Mrs. Hallberg's Superstars

January 2012 News

WELCOME BACK and HAPPY NEW YEAR to all! 

I hope that everyone had a restful and relaxing Winter Break.  I am excited to be back with your children and to watch them continue to grow and learn more every day.  We're ready to work hard and are going to have a terrific second half of the school year.

Thank you for your support in helping your children learn and for volunteering in our class.  We love our center volunteers, mystery readers, and snack helpers.  Here are a few things coming up in JANUARY.

12th: Library

13th: Report cards go home

16th: Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday (no school)

19th: Library

20th: PTA  Bingo Night from 6:00 to 8:00pm

        Fresh Fruit Fridays starting (please pack fruit in your child's snack)

26th: Library

27th: Book Buddies

JANUARY UNITS OF STUDY:

Winter and snow theme activities

Letters Oo, Qq, Ss

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ordinal numbers

Making fair trades with coins and coin identification and value for penny, nickel, dime, and quarter

Calendar skills

Counting by 2's, 5's and 10's (skip counting)

Measurement

Numbers and sets: 1 to 30

Writing complete sentences that start with a capital letter and end with a period.

Journal Writing

Sequencing events in stories

The Mitten by Jan Brett

Sight word list practive (thank you for reviewing these words at home with your child for instant recall)

Who, what, where, and why questions after reading stories

Reading to Learn

Writing to Inform

This month we will be starting our Book-in-The-Bag reading program, which is a fun activity that your child will enjoy.  Soon the children will be bringing home a guided reading book in a plastic bag to read with you several times until he/she can read it well back to you.  Please ask you child questions about the story.  More information will be sent home. 

Please make sure that your child is dressed warmly for walking through the breezeway and for recess (weather permitting).  Also, please remember to send in a daily snack with your child. 

When your child returns to school after being sick, please send in a note concerning his/her absence.   This is important so that your child's absence will be excused by the office.

Thank you, again, for making our Winter Holiday so SPECIAL by showering us with so many wonderful and generous gifts, which we really appreciated.  It is such a blessing to have your children. We also want to thank our head room parent, Jen-i DeBetta, along with several other great room parents who volunteered to help give the children such an incredible winter party.

We appreciate your partnership in making your child be so succesful in Kindergarten, and we feel fortunate to have such a hard-working class of very capable children. 

Please remember to have your child practice math each day by using the website:

www.ixl.com/signin/mountainview

This is a wonderful educational website with math activities that go along with our math standards.  The user name is usually your child's first initial and last name.  The password is their initials.  Each class is trying to beat the others for the most time spent on this site.  This is an entire school competition with class winners announced on the morning news.

Another great website is:

www.myskillstutor.com

This website has language arts, reading, writing, math games and activities for your child.  If you need your login information send home again, please ask for it.

FYI, the Lakeshore Learning Store at the corner of Johnson Ferry Road and Roswell Road is conducting a FREE Science Fair on Saturday, January 21 from 11:00am to 3:00pm with hands-on activities, experiments for kids and science demonstrations.  No reservations are necessary.  When I was in the store the other day buying learning materials for our class, Lakeshore employees told me all about the fun science activities planned.

We are trying to keep everyone healthy.  If you could please send in Clorox wipes, we would greatly appreciate them.  We clean every day!  We are also low on Kleenex.  Thank you, thank you!

WELCOME BACK!  :)

 

 

Welcome December!

The holiday season is here once again.  I hope everyone had a relaxing and restful Thanksgiving Break, and that you're ready for an awesome end to our 2nd nine weeks. 

We are winding up the year with a lot of writing, learning to read, and exploring new math concepts.  It is exciting to see the children so enthusiastic about learning new things each day and about caring for one another.

Dates to Remember in December:

 8th: Library

14th: High Touch-High Tech Field Trip money due for two in-house science presentations on Fabulous Forces and on Rocks and Soils

15th:  Library

16th: Book Buddies

19th: (Monday) Holidays Around the World Kindergarten Class Rotations in the morning to learn about different holiday celebrations

        Kindergarten classroom Winter Celebration party at 1:20pm.  All parents are invited to attend if you would like to come join in the fun!  Please let our room mom, Jen-i DeBetta, know if you are willing to help with this party.

20th: Library

21st: "Fabulous Forces" in-house science field trip with a scientist teaching about forces, energy, and gravity (and the children doing experiments)

22nd: School Holiday Sing-a-Long for students

         Monthly reading log due

         Last Day of School

December 23rd through January 9th: Winter Break - enjoy your precious children!  We will miss them.

January 10th: School begins for students

            13th: Report cards go home for the second nine weeks

Our Units Will Be:

Letters Kk, Ll, Pp, Rr

Formation of letters and letter sounds, ending sounds of words

Parts of a book

Learning sight words and word patterns

Spacing and formation of letters and words

Writing complete sentences using Guess-and-Go Spelling, starting with capital letters, using correct spacing, and ending with periods.

Math and Writing Journals, daily math learning centers

When events occur during the day (morning, noon, and evening)

Motion and Gravity

American Symbols - Statue of Liberty, Bald Eagle

Pledge of Allegiance

Listening and following directions, being kind and respectful to others, and using self-control to make good choices

Missing parts of patterns, ordinal numbers ( first through tenth)

Coins and their values, making fair trades of pennies, nickels and dimes

Numbers and sets to 20

Counting by 2's, 5's and 10's

Thank you so much for being so generous and for sending in all of the items for the Food Tasting Party and class celebrations.  The children had a terrific time.  We really appreciate your support and do love our fabulous parent volunteers for literacy centers, awesome guest readers, and generous snack helpers.  Your children are so proud when you come in to be with our class. 

Kudos to you all for working so hard with your children on sight words every day and for reading with them and supporting our curriculum.  The children are making amazing progress learning their sight words, which is exciting because they are learning to read new words. Thank you for sending back homework and for checking the red folders daily.

Please do not send your children to school when they are sick or until it has been 24 hours after vomiting or having a fever.  Everyone appreciates this, as germs can spread so quickly.  Also, please dress your child appropriately in labeled clothing for cold weather because we do try to go outside most days. 

Our TREASURE BOX is is being depleted rapidly, as the children are enjoying earning Warm Fuzzies, which is wonderful.  Donations will be greatly appreciated.  We also could use a big bag of M&M's for treats when the children make good choices in the classroom.

Some great websites for practice:

http://www.starfall.com

http://www.pbskids.org

http://www.sitesforteachers.com      This site links over to many others. 

http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten.htm

http://www.mrsalphabet.com/links.htm

http://www.mrsperkins.com/dolch.htm

http://www.ixl.com/signin/mountainview (for math)

http://www.myskillstutor.com

http://www.funbrain.com/math

http://www.cvl.cobbk12.org (user name is "cobb" and password is "bird")

Happy Holidays to everyone!  WE HAVE THE BEST CLASS EVER AND WE'RE SO PROUD!!!!

NOVEMBER NEWS

November is here and Thanksgiving is just around the corner.  The children are making incredible progress, which is exciting and rewarding.  Thank you for working on sight words every day and for reading with them and supporting our curriculum.   We appreciate you reading nightly with your children and turning in their reading logs for rewards.

We're looking forward to our Thanksgiving luncheon in the cafeteria on Wednesday, November 9th, at 10:25am, and we hope that you can come to eat lunch with your child.  This means so much to them. 

Thank you for donating items for our Treasure Box, for your support of Red Ribbon Week, and for our letter-of-the-week snacks.  Thank you to our weekly literacy center helpers and  guest readers.  We also appreciate our head room-mom, Jen-i DeBetta.  We couldn't do it without all of you!

Because of the children earning Warm Fuzzies as a way of rewarding them for making good choices and for kind acts of good citizenship, our Treasure Box desperately needs more items.  Even wrapped candy, like packs of Skittles and M & M's,  and small toy items work well.  Please consider donating any leftover Halloween candy to our class treat box.

Our units will be:

• Letters Gg, Ii, Jj and Kk
• Learning sight words and word patterns
• Proper spacing and formation of letters and words
• Writing complete sentences using Guess-and-Go Spelling and starting with capital letters
• Writing and Math Journals
• Day and night
• Veterans' Day, Native Americans, Pilgrims and Thanksgiving
• Counting pennies for exchange with nickels and dimes, making "fair trades" with pennies, nickels and dimes
• Three-dimensional math shapes and all shapes, graphing, missing parts of patterns
• Numbers and sets to 20, ordinal numbers and sets
• Writing numbers correctly to 30, counting by 2's, 5's and 10's
• Math calendar skills
• Listening and following directions, being kind and respectful to others, staying in seats during work time, and using self control to make good choices (like keeping hands to self and worrying about yourself)
• City, county, state, country and address, telephone number
  
• Nutrition and eating healthy foods

Looking ahead in November:

 3rd: Library

 7th: Fire Safety Program

 8th: Teachers' Professional Learning Day - no school for students

 9th: Kindergarten Thanksgiving Luncheon with parents (10:25am)

10th: Library, eat lunch in our classroom

11th: Veteran's Day, eat lunch in our classroom

17th: Library, Barney the Bus program about bus safety, Class Thanksgiving Food Tasting Party of foods similar to what the Pilgrims and  Native Americans would have eaten at the first Thanksgiving Feast.

                        

18th: Book Buddies

21st through 25th: No school, Happy Thanksgiving!  Gobble, Gobble!

Our kindergarten is really working hard on creating independence and problem-solving skills in all of our children because they are important life skills.  Please help your child learn to tie his/her shoes, too.

Thank you for your support.  We're having an awesome year, and we love our class and always enjoy talking to parents. Thank you for helping your child grow in so many ways.

AWESOME MATH WEBSITE:  www.ixl.com/signin/mountainview

This is a wonderful educational website of math activities and games for our math standards that reviews math skills in a fun way.  Our PTA purchased the license for this, so please take advantage of its resources.  A sheet was sent home at conferences with your chilld's user name and password on it.  The user name is typically your child's first initial and last name and the password is their two initials.  If you need this information sent home again, please do not hesitate to ask, OK?

INVALUABLE RESOURCE: Skills Tutor is a very important resource tool for children where the standards align with our language arts, reading, writing, and math programs.

Skills Tutor can be found at: www.myskillstutor.com

Please assist your child in logging on to this website by using the following:

Your child's student ID number (being sent home)

The password:  cobb

Site ID: mountain12

Happy Learning!

Here are some good websites to do with your children, along with starfall.com.

http://www.mrsalphabet.com/links.html

http://www.funbrain.com/math

http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten.htm

Fall Is Here!

We are really having a great year in our class, and the children are learning so much!  This is such a sweet class, and we are seeing wonderful progress each week, which is thrilling!

October is a busy month, filled with many events. 

October Dates to Remember:

 4th: "Walk to School Day", "Wildlife Wonders" in- school field trip with endangered animals (thank you for sending in the $5 to cover this amazing event that your children will LOVE).

 5th: Library

 7th:  Please have your child bring in an apple or two of his/her favorite color (red, green, or yellow) for math activities and for making applesauce.

13th: Library

20th: Library

24th - 28th: Early release at 12:20pm each day for Conference Week. If you need a different conference time than is written on a note coming home on October 10th, please just feel free to let me know.  I could meet before school any morning.

Report cards will be distributed during the conferences.  I'm looking forward to meeting with you.  The county has set the conference times for 20 minute segments.

Our lunch will be at 9:36-10:06am during Conference Week.  Please continue to send in a snack each day that week.  No after school club activities will be held during Conference Week.

24th - 28th: Scholastic Book Fair will be held in the Media Center (more information to come)

27th: Library

24th - 28th: Red Ribbon Week activities (more info to come).  Thanks for Jim DeBetta for coordinating this event for our school.

27th: Library

28th: Book Buddies

31st: Halloween (please - no costumes worn to school)

November Dates:

8th: No School for students

22nd - 26th: No School - Thanksgiving Break

Thank you so much for your donations to our class Treasure Box and Treat Box.  We really appreciate the treats and toys because we need them to reward the children for earning warm fuzzies.  They are such great incentives for making good choices and for using great self-control. The children receive such joy when they select an item.  Wrapped candy can also be used as treats (such as leftover Halloween candy, which would be so appreciated).

Now that the weather is cooling off, your children will no longer need a water bottle in class, but they are able to continue bringing one. 

Please remember to send in a note after your child returns from missing a day of school so that his/her absence will be excused.  After five absences, I am required to send home a note, after ten absences a letter will be sent home from the principal, and after fifteen absences the social worker will be brought in.  Thank you very much with your help with this, as I know that we are entering the cold and flu season, and Cobb County Schools are strict about this.  Please do not send your child back to school until 24 hours have passed since vomiting, diarrhea or having a fever.

In Language Arts, we will be learning our letter sounds, writing letters correctly, sounding out words, and writing complete sentences using Guess and Go spelling.  The letters of the weeks will be Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff. 

In Math, we will be working on counting and identifying numbers and number words, ordinal numbers, numbers larger than 10, and coins (penny, nickels and trading).  

We will be learning about Fall, the four seasons, apples and pumpkins, Columbus Day, germs, our state and national flags, the Pledge of Allegiance, our address, city, state, and continent.  Please help your child learn his/her address and telephone number.  Thank you for helping your child learn the sight words each week.  Please practice them out of order, as they need to be recognized quickly without being sounded out.

Thank you to our awesome room parents, center volunteers, guest readers and snack helpers. The snack can be a descriptive word for the letter (like excellent cookies for the Letter Ee).  We couldn't do it without you, and we appreciate your time and generosity. 

We are unable to have parent volunteers October 5th through the 14th due to testing in the school for first, third, and fifth grades.  We will miss you.

Thank you to Jen-I DeBetta for being in charge of scheduling our volunteers online and for being our head room mother.  Please remember to send in your contribution for the year to Jen-i to cover class projects and parties.  We count on those monies to help fund our activities to make your child's kindergarten year be special.  Your support has been wonderful, and we appreciate your generosity for the BoosterThon.

Thank you for signing your child's red folder each night, for sending in a snack daily, and for sending in a towel for our short rest time.

We are enjoying your children so much, and we are a family!

September News

Hi Parents!

September has arrived, and our school year has been fantastic so far!  Thank you for being so conscientious about checking your child's red folder, for returning paperwork, and for initialing the behavior charts.  Please continue to send in snacks and a weekly rest towel. 

We have been working on learning routines and procedures.  Listening and following directions have been our main emphasis, and we are thrilled with how well our class is doing.  We always give the children several warnings and reminders before they have to move their clips.  Using positive reinforcement has been the most effective practice that we use.  We want to have the students enjoy learning and always try to do their best with an "I Can Try" attitude. 

We really appreciate your willingness to help with literacy centers and coming in to be a Mystery Reader.  Children love to see their families at school, and it's fun to see how hard the students work and to meet their friends.  The class also really enjoys the letter-of-the-week snacks that are so generously donated. 

We will be doing activities with the letters Tt, Mm, Nn, and Hh this month.  The children need reinforcement identifying the letters and sounds of the lower-case letters.  We are also learning basic sight words that require instant recognition.  Please practice any word lists that your child may bring home.

Reading with your child for 20 minutes daily is important.  List the name of the book or chapter that you read and at the end of the month a reward will be given when the Monthly Reading Log is returned. 

In Math, we will be making and matching  number sets, creating patterns using manipulatives, counting by ones, twos, fives, and tens, identifying and knowing the value of pennies, nickels, and dimes, making trades of pennies for nickels, writing numerals and number words, and using position words. 

In Language Arts, our emphasis will be on identifying letters, knowing the letter sounds, writing the letters correctly and neatly, and writing words using Guess and Go spelling.  This is where the children sound out the words to write as best as possible.  We are reading and writing color words, and we're learning what good readers do and about text features of books and print. 

In Social Studies, we will be learning our address, telephone number, city, state, country, and continent.  Please work with your child on this. 

We are studying animal mothers and their babies, similarities and differences, mammals, animal homes, and sorting animals by characteristics of their coverings and movements. 

In Health, we will be learning about ways to prevent spreading germs, staying healthy, and about fire and bus safety.

The children absolutely love going to the computer lab each week with the lab teacher, Ms. Fine, who is funded solely through our Foundation.  We also use computers during our center time. 

Thank you for working with your child to make his/her cardboard figure look so sharp.  They are adorable hanging in the hallway, and we are a family learning together and caring about each other. 

We really appreciate all of the items and treats that have been sent in from our class wish list and for our Treasure Box.  The students love receiving rewards for their warm fuzzies. 

Thank you for ordering the teal blue kindergarten t-shirts that each child will wear for field trips and for class events. 

It is so important that you send in a WRITTEN NOTE stating ANY CHANGES IN DISMISSAL for your child or any special school program that you enroll them in (like A.S.P., Cardio-Kids, Kid Chess, Drama, etc.).  Enrollment forms for programs are located on the Mountain View website under Foundation. 

Thank you for your Scholastic Book orders, too, that earn special books for our classroom.

Students should be able to identify the number of days in a week, months and seasons in a year, and say them in order. We do activities on the SmartBoard each day to reinforce this and all of our lessons, which the children enjoy. 

IMPORTANT DATES:

September 5th - Labor Day, no school

                 8th - Library Day

                 9th - Class teal blue kindergarten t-shirt order and money due. Every student needs to have one to wear to class field trips and to Field Day.

                13th - PTA/Foundation Booster-Thon fund raiser kickoff

                15th - Library Day

                22nd - Library Day

                23rd - Booster-Thon Fun Run during school time (more info to come)

                            PTA Fall Festival from 6:00 to 9:00 (see you there!)  This is an even that you won't want to miss.

                26th - WellStar "Germ Quest" program in our classroom

                28th - Fall School Pictures

                29th - Library Day

October 24th-28th - Conference Week, Book Fair, Early Dismissal 1:30 daily with an early lunch

Every Friday, Chick-fil-A biscuits are sold for $3.00.  Also, Fridays are Spirit Days where the children wear their Mountain View t-shirts.  Thursdays are our library days, unless we have to schedule a Wednesday because of the media center availability. 

Students need to wear gym shoes on P.E. days (Mondays and Thursdays) for safety. 

Please consider putting extra money in your child's lunchroom account so that there is always enough money and your child won't have to make a charge.  You can do this online or by sending in money.  It is so much better for your child to only buy extra snacks or ice cream on special days, since it is difficult to monitor the children to have them eat their lunch first before eating the treats. A note to the cafeteria can block your child's account from having ice cream or add-on treats every day.  Our normal lunch is 10:21-10:51.

Here are some great websites for practice:

    www.starfall.com/

    pbskids.org/

    www.sitesforteachers.com/

    www.kids.nationalgeographic.com/

Many thanks to our fabulous room mom, Jen-i DeBetta, who is coordinating our awesome center volunteers, readers, and classroom activities. We also appreciate our center moms and dads, and our snacks for the Letter-of-the-Week.

Please join PTA ($5) so that our class can win an ice cream party!

Thank you all for your incredible support.  We have a super class!  Ms. Linda and I feel so fortunate to be working in a partnership with you to make your child's kindergarten year be successful. 

Welcome to Kindergarten!

It was great getting to meet you all at Sneak-A-Peek. We are having an exciting time getting to know each other in the classroom.  We're busy learning about color words and our families this month.

• Curriculum Night is Thursday, August 18th.  The PTA meeting will be held at 6:00 in the cafeteria before coming to the classroom around 6:30.  I look forward to seeing everyone. I will be going over our schedules, expectations, and curriculum for Kindergarten.
• We are working hard on handwriting so that we teach the children the correct way to hold their pencils and form their letters.
• I do encourage the children to bring in a water bottle each day during the warm weather.
• Your child's red daily folder will be sent home each night. Please check the contents of this folder nightly and initial the behavior sheet.
• If your child has a change in how he/she is going home at the end of the day, we need a note in writing stating the change. This is very important.
• Our lunch is at 10:21.  We have PE class on Mondays and Thursdays, so please have your child wear gym shoes on those days.  Tuesday is Art, Wednesday is Music, and Friday is Computer.
• Please send in your child’s snack in a separate zip lock bag to avoid confusion with their lunch.  If their snack is in a lunchbox, they consider it to be their lunch instead of their snack.
• Thank you for sending in your child's supplies.  We really appreciate your support.
• Here is a great powerpoint to practice reading color words http://mccallprimary.typepad.com/mark_cobb/files/color_words.pps

We have a great class of 16 students and feel very fortunate to their teachers.

My teaching is a partnership with you and I want the best for your child.  It is going to be an AWESOME year!

Thank you for all of your support. Ms. Linda and I are really enjoying working with your children. We are moving right along each day!

May Is Here!

We have lots of things planned for May!!  We will be busy and it is going to go fast. 

Mark your calendars for May:

 2nd: Wellstar "Wheelwise" summer safety program

 4th: Lunchtime changed to 10:45 for that day only.  Mountain View Public Library's Children's Librarian will speak to us about their Summer Reading Program.

 5th: Parent Volunteer Luncheon

 6th-13th: All library books are due back in the Library

 6th: Kindergarten Music Program at 8:30am in the cafeteria with the kindergarten graduation diploma ceremony immediately following.  The school policy is that no siblings can leave their classes to attend.

11th: Field Day in the morning and a world percussion trio performing arts program in the afternoon. The children need to wear their TEAL BLUE KINDERGARTEN CLASS SHIRTS for Field Day.

12th: Library time, but no more book checkouts

23rd: End-of-the-Year Celebration Party from 1:20 to 2:00.  All parents are welcome to enjoy the fun with your children.  Thank you to our room moms, Kathleen Leard and Shawn Martz, for planning this! 

23rd, 24th, and 25th: Special activities planned for our class (more information to come later)

24th: Dismissal at 1:30pm

25th: Dismissal at 1:30pm - this is the last day of school.  No book bags or lunch boxes are allowed on the buses (per Cobb County School policy).

Because of the warmer temperatures, the children may bring in a water bottle each day.  Please be sure to label them with your child's name.  For safety, it is advised that children wear gym shoes on the playground instead of sandals, so it would be great if you would pack them in their backpacks when necessary.

The children are really enjoying our units of Addition and Subtraction, Plants, and Maps and Globes.  We are amazed at the tremendous amount of progress the class has made this year, and we are busy preparing them for first grade next year.  Please remember to reinforce the sight words over the summer and to read, read, read stories, and to write, write, write journal pages about the experiences they have.

This has been such a wonderful year!  Thank you so much to all of the parents for always being so supportive.  We will miss you.  Have a safe and fun summer!

Spring Has Sprung

Welcome back!  We hope that you all had a wonderful Spring Break!  We're working hard to learn all of the standards that the children need to know before going on to first grade.  As we continue to encourage independence and self-help skills, we are now having literacy centers without parent volunteers coming in. We have been so fortunate to have such wonderful and faithful parent volunteers, guest readers, and snack helpers this year, and we are very appreciative of their help.  Also, please help your child learn how to TIE their SHOELACES before going on to first grade. 

Due to CRCT testing, visitors will not be permitted in the building from April 12th through the 18th.  This is from 7:20am until the time that testing is over, which can be unpredictable.  Thank you for your cooperation.  On those days, we will not be able to have parent helpers, guest readers, or lunch guests.  The school office will be available to assist with any urgent needs that might arise. 

April Units:

Signs of Spring

Maps and globes

Plants and soil

Earth Day and recycling

Living and non-living things

Creative story writing using complete sentences with capitalization and punctuation

Understanding addition using manipulatives and making math problems of their own

Measurement using non-standard units

Phonics: word families, blends, digraphs and short-vowel sounds

Reviewing sight words and mastering all of them

Reading for reading and fluency

Sequencing of events in stories

Please encourage your child to bring in his/her Book in the Bag every few days, unless they are reading A.R.  Reading the story together several times will greatly improve your child's reading skills.  How proud they are to be able to read stories to us!

Important Dates in April:

14th: Library

12th - 18th: No visitors in the building

21st: Library

22nd: Earth Day

       Spring Fling and PTA meeting (6:30pm).  More information to come.

5th: Book Fair Week

28th: Library

Important Dates in May:

4th: Kindergarten Roundup for next year's kindergartners where the new kindergartners will visit our class in the morning.

May 5th: School Volunteer Luncheon

May 6th: Kindergarten Diploma Ceremony and Music Program (8:30am in the cafeteria)

May 11th: Field Day for K-2 grades

May 25th: Last day of school

This year PTA will be taking orders and selling pre-assembled kits of required school supplies for each grade at a competitive price, due to buying in bulk.  More information will be sent home about this.

We really appreciated your wonderful and very generous contributions to the BoosterThon to raise funds for supporting our computer lab teacher and to help buy the new gym floor.  Our children have learned so many awesome computer skills and are competent in their abilities.  Each day we are amazed at their talents when we use the computers and laptops in literacy and math differentiated learning centers, which the children love doing.

The Foundation is selling tiles for the new gym floor for $10 each.  The children have had fun choosing the tiles that they want to purchase. 

Thank you to Erin Caimano and Jana Trask for teaching our great Junior Achievement lessons.  The children learned so much and really enjoyed them. 

NEEDED: wrapped candy treats for our Treat Box (small individual M&M packages, Skittle packages, Blow Pops, etc.)

ALSO NEEDED: toys and items for our Treasure Box (our box is very sparse and the children are so excited when they earn rewards for making good choices and get to go to the Treasure Box).

We appreciate your support and partnership in making your child's kindergarten year be so successful and positive.  What a SMART and hard-working class we have, and we're so thrilled to see their progress!

HAPPY APRIL to you all!!

 

 

 

March-ing into Spring

I hope that you all had a fabulous February break and that your children are ready to return to an exciting month of learning activities.  Spring and warmer weather are fast approaching and we have a lot of upcoming events to look forward to.  We really missed the children!

March is going to be a marvelous month as we continue to focus on learning about:

• The letters Ww, Xx, Yy and Zz
• Short and long vowel sounds, blending and sounding out words
• Digraphs: ch, sh, th, wh, and blends of two consonants together at the beginning of words
• Word families
• Writing complete sentences with details, describing words, and the correct punctuation
• Writing creative stories with a beginning, middle, and ending
• Proper spacing and letter information
• Sequencing of events in a day
• Reading to learn information
• Writing to inform
• Characters, setting, and sequencing events in a story
• Learning the sight words for instant recall
• Skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's
• Number recognition and putting them in order to 30
• Telling time, calendar days and months
• Ordinal numbers to fifteenth
• Counting and making fair trades using pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters
• Measurement
• Rocks and soil
• Dr. Seuss stories
• St. Patrick's Day
• Spring
• Junior Achievement lessons with Mrs. Caimano and Mrs. Trask - thank you so much!
• Living and Non-living things
• Following directions, listening and being kind and respectful to others

Listed below are our March events:

1st: Wear silly socks in honor of celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday and Read Across America all week long.

2nd: Wear pajamas to school

3rd: Crazy Hat Day and Library

      Final day to turn in Six Flags reading sheets

4th: Wear Spirit Wear and bring your favorite Dr. Seuss books to school to read for Read Across America Day at Mtn. View

7th: Rocks and Roll High-Touch High-Tech in-school field trip (wear blue kindergarten shirts)

      Boosterthon Fun Run Foundation fundraiser kick off begins and runs through the 18th (more information to follow)

10th: Library

16th:  The actual day of The Boosterthon Fun Run Foundation school fundraiser to earn money to raise money to pay for our Computer Lab teacher and to purchase a new gym floor.  Our Computer Lab teacher does such excellent lessons with the children, and her salary only comes from The Foundation contributions.  Thank you for your incredible contributions and support all year, which we really do appreciate very much.

17th: St. Patrick's Day activities and Library

18th: School Spring Pictures (notice the date change)

24th: Library

        Report cards go home

25th: Family Fit Night (6:30pm to 8:30pm) and Teacher Silent Auction (more information to follow)

30th: Kindergarten registration and screening for any new kindergartners for the fall

31st: Library and March reading logs due

Six Flags Reading Sheets are due by Wednesday, March 2nd, and the February Reading Logs are also due.  The Book-in-the-Bag reading that your children may be doing and any other reading program that they do can count for time spent reading on each of the reading sheets.  The reading programs develop the children's fluency in reading.  Thank you for reading with your child each night, as it really makes a big difference in his/her reading.

Learning all of the sight words has really helped the children become better readers, and once they learn all of the words, they may be starting the Accelerated Reader Program where they read books carefully twice and then answer comprehension questions on the computer for points to earn prizes from the media center.

As we are entering the second half of the year, we are encouraging the students to become more and more independent and self-sufficient with their class work and with keeping track of their belongings and responsibilities.

Thank you for supporting Jump Rope for Heart with your generous donations.  Mountain View donated over $20,000 to this wonderful cause.  We also appreciate you supporting our Fine Arts Night, school play, and the spaghetti dinner.  The children from our class were awesome in the play!

We really appreciated our very special Valentine's Day gifts, Teacher Appreciation gifts and your contributions of Clorox wipes and Kleenex, which we really needed. 

Please help your child his/her address, city, state, zipcode, telephone number, county, continent and country.  We will be assessing each child on this soon. 

Thank you so much for your continued support.  It's so thrilling to see your children making so much progress and enjoying learning each day.  We have the best class!

Fantastic February

February is going to be a fabulous month as we continue to be busy learning about the following:

• The letters Ss, Uu, and Vv
• Short and long vowel sounds
• Digraphs: ch, sh, th, wh
• Writing complete sentences with the correct punctuation
• Proper spacing and letter information
• Sequencing of events
• Reading to learn information
• Writing to inform
• Characters, setting, and sequencing events in a story
• Learning the sight words for instant recall
• Skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's
• Telling time, calendar days and months
• Ordinal numbers
• Counting and making fair trades using pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters
• Measurement
• Abraham Lincoln and George Washington
• Presidents and Presidents' Day
• Living and Non-living things
• Following directions, listening and being respectful to others

Here are some upcoming February events:

1st: Center of Puppetry Arts, "There's a Dinosaur in the Closet," field trip, (wear class shirts and bring a large snack).  We will eat snack at school before we leave and will eat lunch in our room when we return to school.

       Heroes Essay Contest begins through February 11th

3rd: Library

9th: Jump Rope for Heart during PE class. Please wear athletic clothing to school.  Thanks for supporting Jump Rope for Heart!  This is a worthy cause that the children enjoy.

10th: Library

11th: PTA Arts for Life; school play "Monster Arts in the Mtn. View Zone" at 5:45pm.  At 6:30pm Spaghetti Supper to benefit Relay for Life ($4.00 per person).  There will be exciting activities going on all evening until 8:30.  I hope to see you all there!

11th: Book Buddies

The week of February 14th - 18th a visiting artist will teach the children during their art class. 

14th: Valentines and decorated Valentine "mailbox" should be brought in.

17th: Library

21st - 25th: No school

28th: Six Flags Reading Sheets (six hours of reading) and the February Reading Logs are due.  The Book-in-the-Bag reading that your children may be doing and any other reading program that they do can count for time spent reading on each of the reading sheets.  The reading programs develop the children's fluency in reading.

As we are entering the second half of the year, we are encouraging the students to become more and more independent and self-sufficient with their class work and with keeping track of their belongings and responsibilities.

We appreciate Erin Caimano and Jana Trask coming in to teach our Junior Achievement lessons this month.  Ask your child about the great lessons that we have.  Thank you for sending in the 100th Day of School Snack and a daily snack for your child.  Kudos to our Guest Readers, Snack Helpers, and Room Parents!  We also are so excited about your children reading books with you at home each day. 

Supplies needed to minimize germs in our class: Clorox wipes and Kleenex.  Thank you.

Thank you so much for your continued support.  I also appreciated your sympathy after my mom passed away recently.  It's so thrilling to see your children making so much progress and enjoying learning each day.  Learning all of the sight words has really helped the children become better readers, and once they learn all of the words, they may be starting the Accelerated Reader Program where they read books carefully twice and then answer comprehension questions on the computer for points to earn prizes from the media center.