Week of January 22nd

*We are in need of 1 more center helper for Tuesday and Thursday, as well as other dates. If you are able to help, use this link to sign-up. Your time is greatly appreciated.

As you may have seen in Mrs. Bailey's weekly update, we are kicking off "The Great Kindness Challenge" this week at school. This is an opportunity to really focus as a family on how our kind acts can help make everyone's day a little better. In kindergarten, we will be keeping track of kind acts with a "kindness chain." Children can come in each morning and tell me about a kind act they did at home, and we will also celebrate kind acts done at school. When children tell me about a kind act, they will receive a loop for our kindness chain. They write their name on the loop, and we will add it to our classroom chain. We are hoping that by the end of the week, our chain gets all the way across the classroom! You can support children at home by reminding them to tell me about a kind act you saw them do and brainstorming ways that they can be kind & helpful, both at home and at school. You can find a list of some simple ideas here.

Spring parent-teacher conferences are coming up on March 4 through March 12. I will send the sign-ups out for those soon. These are optional conferences, but are available to anyone who would like an update on their child's progress. However, if your child had several areas marked with a "B," I would like to meet with you.

Language Arts
We will continue reading snow-themed stories and do writing projects and crafts around this theme. This week we will focus on the book, Snowmen at Night. The culmination of this theme will end with "Snow Day" on February 5th. Children will come to school dressed up in any winter gear they have, and we'll have some snow-themed fun! Our sight words this week are like and see.

Our emphasis in Fundations will continue to be blending sounds to read and write words with fluency. We also continue to work on the formation of upper case letters, covering two letters per day. This week, we will cover letters Ii through Pp. As I said last week, the Fundations Parent Letter has a lot of great tips on ways to encourage blending, as well as guides to correct formation of the upper case letters.

Math
We will continue with Module 4 this week; just the addition portion of this module will last up until President's Week Break. Parent tips for this module can be found here. I do recommend that you look these over, because there will be some new vocabulary for those of you who do not have older students who have done the Eureka math program. Of particular importance are the words "compose" (finding numbers that add up to a given number-- like 3 & 2 compose 5) "decompose" (take apart a number-- like 5 can be 4 & 1 OR 3 & 2) and number bonds (a model to show mathematical thinking).

Kimochis
This week, your child will learn the third Kimochis® Key to Communication: Use a Talking Face and Body. We will practice strategies for maintaining a positive facial expression and body language when experiencing upset emotions and conflicts instead of a mean or hurtful facial expression (Fighting Face) and body language. When your child can keep his/her face and body from looking aggressive or hurtful, others will be more willing to listen. Your child will learn how to notice and read the facial expressions and body language of others as a way to understand the emotion behind the words. Your child will also learn a communication tool called the Talking Hand. This is a positive and effective strategy your child can use to respond to peers or siblings when they grab.

Art Vistas
We have an Art Vista lesson this week, and we will be doing fish prints! This lesson is always a highlight. We use rubber fish and will be stamping them onto canvas bags. Your students will have a beautiful canvas bag after this lesson.

Upcoming Events
100 Day: We will be celebrating our 100th day of school on January 31st! That week, our center activities will be around the number 100. The 100th day celebration is just a fun way to celebrate 100 days of school after we've been counting up to this day during calendar time.

Valentines Day: I know that valentines are now available in most stores, and children will be asking about our celebration. We will exchange cards in class on February 14th, but this is not a "party." We have a fun celebration of friendship, exchange valentines, and take them home to show our families. So that you can prepare for this event, I wanted to share some information:

1. Please send in a card for each child. There are 23 total students in our class: 14 girls and 9 boys.
2. Please ONLY sign the card & put nothing in the TO box. It is challenging enough for kindergartners to pass out valentines to all their classmates. Having the "to" part filled out makes this extremely challenging and it takes far too long. Thank you for your help with this!
3. Please try to purchase valentines that do not have candy attached. I know those can sometimes be hard to find, but there are good choices with stickers, play tattoos, and other non-food goodies.

**Library is every Wednesday. Please return your child's library book by Tuesday each week.
**School spirit days are every Wednesday. Wear your Alta Vista t-shirts or your Bulldogs t-shirts to show your school pride.

This Week's Helpers & Activities
Monday: Centers @ 12:20 (Aida & Fiorella)
Tuesday: Art Vistas, Centers @ 12:20 ( Marianne & ?)
Wednesday: Library (Aida), Dismissal @ 1:15
Thursday: Centers @ 12:20 (Sean & ?)
Friday: Music

Upcoming Events
Monday, 1/29: No School: Teacher Work Day
Wednesday, 1/31: 100th Day of School
Monday, 2/5: Snow Day
Wednesday, 2/14: Valentines Exchange
2/19-2/23: President's Week Vacation
3/4-3/12: Parent-Teacher Conferences