January was a busy month! I sent home some art work in backpacks yesterday, please enjoy looking at all their wintery snowman creations. A class favorite book we read this month was Ten Playful Penguins.
Jumping into February, the color of the month is pink and the shape of the month is a heart. Along with lots of pink and heart shaped activities I also want to continue to develop everyone’s social and play skills. We are entering the seventh month of school, students are now comfortable and aware of one another. I want to continue to create opportunities to engage in social interactions with their peers. This can be done in several ways: on the playground bouncing a ball back and forth with a peer, riding around the bike path with a peer following, or serving food out the house window. In class during facilitated play time students have the opportunity to communicate to one another while making a pizza, building a house, playing with trucks. Each student has a different level of support that they may need to engage with these activities and toys but the overall focus for everyone is to build their social and play skills. Other little announcements: -A new paraprofessional joined our team! Farrah started today and I’m excited to have her join us! -It was a classmates birthday this week, a little goody bag is in your child’s backpack from the birthday classmate. -For Valentine’s Day we won’t be having a party we will carry on as if it is a normal Thursday. That being said, if you would like to bring Valentine’s day cards there are 11 students in the class. It is completely optional. Please remember no food items can be brought. -There is no school on February 15th and 18th. The 15th is a professional development day for teachers and the 18th is President’s Day. -My Scholastic Book Club plug: Choose books with your child from the paper flyers or online at: scholastic.com/bookclubs To order online, connect to our class using our Class Code (or look me up by our school name): TLTGH. Happy Reading
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We are going on the field trip tomorrow! We will be departing from Live Oak around 9:15 and returning around 11:15. We will be riding the bus with the same driver as our morning bus driver, which is great since we are all already familiar with her. There will be four adults, myself, the two paras Anshuka and Lucia, and Francesa from CEIA, riding the bus.
It looks like it will be a chilly but dry morning. Please have your child come with a jacket and closed toed shoes so they can enjoy all the fun. Happy Friday! I hope you all had a relaxing Thanksgiving break. We had a great week adjusting back into our routine with a class wide favorite Pete the Cat* themed week. We read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons, Pete the Cat White Shoes, Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses. On Monday, students painted a large button that I taped to a popsicle stick and now it is a prop for all of us during circle time. We also all (myself included) wear party glasses when we read Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses. Our sensory bin this week was buttons, we completed lots of fine motor activities stringing buttons on pipe cleaners and strings, and used them as counters.
Next Friday is the field trip to Walt Disney Elementary for YAP/Special Olympics. If you haven’t already done so, please sign and return the permission slip! We will be departing Live Oak around 9:15 am and returning around 11:15. We will eat snack at Walt Disney. We will be able to make any necessary bathroom trips while at Walt Disney and I’ll bring diapers/pull ups from your child’s classroom supply. Please have your child arrive to school in clothes they can run and move in including closed-toed shoes. Looking ahead to next month, the December themes will be holiday related including gingerbread, lights, candy canes, and evergreen trees. The math focus will be rectangles and the color green. *If you don’t already own the Pete the Cat series you can purchase them through scholastic! Choose books with your child from the paper flyers or online at: scholastic.com/bookclubs.To order online, connect to our class using our Class Code (or look me up by our school name):TLTGH. Bonus: This month, you can pick a FREE Book (up to $5) when you place an online order of $25 or more! We did it! Halloween is over and the 30 days of practice really paid off! I thought everyone was amazing walking holding the rope and waving to all our fans. I loved all the cute costumes and I hope you all enjoyed the pictures I emailed to you.
Now that we are in November we are no longer taking a walk as one of our centers. The center is now a bathroom and sensory table center. Students are working on developing their independence in the toiling routine including all the hand washing steps. Especially drying our hands! Everyone is great at pulling the paper towel out of the dispenser we are now really focusing on the drying our hands. Centers are now 8 minutes each! We started the year with 6 minute centers and we are working our way up to 10 minute centers. I think in mid-January we will try 9 minute centers. Art this month will focus around turkeys and fall colors (red, orange, yellow, brown). Today we made turkey hats, they are super cute! We also glued tissue paper squares on half a paper plate for turkey feathers. We used a fork as a paint brush on another half a paper plate. This week we also hand painted new placemats for snack time! It is a bit of an odd month with several days off. This upcoming Monday there is no school for Veterans Day and then there is a week off for Thanksgiving. Then four weeks until winter break. It is going to be a busy time with lots of fun art projects and sensory bins. If you haven't already done so be sure to check out the awesome Scholastic books that are available and can be ordered online and shipped right to Live Oak! Choose books with your child from the paper flyers or online at: scholastic.com/bookclubs. To order online, connect to our class using our Class Code (or look me up by our school name): TLTGH Hi Everyone,
Halloween is next week! The school wide parade starts at 8:15. The class will be joining in on the parade once we are all settled from drop off. You are more than welcome to stay for the parade! You won’t miss all the other parents who are standing around the playground waiting and watching. For the families who drop off, please note that parking will be tough to find. Pick up will remain at the same and since it is a minimum day for the rest of school parking will not be a problem. It is a big day for everyone and a lot to take in and process. Our daily practice has been going great, I’ve been really impressed with how well everyone is walking with the rope and following directions. I’ll let you all know how it all goes next week. Also, just a reminder that there is no school Friday November 2nd, for a professional development day. Parade practice is going really well! It is a daily center where I take small groups for a walk using the walking rope we walk for about 3 to 4 minutes before turning around to walk back to class. Friday was our first whole class practice. We walked the entire route and stopped into three 5th grade classrooms! It took about 20 minutes and we did a great job! Students held onto the rope and stayed in line while walking across the playground, up the ramp, across the campus to the upper playground, around the entire big playground stopping half way to say hi and bye to the fifth grade classrooms, back on the playground to head back to class. This Friday I am thinking about adding more noise as another distraction and sensory input that students will experience on Halloween.
In terms of our daily art this week students will create lots of pumpkins. Today the art center used toilet paper rolls to stamp on the paper. Then small sponges created the stem of the pumpkins. Tomorrow we will use the easel for the first time in a while and paint while standing and wearing an apron. Other art activities planned for the week include using our fingerprints, painting, and creating a jack-o-lantern with simple shapes. It's another week of fun in K1! As always please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions! Happy October! October in our class means practicing for the annual Halloween parade. Every day leading up to Halloween one center is practicing walking holding a rope and walking behind me across the playground and up the ramp to the gate to the upper campus. When we get to the gate we stop and I point to where we will keep walking on Halloween. Then we walk back to the classroom just in time to switch to the next center. Once a week, we will practice the entire route as an entire class. It’s only been two days but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how well everyone is listening and walking with the rope. I hope to have more information regarding Halloween but right now the details are that there will be a school wide parade where every class walks around the upper playground to show off their costumes. The teachers at each grade level are working on a secret costume to be debuted on Halloween. The school band and music is also playing. It is quite the sensory experience and change in our routine, however, the daily practice really helps our class on the big day.
Just a reminder, there is no school this Friday October 5th. It is a teacher work day, enjoy your long weekend! Also, there is still time to sign up for the Run for Ed! It is the weekend of October 13th and 14th, the Friendship Run is Saturday October 13th at 10 am. Happy Friday Everyone,
Hard to believe that it has already been a month of school! It has been such a treat to have six students to start the year and really build and establish those learning to learn skills and our class routines. As our class continues to grow (our class size is 12) it will be wonderful to have these six as models of appropriate behavior. Today we had a practice emergency drill. We quietly watched youtube stories with the lights off before we head to the playground for the all clear. Every month we have emergency drills, they are quick and don’t really throw us of our schedule. But “something different” is always good practice for our class. Two important dates next week! Tuesday September 18 the adjusted schedule begins. Class time is 8:30-11:30 every Tuesday from now on. Transportation has been notified that class starts a little later on Tuesday. CEIA hours remain the same. On Friday September 21 is make-up picture day. As I’m sure you all know, picture day is a challenging day for our class. We will do our best to get a picture taken but I’m allowing the photographer up to 5 attempts. The photography company is not equipped for our visual and sensory learners. The learning fun continues next week we will making lots of art activities with the color yellow. I have a sun beam name activity, a school bus tear paper, and gluing pom poms on a glue bottle printout as some of our daily art activities. The book of the week will be Mouse Paint. Have a great weekend everyone! See you Monday! The San Ramon Valley Education Foundation (SRVEF) annual Run for Education fundraiser is next month. The San Ramon Valley Education Foundation invests in the education of the students in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District. SRVEF does this through teacher grants, grants to the district for programs that benefit every student, and support of our affiliates (Ed Funds) fundraising activities at the school sites. The Run for Education, and all of the events related to it, is the largest fundraiser for the Foundation. All proceeds from the Run go to the Students of the SRVUSD. There are several different race options from a big as a 10K run to a Mini Run for children ages 2-6. For SRVEF's 35th anniversary, a new Friendship Run has been added. The Friendship Run is appropriate for students with special needs. This special run will be a quarter mile and divided up into smaller heats, which will be determined closer to race day.
Dates and times of races located at the outdoor track adjacent Iron Horse Middle School Friendship Run-Saturday October 13th, 10 am Mini Run (ages 2-6)- Saturday October 13th, 2 pm 10K, 5K,Fun Run/Walk-Sunday October 14th Check out the SRVEF website for more information and to register! https://rfe.srvef.org
In addition to all this fun, students also experienced our first fire drill of the year. The drill was Monday morning in the middle of centers, we all walked out to the upper playground found our spot to line up and tired our best to sit quietly while the rest of the campus made it's way to the drill. As soon as we had the all clear we went right back to work finishing centers. Everyone handled the loud alarm well and the disruption in the middle of centers. We have monthly fire drills, sometimes they are in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon.
Reminder: No school Monday for Labor Day, then our theme will be clouds. I have four days of cloud art work planned. Be on the look out for white paint on clothing next week. Theme: Bye, Bye Summer Books: Rainbow Fish, Step into Reading Big Shark, Little Shark, If you Give a Mouse a Brownie. Sensory Bins: pink and purple rice with scoops, bowls, red gems, sprinkles Songs: A Whole in the Bottom of the Sea (Barefoot Publishing Book as well), Baby Shark Upcoming theme: Clouds Books: It Looked Like Spilt Milk, Little Cloud Sensory bin: blue rice with airplanes, cotton balls |
ThemesLearn with your child about the theme of the week and what you might be able to do at home. Archives
February 2019
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