October 9, 2009

Upcoming Dates
*** Wow! There’s a LOT coming up in the next few weeks…write these dates down!***

* Next Week’s Sharing: Something that starts with the letter R

* Tuesday, October 13th: Family Book Fair Night in Library 6:00pm – 8:00pm
The Eaton library will be open this evening for families to come look at different books from Scholastic. You can browse and purchase books that you like.

* Friday, October 16th: Bring a Red T-shirt to School
We will be decorating our Kindergarten Field Trip Red Shirts. Please note: If your child does not bring a shirt on this day, he or she will not be able to make up the activity (he/she will just wear a plain red t-shirt on future trips).
1) Please get a plain, red T-shirt (no words or pictures on the front or back, and make sure it is a regular cotton T-shirt, not a polo or fancy material shirt).
2) Write your child’s name on the tag inside (label, label, label)!
3) Please pre-wash your child’s shirt. It will be easier to decorate on if it has already been through the wash.

* Monday, October 19th – Friday, October 23rd: Room 8 Traffic Duty
Thank you for those of you who signed up to help with traffic duty during this week. Please go to the office to check in at the time noted below to get an orange traffic vest. Also, I have assigned some of you to the Farallone parking lot, so please make sure you know where to help. If you have not signed up for a slot, please let me know if you can help out in any of the open slots!
SUISUN PARKING LOT
Monday 10/19 Tuesday 10/20 Wednesday 10/21 Thursday 10/22 Friday 10/23
8:45am-9:05am Chris’ Father Antoine Raux Shaunak’s Mother Haksoon Lee Anna Lin
2:25pm-2:40pm Jane Lau
3:00pm-3:15pm Sue Ranney

FARALLONE PARKING LOT
Monday 10/19 Tuesday 10/20 Wednesday 10/21 Thursday 10/22 Friday 10/23
8:45am-9:05am Baixin Qian Haksoon Lee Bruno Tourette Aditya’s Mother
2:25pm-2:40pm
3:00pm-3:15pm

* Thursday, October 22nd: Enrichment Day - ALL KINDERS COME 9:00am-12:20pm!
The PTO will be organizing a special Enrichment Day for the whole school. Different parents and volunteers from the community will present special sessions or lead special activities. All kindergarteners will come to school in the AM session. If you are a Thursday sharer, please prepare your sharing on Wednesday the day before, October 21st.

* Friday, October 23rd: Pumpkin Patch Field Trip – ALL KINDERS COME 9:00am-12:20pm!
A permission slip will be going home about this field trip. Please return it ASAP and note if you are able to chaperone. Please remember to dress your child in the RED shirt that we will be decorating next week.

* Monday, October 26th: NO SCHOOL – Staff Learning Day
Students do not come to school on this day. The teachers will be gathering to receive professional development in math and writing.

* Friday, October 30th: Halloween Schedule - ALL KINDERS COME 10:55am-3:05pm!
You may send your child to school already wearing their Halloween costumes (that way we don’t have to worry about changing clothes). There will be a parade for the entire school after lunchtime from about 1:30pm-2:15pm, and parents are welcome to come during this time. Our room parents will be contacting all of you in the next few weeks to ask for donations for our Halloween party.

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Dear Families,

Thank you everyone for coming to your conference appointment this week. I always enjoy speaking with each of you one-on-one and getting to know your child better. I hope that the conference was helpful to let you know how your child is doing in Kindergarten so far. In December, you will receive your child’s first Progress Report, which will record your child’s grades for this first trimester. We are having a great year! I was pleased to read the notes from the substitute. She enjoyed the class very much and even bought 4 books from the Book Fair to donate to our class!

Here are some highlights for the week:
• Language Arts:
o Star of the Week: Kavya
o Letter of the Week: M
o Listening Center: A Fine, Fine School
o Story of the Week: In the Big, Blue Sea and Caps of Many Colors
o Phonemic Awareness: Beginning Sounds, Words in Oral Sentences
o Strategy Focus: Summarize
o Comprehension: Inferences: Making Predictions
o High-Frequency Word: I, see
o Concepts of Print: Capitalize First Word in Sentence, End Punctuation

• Science: We continued talking about Fall. This week we learned the five senses: see, hear, touch, feel, and taste. We brainstormed different things in Fall that we can sense. We wrote these ideas on a leaf shaped pattern, and then decorated the writing with fall colored torn paper such as red, yellow, and orange.

• Art: On Friday, we worked with Ms. Shyama on a neat tissue paper apple mosaic. We also completed our October quilt squares using purple and orange AB patterns. We also made orange pumpkins!

• Math: This week we finished up our chapter on patterns and shapes, and started the next chapter. We read the next mini-book story about Animals on the Farm and learned some more vocabulary words such as more, less, fewer, most, etc.

• Computer Lab: We tried a new software program this week called Kidspiration. Kidspiration is usually used for brainstorming maps, but it has nice other features such as picture icons and shapes. This week, we completed a pattern activity where we identified and finished the pattern on the template.

• Buddies: We saw our fourth grade buddies in Ms. Allen’s class on Tuesday during overlap. We finished our books from Me on the Map.

Have a wonderful weekend! Things are getting busy, busy, busy!!! Be sure to check out the “Classwork” section of our website! I have updated 4 different computer projects that we did this past month! Enjoy!!!