Week of August 28th

We made it through our first 5-day week in kindergarten! Everyone is adjusting to the new routines well and making new friends.

A reminder that even though the rest of the school has Back-to-School Night this Wednesday the 30th, we do not since we already held our night on the Monday before school started.

Afternoon Assessments
In order to best support your children in their learning, I will be assessing them in the upcoming weeks so that I can group them appropriately for both reading groups and math groups. In order to do this, I will need you to bring your child back to school after dismissal for a one-on-one assessment. However, if your child attends USD Extended Care, please do not sign up for these assessments, because I will be working with students over there next week.

For everyone else, please see this sign-up to choose a time during the weeks after Labor Day to bring your children back to school for a brief assessment. While your child is being assessed, you are welcome to wait on the lawn in front of the school, under the redwood trees, or wherever you are most comfortable waiting for approximately 30 minutes.

Language Arts
We will begin launching the Fundations program in the upcoming weeks, which is a language arts curriculum that the kindergarten teachers at Alta Vista piloted for the district last year. It was such a success that the district has now rolled it out in grades K-2 throughout the district. A big focus of this program is learning the correct formation of letters, hand-in-hand with learning their sounds. Handwriting serves to link visual processing with motor experience, facilitating subsequent letter recognition skills. The expectation is that by the end of the first trimester (early November) students know all their letters & sounds.

We had several projects and games last week around learning each other's names. Continue to encourage your children to write their name using only one upper-case letter.

Math
Over the next few weeks, we will introduce 2D (flat) shapes. Our focus in kindergarten is on the circle, square, rectangle, triangle, and hexagon. Not only do we learn to identify them, but we also learn about their attributes (a triangle has three sides and three corners). Parent tips for this module can be found here.

Kimochis
This week, we introduced our first Kimochi (Kimochi means "Feeling" in Japanese), Lovey Dove, who taught your child about the feelings: proud, kind, and friendly. Lovey is the Character who is sweet and nurturing. She is very wise and calm. She likes to cuddle and make everyone feel better when they are upset. But sometimes Lovey Dove worries. Children who have a temperament like Lovey’s can benefit from staying compassionate and learning to worry less. Lovey taught your child how important it is to greet people using their name and a “Friendly Signal.” Friendly Signals are communication tools, such as a smile, wave, head nod, or saying hello. Being friendly is a rewarding habit that children can learn to develop and use throughout their lifetime.

This week, we will be discussing "Zones of Regulation." We'll talk about how at different times, we feel different ways, but that all feelings are ok. We'll also discuss how if we get in the "red zone" (angry) or "blue zone" (sad) or "yellow zone" (silly) that our goal is to get back to the "green zone" as soon as we can. Again, it is ok to be in other zones, but we want our body to be feeling good in the green zone. At the end of the week, your children will be bringing home a poster with these 4 zones/feelings illustrated on the poster. I'd love it if you'd have them hang the poster somewhere in your house and use the same language at home. For example: "It looks like you're in the red zone. It's ok to be mad, but we can't be mean. What would bring you back to the green zone?" By working together and using a common language, I think it will help the students get a handle on their range of emotions and more easily be able to get back to the green zone.

Wednesday Envelopes
This Wednesday, you will receive your child's first "Wednesday Envelope." Since most communications from the school are now online, and most work in the classroom is hands-on, this will often only contain a few items of completed work from the classroom. Please look this over to see any areas where your child may need additional support. Every Thursday, please return the empty envelope to school so that we can send their work home each Wednesday in that envelope.

Snacks
I am noticing several students with too many snack items to manage during our 10 minute snack time. This week, we will start really tightening up our timeline, so please pack a snack that can be consumed in 10 minutes. Please also continue to work with your children on opening snack wrappers and snack boxes independently. Some of them have really fancy bento boxes that they are unable to open on their own and will need to learn how to do this, especially once we start staying for lunch.

AVHSC CAGE Drive
As presented at Back-to-School Night, the Alta Vista Home & School Club needs you! All the enrichment programs at our school need parent volunteers, as well as financial support. The kindergarten classes have a long-standing tradition of winning the CAGE Drive competition by getting the most families to join & support the AVHSC. Please support the wonderful enrichment programs at our school by going to this link.

We will start having parents in the classroom for classroom centers beginning the week of October 3rd, when we extend our day. Look out for a separate sign-up for classroom centers when we get closer to that time.

Yard Duties Needed
Another way to help us (either as a volunteer or paid position) is to help out with our lunch time yard duty. We are in need of yard duties for TK and Kindergarten (we are all out on the playground together) on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. TK/K lunch time runs from 11:30 to 12:15, so if you can spare 45 minutes to help at lunch, we need you!

Upcoming Events
Monday, 9/4: No School: Labor Day
Friday, 9/15: Picture Day
Friday, 9/22: Alta Vista Movie Night

Week of August 21st

We had a great first week reading books and getting to know one another and our classroom. This group is off to a wonderful start!

Handwriting/Name Writing
This week, we will begin focusing on names and letters. One of our kindergarten standards is writing a name with one capital letter and the rest lower-case. I encourage you to reinforce this at home-- we try to drop the all-capital letter name writing as quickly as possible. The faster children can write their names correctly, the easier it is for them to get going on assignments, as we encourage them to write their names first. I appreciate your help with this.

We will also be reading the books, No David! and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and doing some crafts and a STEAM project following these stories.

Scissor Skills/Fine Motor Tubs
Next week, we will launch our "fine motor tubs," which we work on first thing in the morning. Starting Monday, children will go straight into the classroom (no need to line up after I open the door-- just come right in) and start working on their tubs. Your children will want to come early so that they can get started on these tubs, as these are always very popular! They are a great way for us to sneak in some fine motor strengthening activities while having fun. One skill we will be focusing on is scissor skills, which can be difficult for kindergartners. Continue practicing scissor skills at home by drawing lines on papers to have your children cut on different types of lines.

School Gates
Starting on Monday, all gates into the school will be open from 8:05 to 8:15, and then they will be closed until dismissal time. If you arrive after the gates are closed, you will need to go into the office (that is the only entry point to campus after the gates are closed) for a tardy slip before you can get onto campus. For security reasons, please do not prop the gate open and please ensure that it has fully latched if you leave campus after 8:15. Thank you for your help with this.

CAGE Drive/AVHSC Membership 

Alta Vista Home & School Club membership drive (CAGE drive) is going on right now! The AVHSC funds many of our enrichment activities such as our music classes, Art Vistas, and Clay. We are so thankful that we have these wonderful activities at Alta Vista, and ask for your help to continue supporting them, both financially and as volunteers. If you'd like to sign up to be a volunteer for any of these programs, this is where you do it! Plus, by creating a membership account, you'll be sure to get all the updates on schoolwide activities. Please see this link for further information and to join the AVHSC.