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Mr. I says, "Happy Halloween!"

10/27/2012

"There is only one thing that costs more than education today--the lack of it." -Unknown

Welcome to the 12th week of TK! We are meeting a "letter light" letter, i.e. a vowel letter, Mr. I. As you can see he is decorated with inch rulers. This will be a good time to connect math to reading.

Your child might have told you that we were introduced to puppets in class. We are learning how to make the puppets move and how to speak in other voices to create characters. We will be practicing our puppetry skills. Eventually we will put on puppet shows in our puppet theater. The children love to create stories and work together putting on shows.

We are going to explore pumpkins in our class this week during science by measuring, weighing and estimating how many seeds are inside. Our Science vocabulary is: diameter and estimate. Erickson's parents have brought in a huge pumpkin that Rick will carve on Tuesday morning. When we get the seeds scooped out, we will let a volunteer parent take them home to roast. Any volunteers?

Remember Wednesday is our Field Trip. Please label you child's booster seat and leave it under the backpacks Wednesday a.m. ALL CHILDREN MUST RIDE IN A BOOSTER SEAT! It is a State law.

Please remember to check our class calendar to keep up-to-date on class activities, including sharing and enrichment classes. Happy haunting!

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Manners Matter

10/21/2012

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"A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine." -Anonymous

Here is Letter Person Mr. H with his happy hair. We will be meeting him this week and learning/reinforcing the sound of /h/. The children have practiced "pushing the breath out" when they say /h/ during Speech and Language class with Ms. Youmna. Be sure to reinforce the sound with your child and look around your home and neighborhood for things that begin with this sound. If you and your child want to make a list or draw/take pictures of some of these items, he/she can share it with the class. Awareness is the precursor to reading!

During Science Ms. Monks will continue to work with the children on the skills of investigating. You can practice this at home by allowing your child to describe objects with adjectives and play guessing games with your child. Let you child hide an object and then describe it to you. See if you can guess what it is.

This Friday is the 50th day of school! It is hard to believe we are 1/2 way to our big 100th day of school party. We will wear our Tie-Dye Zero the Hero Shirts to celebrate this Friday.

We are so excited for the Topanga Elementary annual Halloween Carnival. Please be sure to get involved and to help with our class booth-Lucky Ducky. All proceeds from the carnival go to TEP, which funds many of the extra special things we offer at school such as Art Trek, Science, Library and of course our wonderful classroom aides.

The opening quote of this post relates to playtime. We are so blessed and excited to have all of the new and wonderful playground materials. We have been opening 4 or 5 stations each day to allow a variety of options including quite activities, ball activities, jump ropes, the structure and sandbox.

We are still noticing some children challenged by our 3 B's-Be Safe, Be Responsible, and Be Respectful. Some children are challenged in unstructured settings and although classroom behavior is acceptable, some playground behavior is not. Please remind your child to:

include all children
keep their hands/feet to themselves
use words to express feelings
make good behavior choices (you can practice "what if's" at home)
go to the adults for help if they cannot solve a problem

Another behavior to work on at home is the development of patience. In our "instant" world, our children are very used to getting everything right away and many have not had the opportunity to develop the ability to wait, even for a short period of time. You can practice this at home by giving your child opportunities to wait patiently. We have discussed this in class and the children came up with places they have to wait. Here are some of their ideas:

the post office
the bank
at restaurants
at the movies
for a ride at Disneyland
driving in the car
going on an airplane

It is important to learn how to wait without being disruptive, or disrespectful to others in line or in the same place. You can help your child practice this at home and in public places.

We practice in class, on the carpet, and in line after recess and lunch. We also discuss positive choices during carpet time through our Conscious Discipline program (look under the "more" tab on this site), and during Council.

Developing social skills is a very important part of this year. Children who are able to develop positive social skills are more successful in school.

Please remember to check your child's share date on our class calendar and email me with any questions. Sharing and public speaking is graded on the report card.

Thanks to our Art Trek parents, classroom volunteers and to all of you supporting your children by sending healthy snacks and lunch, providing good sturdy shoes and by sending sweaters/jackets when needed. This helps my job of keeping the children safe and happy!

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Gooey Gum!

10/14/2012

1 Comment

"Truly wonderful the mind of a child is." -Yoda, Star Wars

This week we will meet Mr. G. Here is a link to enjoy at home! The Letter People short movies will delight your child and help to reinforce the sound. G has two sounds, "hard G" as in the word "gum" and "soft G" as in the word "giraffe."

We will be practicing our fine motor/handwriting skills writing the number 2, drawing the shape of a square and learn to write the letter "F" with the slate boards.

This week will be our first quarter LAUSD math assessment. We will give the tests individually to each child. I will give you the results when the tests are scored.

Thank you Angela! Our Super TK shirts have arrived and will be distributed this week!

Science:
Our Science teacher Ms. Monks will be introducing the children to science vocabulary each week. This week the children will learn about the meaning of "investigate." They will investigate various items in nature and use descriptive vocabulary to tell about the items and play a game of 20 Questions.

Art Trek:
Our wonderful Art Trek teachers will be teaching the children about blending colors using a color wheel. The children will learn about Primary colors: red, yellow & blue, and Secondary colors: orange, green & violet.

Shake Drill:
Our school-wide shake drill will take place this Thursday at 10:30. You will receive materials about this via school flyers so please discuss it with your children.

Important Papers:
Please look at the papers that come home each week in your child's book buddy. There are many important school papers that come home. Empty the book buddy each day. Many children are bringing heavy book buddies filled with papers back and forth to school. The folder should be in the book buddy each day, but other than the homework, and papers to turn in, the book buddy should be empty. Thank you for taking a look at these items.

Remember to send in your Original Art orders!

School Picture Day will be October 23rd!d

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Mr. F and Lots of new playground equipment!

10/6/2012

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"Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children." --Sitting Bull

Letter F, with "funny feet" is the star of the week. We will continue to work on letters and sounds in addition to rhyming, journal writing and lots of storytimes throughout the day.

This week we are continuing our art work, thanks to Tanya and Sophie, and you will be receiving a package of Original Art materials that you can order with your child's original artwork. These items make great gifts too!

Our playground materials have arrived! We are thrilled and so grateful to all who donated to the Donors Choose project.

Monday between 8-10 we will have a group of parents clean out the shed and assemble the basketball hoops and water table. So far we have:
Yuco
Hannah
Otto
Assia
Debra
and Jackie signed up but would like a group of 15 or so, so we can get it all done quickly. The shed will be emptied, cleaned and I am making labels for the shelves. We will also need at least 10 Command Hooks (with the sticky back) to hang jump ropes and bags of sand toys and water toys. Please send me an email this weekend if you can spare any time at all and get the Command Hooks.. I have a couple of screwdrivers at school and hammers, but if you want to bring a few tools that would be great.

I will be taking photos of the children playing with the new materials to include in the official Thank You package required by Donors Choose. I am sending home a permission slip that I will need signed and returned as soon as possible. Thank you!

Monday we are also sending home the field trip materials for our first field trip! We will wear our new Super TK shirts (should be arriving soon) and head out to Pierce College Pumpkin Patch on Halloween day! This is always an exciting day and a great photo opportunity. We will be needing drivers so please complete the paperwork and return it right away.

I appreciate the wonderful share items some of the Tiggers brought in on Friday. The children did a great job describing their signs of Fall. Be sure to let your child practice at home so they will have at least 3 sentences to say describing their item and be able to answer questions from the children.

I am looking forward to a great week in Room K!

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Mr. I says, "Happy Halloween!"

Manners Matter

Gooey Gum!

Mr. F and Lots of new playground equipment!

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