boo-tiful!!!!!!
Sanislo’s Kindergarten Teachers

We have started the Science unit on Fabric and on Friday the children made collages of fabric scraps.  The teachers walked around asking “How does the fabric feel? How does the fabric look?” We are listening for words such as: scratchy, rough, smooth, soft, silky, sheer, sparkly, light, dark, and bumpy. Those are vocabulary words that you can reinforce at home as your children do the homework assignment of attaching labels to household items made of fabric. It is always interesting to learn of  the items the children  identify as made of fabric in their homes.  Here are your little collage artists busily creating:

Has your child been reading the letter books he (or she) has brought home from school?  Please save them and read and reread them frequently. When your kindergartner reads these ‘letter books’ to you, the right thing to do is to have him (or her) follow along with his (or her) finger.  Our sight word list is growing RAPIDLY! Please click on the list in the ‘Pages’ section at the top of this site. These are words to be memorized by sight, not to be sounded out.

Please read our  October letter to families which will be in your child’s homework folder on Monday (10-5). Picture day is  scheduled for this week (I don’t trust my memory to say if it is Tues. or Thurs.!) and Friday is a statewide Professional Development Day for teachers and that means a three day weekend for students!

We made it through our first full week! The children are learning how to listen from our friend ‘Impulsive Puppy’, a lively puppet that was introduced to the class at our  Second Step meeting on Friday.  Second Step is a curriculum for teaching children empathy and anger management. In simple words; how to express our feelings and show respect.  Ask your child to tell you the    5 points of good listening:

1. Hands to yourself.

2. Ears listening.

3. Mouth quiet.

4. Eyes looking at the person who is speaking.

5. Raise your hand and wait your turn to talk.

On Friday we also talked about safety and practiced our fire drill and earthquake routines. Parents and guardians, make sure your emergency medical forms are turned into our school office!

This class sure loves to sing! We sang Miss Mary Mack and they are learning some funny, new verses. This week’s letter was mM. Be sure to save the letter book your  child brings home each week and read them over and over. I suggested that the children collect the letter books in a folder or empty shoe box at home.

Who will I see at Thursday night’s Multi-ethnic Potluck? ALL of you, I hope!

Has your child taken home the wrong jacket by mistake? Is your child missing a jacket? This lonely gray sweatshirt is missing its owner. Be sure to write your child’s name on the tag inside his/her jacket.

Sorting, counting, and making patterns; all of this along with sharing and taking care of materials are a big  part of Math time! See for yourself:

Learning about shapes and making designs and more importantly, learning to share.

Sanislo Elementary
The Goldfinch Team
September 14, 2009

There were very few tears the first 3 days of school but everyone sure looked tired by Friday! Be sure to get your child in bed by 8:00 now that they will be in the classroom all day everyday. Learning all the routines of the classroom and playground, and making new friends, is exciting and tiring.
Beginning today your children will be at school from 9:25 until 3:30 dismissal.  Thank you to everyone for adjusting your schedule and picking up your children after lunch last week. We were able to test very nearly every child in both classes because of the half-day schedule. The results of the assessment help to guide our instruction. We typically share the results with you, along with follow up assessment, during the November conference time.    Many parents tell us their children can’t remember what they did at school. That is a pretty typical response; especially at the beginning when they come home exhausted and just SO ready for ‘down time’. I will fill you in with a few of last week’s activities: We began the routines of calendar time, recess rules, and our lunch system. In literacy we read stories to the class about starting school and talked about “always trying our best” and “It’s o.k. to make mistakes, because that is how we learn.” We sang a song called Be Kind Careful and Caring. Ask your child to sing it to you. The children had a brief introduction to both our Art and P.E. specialists. We introduced the rules for respectful listening: Eyes on the person speaking, hands in lap, ears listening, body still, mouth quiet and talked about the meaning of  ‘respect’.
We will begin reading groups next week. For this week everyone will work together as we introduce the letter mM. Your child will be taking home a little booklet about mM. Please have your child read it to you. Save this booklet. Your child will get one a week for each letter of the alphabet. We will read books about starting school and making friends. They will learn how to write a sentence or draw a picture in their Literature Journal to show understanding of the stories we read. In math they will do activities in measurement comparing length, sort buttons by differing attributes, practice their counting, use pattern blocks to explore shapes as well as take part in daily calendar routines.
Your child’s first homework is going home today. Have your child do one page each evening and read EVERYDAY for 20 minutes or more with your child. Sign your initials in each day that you and you child read. Return the reading record and completed homework in its folder on NEXT MONDAY.

Remember, if your child is assigned a bus but you do not want him or her to ride it until a later date please tell us in writing or call our front office 252-8380. If we do not hear from you we assume you want your child on his or her assigned bus.

Thank you for the boxes of crackers and fruit that you have been sending in for class snacks. We could use a little more if we are to have snack every day. The children really look forward to snack time. Please be sure to send water bottles too. This is especially important because our water fountains are broken and although the custodian has put in a work order, at present they are not an option for drinks of water. Thanks too for the boxes of facial tissue and antibacterial wipes for table cleaning.

Forms to complete for classroom volunteering will go home today and we will contact interested persons by the end of this month. Do not expect to start volunteering until October.

With Smiles,
Sanislo’s Kindergarten Teachers

Here are some dates to mark on your calendar:

Sept. 15th , Tues.  6:30PM PTA Meeting; childcare provided

Sept. 30th , Wed.  1:30 Student Dismissal; teachers have meetings

Sept. 24th, Thurs. 6:00PM Multi-Ethnic Potluck

Oct. 9th No school for students

Oct. 22nd Curriculum Night

Oct. 28th 1:30 Student Dismissal; teachers have meetings

…or so it seems. In fact, it has been plenty of hard work (with some fun thrown in) for the kindergarteners of 102A to get from abc and 123 to reading and writing words and sentences and adding and subtracting and skip counting by twos, fives, and tens and much, much, more! They really were a fun bunch. Please keep them reading and writing over the summer so their learning doesn’t lose any ground. Thank you so much for entrusting them to my care and instruction. You’ve been nothing but supportive! Please stop by to say “hi”in the fall.