Fog Willow Pumpkin Patch was so much fun!
The sheep, the hayride…
…even riding the bus was fun!
Thank you to all of our parents who were able to attend as our chaperones: Caden’s Mom, Sarah’s Mom, Liam’s Mom, Melanie’s Mom, Katie’s Mom, Phoebe’s Mom, Kelan’s Mom, Alyssa’s Mom, Brody’s Mom, Lucas’s Mom, Rohan’s Mom, Isabella’s Mom, Madison’s Mom, Mikayla’s Dad, Peyton’s Mom and Emma’s Mom. You made our trip so great!
Yesterday was quite a day! It started off with National Walk to School Day in the morning with students and teachers wearing yellow in support of the day–as you can see our kindergarten team got in the spirit with the rest of the teachers by wearing yellow tutus! Students received stickers, cliff treats and Cougar Coupons for walking and/or riding their bikes to school.
Later on after school, we had our Kindergarten Parent Information Night.What a great turn-out! We had about 45 families represented at this first
Parent Education Night. We started the evening with an overview
of what the “vision” was for our evening. Mrs. Kennedy talked about Language Arts
standards and expectations and I addressed Math standards and expectations. We touched on homework, decodables, and sight words. We made two sided counters
for every family that attended and we also had plastic two-sided counters as
prizes. From the feedback forms it looks like there is interest in having more
of these informational evenings. We will look at the feed-back forms and
determine an area of need for our next discussion. If you weren’t able to make
it this month we hope you are available for the next one! If you have
additional feed-back for us, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Thank you to
all the families that were able to attend last night and we look forward to doing
this again!
On Friday, September 26th, our school will celebrate the grand opening of our Cougar Kiosk! It will be open to Kindergarten students from 10:30-11:50am and will be located at the front entrance to the school. It will be open again afterschool at 2:20 for all students. (Jamba Juice will only be sold at 2:20) We will sell different Castello items for your child to purchase. Please accompany your child to the Castello Kiosk so that kindergarten students don’t get lost in the crowd. Also, I would prefer that kindergartners don’t bring money to school since it could get lost.
This is a list of the items that will be sold at the Cougar Kiosk!
Next Friday, October 3, will be our fall picture day. I will send home the ordering information in Monday’s white folder. If you want to order online, here is the address: mylifetouch.com and you can pay by credit card. Be sure to print the receipt and send it in so that your child can give it to the photographer to on picture day.
Thanks for your continued support at home 🙂
We had so much fun at our school’s annual Fun’d Run, even Paws our school mascot was there!
Before the run, everyone was warming up…
And cheesing for the camera!
There were plenty of photo opps!
We were proud to be Kinderpups, ready to run the race!
It was fun to see so many parents and families come out to cheer for us!
Run Kinderpups!
We ran a little, and we walked a little…
It was fun to spend the day together!
Some local celebrities 🙂
A few more celebrities 🙂
Ah, the final reward: a frozen treat and some water!
The kinderpups took the lead!
Even some future kinderpups came to enjoy the day!
Thank you parents for supporting us!
As you can see, today we started our training for Friday’s Fun’s Run!
We ran a lap around the big track to learn about pacing ourselves!
Of course, some of us finished before our classmates and waited a bit…
But, in kindergarten every day is an adventure!
Some of us walked, some jogged, and some just ran!!
So proud of our Kinderpups!!!
Please come out on Friday morning to cheer us on!
And send in those pledges to help support our PTA, they are due Friday 🙂
This week we started Color Weeks. In class we are working on a book about colors and each day at school we have been wearing those special colors as well. The rest of the schedule is:
Yesterday we had 22 of our 24 students wearing white and today 22 of 24 wore red!
In the white folder yesterday, I sent home the Sept. Homework Packet. There are activities listed on the calendar that are fun, enrichment activities that include counting, coloring, writing etc. The math included in the packet is usually about a month behind where we are working in the classroom. We don’t want to send home anything to be completed at home that has not yet been taught in class, because homework is a practice activity that is designed to support classroom learning. The pacing on the math is really up to you, some families have time to do a little bit each day, others have to do homework more on the weekends–we are really flexible about this in kindergarten. The decodable books and sight words need to be practiced and mastered, so a quick daily practice of these is essential. Students need to be able to read the decodables fluently with no prompting or “hints” while pointing to each word as they read (tracking). In Monday’s white folder I will send home a large ziploc bag to keep the decodables in after your child has read them on Friday–that way they can be kept in one place and practiced. Inside the bag is an information sheet with ideas of activities to do with the decodables.
Most important and exciting…information about the Fun’d Run was also sent home in the white folders on Monday. The Fund Run is a schoolwide fundraiser, kind of like a jog-a-thon. Students collect pledges for running in the Fund Run and then there are different prize levels for the various amounts collected. This is our school’s biggest fundraiser and the money collected goes right back into our school, and the best part is that the students are involved in helping support their school!
Our class will be Mrs. O’Neill’s Kinderpups and our poster will say, “Mrs. O’Neill’s Kinderpups lead the pack!” We will make doggie ear headbands in class and need your support to look like puppies. I am asking our class to wear puppy colored shirts on the day of the run–brown or black would probably be best. We will use a water color black marker to make our little puppy noses just before the run. With a little bit of Friday morning parent help 🙂 we will be on the track ready to run at 8:30 a.m.
Special thanks to our parents who are able to come out and volunteer inside our classroom each day, on special days like the Fund Run, outside of our classroom representing us at PTA Meetings and also doing projects at home to support learning in class. If you work outside your home and are able to come into our class and help–please don’t hesitate to come in. If you let me know in advance I can plan an activity for you.
Thanks for your continued support at home,
Linda O’Neill
We have started the school year off with a lot of fun and learning in our little class! Our first days of kindergarten were filled with a lot of “how to” do just about everything in class. The children seem to be enjoying learning our kindergarten procedures and routines, and are taking pride in their new classroom.
Please remember that white folders are due each Friday, even if all they have in them are the sight word rings. On Fridays we collect them, take out any papers from home and test the sight words. Folders are stuffed with any materials to go home and then placed in your child’s cubbie on Monday morning so that they can go into backpacks and then home again.
Sight word rings will be tested on Fridays and then sent home in your child’s backpack that day, so that words can be practiced over the weekend, if that is your routine 🙂
We still have some families who have not sent in their school forms that were in the white folder at orientation. Please fill these out and send them along with the sight word rings in the white folder this week.
I am in the process of setting up a schedule, and will be contacting parents who said they were interested in helping out. Thanks so much for offering to help! We have been practicing rotating during Workshop and look forward to putting some more academic, adult led activities in these little groups.
Thanks so much for all of your support as we begin our kindergarten year 🙂 We have received so many supplies and all of your positive words really make a difference!
Linda O’Neill
I am very excited to start another great kindergarten year! I hope you are able to attend the Kindergarten Orientation on Wednesday, August 13th, 2014.
Orientation Schedule
AM Kinder– 9:00-10:30
PM Kinder– 11:00-12:30
This is a great time to meet the kindergarten teachers and see the classroom before school starts. This will help ease any anxiety and make the first day of school more comfortable for everyone. The first day of school is Thursday, August 14th, 2014.
You should have received a letter in the mail letting you know if your child will be an AM kinder or a PM kinder. The morning class is from 8:10-11:30 am and the afternoon class is from 11:00 am – 2:20 pm. By Monday, August 11th, there should be a list on the office window letting you know who your specific teacher will be.
Save the Date!!!
I can’t wait to meet you, it’s going to be a great year!
Mrs. Linda O’Neill 🙂
This past Saturday, it was wonderful to see so many families out for our “Fish in the River,” steelhead trout release day. We have been learning about the lifecycle of steelhead trout, from an egg to an adult fish who returns to its place of birth in the river, only to lay more eggs and continue this wonderous cycle. We worked with Mrs. Kennedy’s class learning and watching the eggs hatch and develop into very small little fish that we set free in the American River. Thanks to Mrs. Kennedy, we were able to join her class in learning about this amazing natural resource. Next time we will pack a picnic lunch to enjoy on our release day!!!
On Monday, we came to school, only to discover that the leprechauns had messed up our classroom! There were green footprints, glitter, gold beans all over the playground… and even some cryptic messages with clues that lead us to a pot of gold. The class was so excited, we just had to write a letter to the leprechauns, asking all about why they did what they did. The leprechauns came back two days later and wrote back to our class, so much fun. Happy, our little dog puppet had some big stories to tell the children about what happened the night the leprechauns came and how he did not like it one bit…five and six year olds sure have awesome imaginations!
It had to be the research that our classes did on plants that helped us win a first place ribbon at the school Science Fair. Our joint project will be sent on to the district Science Fair on Thursday, April 27th and Friday, April 28th. The classes’ hypothesis was that that the seeds wouldn’t sprout and grow without water, sunlight AND soil. The children brought home their “control” group plants today–they used soil, sunlight and water to sprout lima beans and some sprouted some peas. We also tested growing without the different variables: one got no sunlight, one got no water, and the last one, no soil actually did grow. We put wet paper towels in the cup instead of the soil and the bean sprouted and grew! All of our students were so surprised. So amazing that our little people used the Scientific Method to do this experiment!
A lot of people don’t realize it but, kindergarten really does prepare children for college–even though some of us are just really learning to read, we are establishing so many patterns for creative thinking and problem solving every single day!
Please feel free to comment on the blog or the activities this week, share with others by leaving a comment 🙂
Last week was amazing! Our kinder kids did a great job performing on Thursday in our Kindergarten Friendship Performance…so much fun to see them dressed up and excited to star in their own show 🙂 Thanks so much for everyone’s support of the program–so many families were able to attend that it was standing room only back in the classroom for refreshments! Speaking of refreshments, they were delicious and we all appreciated them so much 🙂
On Friday our Valentines Day celebration was fun. We sorted & graphed colored candy hearts, made valentines for our families, decorated cookies and passed out valentines to our friends, what a busy day! After this fun workshop, we went out into the school quad to see the Chinese Dragon Dancers from Pleasant Grove High, what a great experience that was!
Thanks so much for the wonderful Valentines Day suprises, I sure felt loved, so appreciated and mostly spoiled!!!!
This Friday, February 21 is a minimum day for grades 1 through 6–kindergarten will be on our regular schedule. Report cards will be sent home by Friday, March 7. We do not conference all families this second trimester, families that were unable to attend the first conference and families new to Castello will be contacted for this conference period.
As always, thanks for your continued support at home,
Linda O’Neill