Happy Autumn, everyone! 🍂

We were greeted by a young buck on our ECO adventure yesterday! It dashed right out in front of us in the field—what a beautiful shared experience for us all! 🦌

Yesterday, we also started our morning with our SEL time, meeting our new Buddy Class, Mrs. Hockenbury’s second grade. We will meet with them about once a month to build community and connections together. We finished the day with our school’s unique tradition of running around with zucchinis in our annual Zucchini Race! 

Math:
This week in math, students are working on developing strategies for accurately counting and representing quantities. They colored in an apple counting book and participated in a “grab and count” activity.

Literacy:
In literacy, we began our first American Reading Company (ARC) unit. In this first unit, we will dive into letters and sounds, focusing on M and S this past week. In this unit, we will also enjoy many read-alouds with themes centered around scientists. Students are also beginning to build writing routines, with a focus on the fundamentals of drawing and some all about me writing.

Social Studies:
This week, students are close to wrapping up our social studies unit.  This week's focus was on self-portraits. Each student spent time and care creating their self-portrait. They are now proudly displayed on our classroom wall!

One More Special Activity!
The creator behind Bee the Change came to our school to speak with us all about the importance of pollinators—not just bees! We learned about the importance of native plants that grow well here and provide food and habitat for the native insects that live in our area. It was a wonderful learning experience for our students!🐞🪲🦋🦇

Fall Conferences October 12-15

Steps to sign up:

1) Click this link to see our SignUp on SignUp: https://signup.com/go/sfkuUES

2) Review the options listed and choose the spot(s) you like.

3) Sign up! It's Easy - you will NOT need to register an account or keep a password on SignUp.

Important Dates:

• October 7: 2hr Student Early Release Day (dismissal starts @ 12:17 p.m)

• October 8: Bus Evac Drill (8:15 a.m)

• October 8: UCS Open House (6:00 - 7:00 p.m)

• Week of October 12- 15: Fall conferences offered or progress report sent home. Sign up: https://signup.com/go/sfkuUES

• October 22nd & 23rd: No School for Students

What a Great Week of Learning!

What a wonderful week of learning!

We have been diving into our Social Studies unit on Civics, focusing on building a strong classroom community and understanding what it means to be an important citizen and member of a community. We have talked about how we are all unique—and that our differences are what help make a community thrive! We have also been learning about the importance of friendship: taking the time to get to know others, being kind, including everyone, and making sure that others are treated fairly and with respect. These are big topics for kindergartners, but they are getting it! ❤️

In Math, we have been busy counting, using a 5-frame to represent five objects, and sorting manipulatives in lots of different ways. We are learning that there can be many ways to organize and describe the things we see!

In Literacy, we are working hard on developing strong pencil grips and building our stamina for listening to read-alouds. We are also learning that we can use pictures to represent our thinking—and that we can begin adding labels to help share our ideas with others.

We also celebrated International Dot Day! This special day reminds us that we are all creative in our own unique ways and that everyone has something special to share. We had fun exploring our creativity with paint! A cherished moment was when a student later jumped up and grabbed the book, The Dot, to share with an adult who said they weren't very good at art. 💘

On Friday, we ventured out to ECO and explored the Coyote Den! We read I Am Somebody, worked together to weave and create, and even enjoyed our snack outside. It was such a wonderful opportunity to learn, create, and connect with nature! A friendly reminder: Please remember to send your child in warm clothing and layers, especially on Fridays. It is often much cooler in the forest than it is at school, and we want everyone to stay comfortable while we explore! 🍂🌲

A note from our Speech and Language Pathologist

As part of our regular educational screening process, our SLP, Stephanie Claro, will be screening your kindergartener’s communication.  This screening allows us to get a brief snapshot of your child’s articulation (sound production), fluency, vocabulary, grammar, narrative (storytelling) abilities, and listening comprehension. The results of this screening will be used to help our team tailor instruction to the specific language needs of our class.  For questions, please feel free to email: Stephanie.claro@mmuusd.org

Important Dates:

• September 21st: NO SCHOOL -> Yom Kippur

• September 23rd: "Bee the Change" School visit  

• September 24th: Student Picture Day - Send in forms, please!

• September 25th: Zucchini Relays (more info to come)

• September 26th: Harvest Market Parade

Week 2 of Kindergarten!

What another great week with such a wonderful group of kindergartners! We are continuing to settle into our routines, get to know one another, and explore all that kindergarten has to offer.

This week, we continued practicing how to use a variety of classroom materials. We worked with scissors, Unifix cubes, and wooden pieces that are helping us begin to notice the shapes and forms within letters. We also drew Mat Man, who helps us remember to include all of the important body parts when we draw a person. These activities are all part of building those important early skills while having fun and creating!

At the start of kindergarten, children are learning many new social skills, including how to navigate being close to others and keep their hands to themselves. We are gently reminding children to use their words when they don't like something, when someone is too close, or when someone is touching them. If they have used their words and the behavior continues, we encourage them to find a teacher for help.

The beginning of kindergarten brings so many teachable moments as we learn how to be kind friends, respect one another's space, solve little problems, and safely navigate being part of a busy classroom community. Thank you for helping reinforce these important skills at home! 

A little note about next week: This Thursday and Friday, we will have a guest teacher in the classroom while I take a couple of days away for my daughter's wedding on Saturday. Thank you so much for your understanding! In the blink of an eye, my baby girl is off on her own journey. ❤️ 

Important dates:

9/7  Labor Day

9/9  Early Release 

9/10-11 Guest Teacher

9/14 Scholastic book order due!

9/21 No School

9/24 Picture Day

9/25 Zucchini Run