Announcements
First Semester Parent Teacher Conferences:
Here is a link to our First Semester Conference Sign Up, that will be taking place in December. It will be a 20 minute time slot, where I can share celebrations of learning for this first half of the year. Please bring your child to this conference. The conference will start with time for your child to pridefully share with you things in our room and examples of best work. Then we can meet to talk more specifically about growth and next steps. Wow- you are going to be amazed to see such tremendous growth!
Q&A
-I prefer not to have siblings in the room so that the focus can be on your child. However, if there are no other options, then I understand.
-If you EVER have a concern, please email me. We do not have to wait until conferences if there is something you would like to discuss. :)
-In addition to conferences, you will be getting a EPR (Electronic Progress Report) before Winter Break. This is the more formal way that teachers share out learning, but you will find our parent conferences to be where you get more specific, personalized information.
Looking forward to this time together!
~Ms. Lauren
Climbing: Our crew will be climbing next week. If you attended Mr. Doug's belay training, please sign up to come belay during our gym time: 2:45-3:35. The more belayers we have, the more climbing and less waiting in lines for kids. Thank you for volunteering and helping to make this a great first experience for our kindie climbers! Fall Climbing Sign Up Please help your child to dress appropriately for climbing (non-restrictive clothing including pants/shorts and closed toed shoes).
Scholastic Book Fair Next Week: Our crew previewed some of the fun fiction and nonfiction books that will be available at next week's book fair. Please note that kindergartners must be accompanied by a parent to make a purchase. Please do not send money to school with your child. Next week will be spirit week to generate excitement about the book fair. Dressing up is optional. Thanks for support our school by visiting the book fair!
From Ms. Erin: It's that time of year again...Book Fair is here!!! I wanted to share a few details with you all regarding shopping times, etc. that you can share with your students. The Book Fair will run Monday, Nov. 13th - Friday, Nov. 17th.
Students may shop before school starting at 8:00am only if they have a parent with them. After they shop, they must go back outside to await the beginning of the school day. Students may also shop after school with a parent and on their regularly scheduled library days.
Books can be purchased with cash, credit cards, or by e-wallet. Look for e-wallet (a cashless payment option) instructions tomorrow in the school newsletter. The fair will be open after school as noted below. Family Night will be Thursday evening from 4:30-5:30pm. This will be a fun filled event to celebrate the joy of reading with a special guest reader, hot cocoa, and cookies.
Book Fair Hours:
Monday 8:00am-5:00pm
Tuesday 8:00am-5:00pm
Wednesday 8:00am-2:00pm
Thursday 8:00am-4:00pm ***FAMILY NIGHT 4:30-5:30pm***
Friday 8:00am-9:00am
Adopt a Family: Holiday Adoptions/Giving
Every year during the month of November, Ms. Allison, our school social worker, works tirelessly, with a team of volunteers, to gather donations and gifts for families in our Douglas County community, who might otherwise do without. As a crew, we have agreed to help her secure some items for a few of the families she is seeking to help. If your family might be able to help, please take a look at the Ms. Lauren’s Crew Holiday Giving Family Sign Up and sign up for an item or two that you would be able to purchase and donate. We still have quite a few items that need to be purchased, if you are interested.
Please read and follow the directions on the sign up carefully paying special attention to the following:
Items must be new
Items must be unwrapped
Items need to be labeled with the letter/number combo that matches the sign up (with a stickie note)
All items must be brought to school (to me) by Monday, November 27th (this is the Monday following Thanksgiving break). There will be a bin next to our snack station (in the hallway next to our door).
Parent Crew Foundation will be hosting a wrapping gathering on December 1st. Look for more information soon if you might be interested in helping to wrap all of these gifts.
If your family might be interested in adopting a family on your own and/or helping Ms. Allison in other ways with this project, please reach out to her for more information: aparmour@dcsdk12.org
If you are interested in learning more about Ms. Allison's Holiday Adoption Program, you can read more here. It is truly touching!
Lost & Found: The school Lost & Found is OVERFLOWING. When you come in for the Book Fair, Family Night, or Community Reading, please stop by to claim any items that may belong to you.
-Volunteer Training: Virtual Module
-Classroom Volunteers: sign up (now updated)
Calendar
Crew Highlights:
Learning Update:
-In writing, our crew has been working on writing across multiple days. We started with the first page of "what do I want to write about?" Then the next day, we asked "what else can I say about this?" We read some pattern books and worked on keeping the same pattern across pages (such as "I like" or "I can"). Students were so excited about making books that they added a third, fourth, or even fifth page. On Thursday, we went back to look carefully at our illustrations and see how we can add more details to the pictures & background to help the reader understand the story. I look forward to sharing this wonderful writing with you at conferences. It is exciting to see their growth and their excitement around writing!
-In reading, our unit is called Rules at Home and School. Our mini lessons have been focused on identifying the central idea, retelling important details, and using words/pictures to figure out unknown vocabulary. We read two different mentor texts (one nonfiction and one fiction) to compare and contrast the theme of why we have rules.
-In phonics, our letter of the week was Ff and the high frequency word is. We have been practicing sounding out words that are three letter, such as fit, fin, and fan. We clapped syllables to hear word parts. Also we work on the "an" family: if you know can, then you know fan, man, pan, ran, tan, and ran. At this time, your child should show mastery of the letters/sounds of m,a,s,t,n,i, f and the sight words am, I, can, see, like, we, the, go, she, & is. Here is our Phonics List. We will do another assessment next week.
-In math, we finished up Session 6 titled Three Dimensional Shapes and Weight. Students learned about cones, cylinders, spheres, cubes, prisms, and pyramids. We did a variety of activities to learn about the attributes of these shapes (such as having corners or being round), as well as making connections to examples of real life objects. This was VERY tricky, and so I reccommend checking out the "Shape Hunt" activity (in Take Home Folders) I sent home to encourage you to do look around your with your child to identify 3D shapes and use their mathematical name. We also did some work with comparing how heavy or light objects are and thinking about their size and weight. When asked to think of something heavier than a paperclip, students had fun going overboard with naming examples like a boulder, house, tree, or car. Ha!
-In expedition, our crew enjoyed sharing their timelines with each other at the beginning of the week. It was fun to see their big smiles of pride as they shared important events from their life. Our crew discovered many similarities, and we ended up learning a lot about each other. What a great activity to learn about our CREW. We took this opportunity to talk about past, present, and future. We have spent a lot of time learning about each other and what it means to be CREW in our classroom. Now, we are going to be moving into how other groups work as crew. Introducing... Prairie Dogs! Stay tuned for more!
