Sharing: This week the Pigglets will share.
School Pictures: Room K school pictures will be on Tuesday. We will most likely go first so please be on time to school. We take our school pictures in the garden.
Coyote Run: Please get lots of pledges for our annual Coyote Run that helps to fund our P.E. program. We will be running at 8:45 on Friday and we need at least 4 volunteers. Please either sign up on our Shutterfly account or talk to Laura.
Purple Day: This week we will make our purple books and we will wear purple on Thursday!
Mid-Semester Progress Reports will be sent home this week. Please sign and return the letters to acknowledge receipt. Many students will receive letters as we are required to give parents advanced notice of children not meeting grade level standards prior to report cards. This information will be useful to parents and support at home has a big impact on student learning. TK and K have different report cards. We will have parent conferences the week of November 5th.

During our Language Arts time we practice "perfect printing" using the materials from our Handwriting Without Tears program. We use special pencils, pencil grips, crayons, magnetic boards, wood lines and curves and sing songs reminding us to start our letters at the top. It is very important to reinforce these skills at home as your child develops and solidifies the brain to hand synapses that create life-long printing/handwriting skills. This is extremely important as your child must learn to writing quickly and legibly and will be writing more every year as they progress in school. Early habits are important habits!
We are exploring new activities on our Starfall program including letter recognition, letter sounds, listening to stories, sounding out three letter (CVC-consonant-vowel-consonant) words, vowel sounds, math activities (patterns, sorting, counting, addition, subtraction) We also use sorting tubs, pattern blocks, play math games, learn to write and count with a new number each week, and work in our monthly math journal.
This week we will begin Art Trek. A huge thanks to Sarah for attending the training, and to Ana and Lisa for stepping up to volunteer to co-teach the lessons. This is a parent driven program and we are so grateful for our Art Trek parents. This weeks lesson is on shapes (such a great tie-in to our math program) and the artist Kandinsky.
Last week we went on our first Science "hike" to our garden. We explored with magnifying glasses and talked about plants, trees, and objects in the garden. We did not have a parent helper for this activity, but we really do need at least 2 parents to assist, especially if we want to hike up to the amphitheater. Please let me know, or sign up on the Shutterfly site, if you can assist with these monthly hikes.
Second Step will begin this week. It is an empathy program focusing on social-emotional skills and the lessons have a weekly theme. The program uses three puppets: Impulsive Puppy, Slow Down Snail and Be Calm Bunny, to teach the lessons. Also included are picture cards with photos of situations discussed as a group. I will send home a letter for each theme so you can reinforce the behaviors at home. Take a look at the website for more information.
The children are enjoying their Big Buddies and I have posted some photos on our class Shutterfly share site. We will be reading together and doing reading related activities each week.
We have a very busy schedule with so many fun activities in Room K. I am very grateful to the parent volunteers who help facilitate small group instruction and prepare materials. Thank you!
Best wishes,
Amy Weisberg