September 18, 2008

Upcoming Dates
Friday, September 19th: NO SCHOOL – Staff Learning Day
Teachers throughout the Cupertino District will be getting trained on our new science kits.

Friday, September 26th: Cupertino Library Field Trip
We will be walking to the Cupertino Library after lunch. If you have a blue library card already, please remember to send it on Friday morning. If you do not have a library card, your child will be receiving a new one on our first visit. PLEASE practice your child’s 4-digit PIN number (for new students, it is the first 4 digits of their hot lunch number). We will get to check out two books to bring home. Please return the books directly to the Cupertino Library at your convenience (DO NOT return them to Eaton School!)

Monday, October 6th – Tuesday, October 14th: Parent Conferences
We will be notifying you about your 20 minute conference slot in the next few weeks. During conferences, dismissal everyday will be at 1:30PM. Please remember to make arrangements to pick up your child on time!

Wednesday, October 15th: Fairyland Field Trip
Attached to this newsletter is a permission slip for our first field trip. We will be traveling to Oakland on a school bus with all the first grade classes. We can take four parent chaperones who will be taking small groups of children around the park. Please let me know if you can come with us.

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Dear Families,

Today I’d like to go over one of our activities that we are starting next week: Literacy Centers. You will see this packet (with a green cover sheet) almost every week in the Friday Folder. Your child receives 0, 1, 2, or 3 stars each week for finishing all the activities in centers. This is a growing process. Your child may only receive 1 or 2 stars in the beginning of the year, but I hope by the end of the year, they will receive 3 stars in all categories. I have included our literacy center rubric (how I evaluate work) in this newsletter so you can see how to work with your children on improving their scores.

The most difficult center is usually the listening center. This week, we did the listening center together so the students understand how to write the five sentences. This is called a SUMMARY. Please note that sometimes we do SUMMARIES and sometimes we do RETELLS. A SUMMARY is brief and covers the main points, whereas a RETELL is done orally and you repeat all the details of the story as if you were the storyteller. The listening center will be a summary. The five sentences in listening center include:

o This story was about _______. (Who is the character and what is the setting?)
• Example: This story was about three little pigs outside in the forest.

o In the beginning, _________. (Where or what’s happening?)
• Example: In the beginning, the three little pigs build three houses.

o In the middle, ___________. (What is the problem?)
• Example: In the middle, the big bad wolf blows down two of the houses.

o At the end, ______________. (What is the solution?)
• Example: At the end, the third pig tricks the wolf and catches him!

o My favorite part was when _______ or I liked when __________ (Conclusion – What did you think of the story? What was your favorite part?)
• Example: My favorite part was when the wolf couldn’t blow the brick house down!

Please practice summaries and retells with your children when you have time!

Some other highlights this week:
• Assembly: This week the Wildlife Associates came to our school! They showed us real animals from California such as a red fox, red tailed hawk, baby opossum, great horned owl, and a porcupine! It was interesting to learn facts about the animals!

• Computer Lab: On Wednesday, we did an alphabet project in KidPix. Students had to find stamps of different pictures that begin with different letters in the alphabet! Thank you to Seyon’s father and Winny’s mother who will be helping us during computer time!

• PE: We started our PE circuits this week. Mrs. Byers had our class this week and we played games using beanbags. We worked on our catching and throwing skills.

• Circuits: Mrs. Byers also had our class on Tuesday afternoon for our social studies circuit. We learned about maps and grids. We had to create a grid of our school layout.

• Math: We started subtraction this week. We worked on word problems in subtraction and learned some magic words such as: how many LEFT? or reading carefully for words like “takes” or “picks” or “buys.”

• Language Arts: We continued our dictionaries to the letter O this week. We didn’t have much time for Prince or Princesses though, so we only had 2 students this week. We wrote our Journals and some students really enjoy the open-ended writing time. Journals are simply to encourage students to enjoy writing and it is a safe activity. I won’t be correcting any spelling or grammar. I read the journals and ask them a question. Journals are fun because they can keep them and read them when they’re older!

• Writing: Another journal we started today was our Kindness journal. We are learning different ways we can be kind to others. Every week we will talk about a different kind action. Then we will start typing and illustrating them on our website!

I’d like to also thank so many of you for offering to volunteer! We have enough help on Friday afternoons now – thanks to Dodam’s, Maya’s, Kinako’s, and Fuka’s mothers! Also, Terrence’s mother has volunteered to be our room mother. Thank you everyone! We are lucky and thankful to have a supportive group of parents!

It was great to see many of you on Sunday at the Chicken Dance performance! I hope you had fun at the Cupertino Festival! Enjoy your three day weekend! See you on Monday!