Friday October 1, 2010

Happy October!

Your child is bringing home a purple reusable shopping bag today! Each family at Horizon is receiving a reusable bag to kick off our "Build with Bags" Challenge. This is a challenge across the metro to earn money for our school. It’s easy to do...just send to school any plastic bags you have at home to be recycled AND take reusable bags to the local grocery stores! When you check out, tell the cashier you’d like the credit to go to Horizon and we earn points! The metro school with the most points earns a free piece of outdoor equipment made from recycled plastic. There is an informational flyer in your child's folder with more specific details. Last year Horizon came in 4th in the metro....we’re hoping to win it this year!

Today was the first day your child is checking out a book from the school library. A note from Mrs. Adair is in your child's folder. They may return books (and check out a new one) any day during the week (not just on library day)!

A new reading log is also in your child's folder. Please remind your child to color one pumpkin each time a book is read, or for every 5-10 minutes you read together. Books counted can be books that you read to your child, as well as books they read to you!

The students had new carpet spots and table spots today! A few new stations were introduced, and the rest will be introduced next week. It was quite an exciting day!

Mrs. Abbey read, Jennifer Bing, Why Don't You Sing? which taught us that people in a family are different and may choose to like different things than other members of their family. It also showed us that everyone in a family is good at something, and that everyone is different and special. "Happy the Dog" helped us put sounds together to make words. Try saying the sounds in a word slowly to your child (ie. /b/, /a/, /t/) and see if your child can put the sounds together to say the word ("bat"). Try it with a variety of different 3-letter words to help your child master this skill!

We are starting to use math fact cards when working with our math stations. The students are enjoying using the manipulatives to show the addition problem, counting up their sets, and check their answer on the back of the card! This activity also helps with number recognition, making sets, and 1:1 counting.

Please continue to send in boxtops and other labels for education. We will continue collecting them throughout the year, but this "contest" ends Friday Oct. 8.

Next week, we start a new literacy unit, Friends. We will be reading books and learning about having friends.

We also start color week . Monday is "red" day...please help your child choose something red to wear!


Upcoming:
•Tuesday Oct. 5, students from Spanish class will come to act out, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
•Friday Oct. 8, a firefighter will come talk to the kindergarten classes about fire safety.
•Wednesday Oct. 14 is the day we wear our "Team Kindergarten" t-shirts.
•Next week starts our color week! Monday-red, Tuesday-blue, Wednesday-yellow, Thursday-pink, Friday-purple. The following week (Oct. 11-15) we will also be focusing on different colors.