Kindergarten Newsletter
August 15th– September 2nd
Lots of Important information Please read Carefully
This is the first of many newsletters! You will receive a newsletter approximately every three weeks when we change out overall themes in our classrooms. Our three week unit is divided into 3 small weekly units. Please watch for newsletters, read them carefully, and mark important dates on your calendar. Newsletters will let you know what we are studying and will help you ask your kindergartner specific questions about what he/she did in school that day. The newsletter may also request voluntary donations or items for your child to bring to show to the class. It will let you know of upcoming field trips, programs, conferences, etc. We will try to give you as much notice as possible on these type activities.
This first newsletter will cover the first week of school through September 5th. We have been working to establish a routine and a safe and secure environment. We want to encourage students to be independent. By the second or third week of kindergarten, your child should feel very comfortable coming to school and will most likely be talking of new friends they’ve made. Your child will LOVE school!
THEMES: START SMART
LITERATURE: ABC Big Book; Animals in the Park, An ABC book; Big book of rhymes; Don’t Fidget a Feather; The Kissing Hand; Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten; Listen Buddy; The DinoFours Fire Drill; Franklin Goes to School LETTERS: Introduction to all letters, strokes and sounds. More in-depth teaching done in other units.
WORDS: I, can
SOCIAL STUDIES: My Country and Me
MATH: Numbers 1-5
SCIENCE AND HEALTH: School Safety, Five Senses
READING AND WRITING: Name recognition, letter recognition, sight words, rhyming words
REMINDERS AND IMPORTANT NOTES:
- TUESDAY, AUGUST 30th: PLC Early Release Day: Elementary Students dismissed at 1:33. Please remember to make arrangements for your child to be picked up early on that day.
- MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH is Labor Day. There will be no school that day.
- SCHOOL FORMS: Please remember to return any forms you may still have at home as soon as possible.
- BACKPACK: Check your child’s backpack every day for communication from school. Most notes will come home in the Friday folder but sometimes it is necessary to send notes home during the week. Also, your child may bring home papers to share with you or books to read to you. Please help us by reminding your child to check their backpack for notes when they arrive at school. We will be reminding them, but it seems to take awhile before everyone remembers to do this! If you notice notes constantly left in the backpack, please let us know and we will try to give your child “extra” reminders for a little while. 🙂
IMPORTANT: Please do not return papers to school inside the Friday Folder. Papers sometimes stay inside the folder and are not turned in. It is best to have papers you are returning just in the backpack and your child can turn them in to the teacher.
PICKING CHILDREN UP FROM SCHOOL:
This will sometimes be a little confusing. It will be helpful if you stay in your car and pull up to the curb or the crosswalk area. Please continue to be patient. Children are to get in their cars only when they are by the curb or if their car is stopped at the crosswalk (This is only if the crossing guard, you and your child have eye contact and there is no place to pull over.) Please remind your child to let the teacher know when they see their parent/ride. As the weather gets cooler, we will have fewer walkers and parents getting out of their cars.
**Sometime during the next three weeks, each child may bring one item with a commonly known word/logo (environmental print) that they can read such as “McDonalds”, Lucky Charms”, “Fritos”, “Pepsi”, “Runza”, etc. It can be on a box, napkin–anything with word/s your child can read.
IMPORTANT: We do not have a snack time in kindergarten. This has not been a problem in the past, however, we monitor this each year as we have slight schedule changes. Our afternoons are longer minute-wise, but go by quickly for the children, as it is our most active time of day. The children will be ready for a healthy snack when they get home or to daycare.
PICTURE PICK-UP: One thing we could use help with throughout the year is getting photos developed. If you would be willing to donate money toward photo orders, please write a note or send an e-mail letting your child’s teacher know. We like to take pictures of the children throughout the year and any help would be greatly appreciated.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for your help in getting us off to a good start! Thank you also, for your generous donations.
Thanks again for the great start! Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns!
Amanda Williams, Dottie Kitchen, Shannon Svoboda, Bobbi Adams and Karen Langan