May 7, 2010

Upcoming Dates

* Sunday, May 9th: Happy Mother’s Day!
Mothers, we hope you enjoy the gifts we made for you. We appreciate everything you do for us. Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

* Thursday, May 13th: ALL KINDERS ATTEND AM SESSION 9:00AM - !2:20PM
We will be going to the Cupertino Fire Department on Thursday. We will be walking to the fire station and they will give us a tour of their building. We plan to leave around 9:15am, arriving at 9:45am. Going to the fire department is unpredictable because sometimes they get called in to an emergency, but we will flexible with our schedule. We hope they will be free that day to show us around =) A permission slip is attached to today’s newsletter. Please fill it out and return on Monday. I actually need 6 chaperones to help us walk to the station safely! Please let me know if you are interested, but remember you need a TB test to chaperone. Thanks!

* Thursday, May 20th: Open House in Room 8 from 5:30pm - 6:30pm (NOTE TIME CHANGE)
Please plan on attending this important evening! Your child will be your tour guide and they will show you some of their work form this year in Kindergarten. We hope you can make it!


Dear Families,
What a beautiful week. We enjoyed the sunshine and warm weather! We are busy preparing our projects to show you during Open House on May 20th. Please save the date and plan on attending! Thank you also for those of you who participated in Community Day on Tuesday to help raise money for our schools. It was so amazing to see all the restaurants, stores, and businesses that participated to donate money, and it was even more amazing to see our community working together! Thank you for helping our schools, students, and teachers!

Here are some highlights for the week:
• Star of the Week: Jennifer
(On our website under “Curriculum” and “Star of the Week.”)

• Letter of the Week: E
(You can see our computer center drawings in the “Classwork” section of our website.)

• Story of the Week: Me and My Mom

• Language Arts: This week the theme was Mother’s Day. We started on Monday by writing in our journals, and we had to write two sentences about why our moms are special. We practiced using transition words between sentences such as “Also,” or “Next.” We learned that sentences should not begin with the word “And” or “But.” Continue reminding your child to proofread their work for capitals and punctuation! Afterwards, we illustrated our writing about our moms.

• Math: We are continuing to learn about solid shapes. This week we practiced sorting different solid shapes by vocabulary words such as shapes that roll, slide, or shapes that can do both, as well as round shapes with no corners vs. shapes with more than 1 corner. We are identifying characteristics of each shape and also thinking about real objects that have the same shape. We are actually at the end of our math book, so you will not be seeing as many worksheets going home. Instead, we are working on many of our concepts through hands-on activities and projects.

• Buddies: We saw Ms. Allen’s class on Tuesday, and they helped us with a time math project. We read the book Time To by Bruce McMillan, and we are adapting our own stories from his example. We practiced drawing clocks and telling time by the hour. We thought about all the things we do during the day, from eight o’clock in the morning to eight o’clock at night. Big buddies helped us to brainstorm and write down our daily activities. We illustrated our book.

• Computer Lab: We continued our Very Hungry Caterpillar stories in the computer lab. This project is very independent, and each child’s progress varies according to how focused they are. We hope they will be finished by Open House for you to see!

• Science: Our silkworms are growing!!! They were about 2mm two weeks ago, and some of the silkworms have doubled in size! Friday centers have been an opportunity for us to observe and measure our silkworms. Also, in science, we are continuing our Five Senses at School pop-up book. We have completed our senses for seeing, hearing, and smelling so far.

• Social Studies: We are thinking about our families this week, specifically our mother and father. We wrote a paragraph describing our parents and all that they do for us. We are trying to add details in our writing. Afterwards, we illustrated portraits of both our mother and father. We also made a Mother’s Day frame during Friday centers to celebrate our moms.

• Assembly: This week we had an assembly by the San Jose Opera called, “Elixir of Love.” It was fun to see and hear a different type of performance than what we are used to. We learned that the actors and actresses have to change characters and costumes throughout the play sometimes.

• Library: Next week, we may not be able to have our regular library visit on Monday because of STAR test make-ups for 2nd – 5th graders. We will not know for sure until Monday. Therefore, we might only have the regular homework packets and not our library journals. Please return the homework on Friday as usual.

On Tuesday next week, we are getting a new PM student! It is so hard to have new students start this late in the year, with less than a month left, but we welcome her and her family to our class. Her name is Sumana Karnala. Please say hello to her family!