Room A Newsletter, September 24th

September 24, 2009

Room A Newsletter!

September 24, 2009

Dear Families,

This week, we celebrated our 10^th day of school with a visit from Zero the Hero. Zero taught us about how zero holds a place (so 10 is 2 numbers, a 1 and a 0) and he brought us dimes. We also started talking about each other’s names. We have put up 6 names on the word wall, and heard the stories of how they got their names. What a fun way to learn about letters! There is a lot of student work up in the classroom! In math, we are talking about patterns. We have been practicing with AB patterns. Can your child find patterns at home? Please make sure you are reading each night with your child for at least 20 minutes!

Attendance Policy

Our school budget is based on attendance, which means each time your child is absent, Odyssey looses $43 from our budget. Please try to schedule vacations around our school vacation, but if you must (I know sometimes a family trip is educational and unavoidable), you are more than welcome to donate to the annual campaign! Thanks for your understanding!

Healthy Snacks-- Part of our school culture involved being healthy. This includes snacks. Your child needs a healthy snack (especially protein!) to get through our long kindergarten day. Some great ideas I’ve seen are: a piece of fruit, yogurt, crackers and cheese, etc. Also, juice contains a lot of sugar. The best choice for drink is always water. If you’d like to send your child with a refillable water bottle, we have a filtered drinking fountain in the classroom.

Dress Code

Please make sure your child comes to school in closed-toed shoes—meaning no sandals or Crocs. Also, girls must wear shirts that have straps wider than 3 fingers (meaning no spaghetti straps or thin strapped shirts or dresses).

Upcoming events:

· We will have a KINDERGARTEN PICNIC for both kindergarten classes! We will have a potluck lunch and then the yard and other activities for children, and some special work for parents/other family members on Sunday, October 11^th from 1:00-3:00 Please feel free to stop by for as much or as little time as you can!

· ILP meetings will be held the week of October 26^th. Please sign up for a 30 minutes slot if you have not already done so. Thank you!

· Meeting to discuss the Reading and Writing Curriculum: November 5^th at 3 pm.

Room A expectations

Your children came up with these for agreements for the classroom:

1. We will listen to the kids and the teacher when they are sharing.

2. Be careful.

3. Take care of materials in the classroom.

4. Take care of our friends.

You might want to go over these at home to reinforce them. Thanks!

Pickup

…will now be from the classroom, HOWEVER, you can also just drive up to the front of the school and one of the aides will walkie talkie me in the classroom (and your child will come out to meet you).

Tags:

Add comment

COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first!

Room A Newsletter Sept. 17

September 17, 2009

Room A Newsletter!

September 17, 2009

Dear Families,

Our second week is going well! We have jumped into our classroom routine—learning how our morning meeting works, how our clean-up routine will go, etc. We shared our favorite books and learned that we are all very different readers! These books will be in a special bin in the classroom for a few weeks so we can share them. Our turtle arrived and we learned how to take care of him. We started talking about our names and creating expectations for ourselves for how we want our classroom to run. We even learned the Peace Path!

Next week, we will start talking about our names. Each child will have a day where he/she will be the special name of the day. For part of this activity, each child will get to tell the story of how he/she got his/her name. Please discuss with your child (if needed, you can write it down so Mollie or I can help).

Healthy Snacks-- Part of our school culture involved being healthy. This includes snacks. Your child needs a healthy snack (especially protein!) to get through our long kindergarten day. Some great ideas I’ve seen are: a piece of fruit, yogurt, crackers and cheese, etc. Also, juice contains a lot of sugar. The best choice for drink is always water. If you’d like to send your child with a refillable water bottle, we have a filtered drinking fountain in the classroom.

On Wednesdays, we have PE (ask about their fun time today with Mr. Denny!). Please make sure your child comes to school dressed appropriately on these days.

Please make sure your child comes to school in closed-toed shoes—meaning no sandals or Crocs. Also, girls must wear shirts that have straps wider than 3 fingers (meaning no spaghetti straps or thin strapped shirts or dresses).

Family Tree

We have a family tree in our classroom so that we can all feel the presence of our families throughout the year. Please give your child a picture of your family to put on our tree. It will be returned at the end of the year.

We will have a KINDERGARTEN PICNIC for both kindergarten classes! We will have a potluck lunch and then the yard and other activities for children, and some special work for parents/other family members on Sunday, October 11^th from 1:00-3:00 Please feel free to stop by for as much or as little time as you can! We will have a food sign-up when it gets closer!

Thank you to Metta’s family and Peyton’s family for helping us get the basics for our turtle, Scooter, and to Metta’s family for helping set up the tank! We still need some items to keep Scooter healthy and happy (including some fish), so if you’d like to help, I could either give you an item to purchase or you could donate a gift card to PetCo. Thank you for your support! Scooter will teach us a lot this year!

HOMEWORK IN KINDERGARTEN

There will not be any required homework in kindergarten, except what I know most of you are doing already—reading! Kindergarteners are expected to read for at least 20 minutes a night (either with a parent, sibling, adult, or by themselves). I will also occasionally send home optional homework ideas (such as the idea last week about storytelling at home).

Room A expectations

Your children came up with these for agreements for the classroom:

1. We will listen to the kids and the teacher when they are sharing.

2. Be careful.

3. Take care of materials in the classroom.

4. Take care of our friends.

You might want to go over these at home to reinforce them. Thanks!

Pickup

…will now be from the classroom. Thank you!

Tags:

Add comment

COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first!

Our TA, Mollie

September 13, 2009

Mollie is currently entering her fourth year in the elementary classroom having worked as a long term substitute and K-8 visual art instructor at various charter schools throughout the Los Angeles area. Her background is in arts and enrichment and she has many years experience in early childhood, youth and community based organizations. Mollie currently serves on the Board of Directors as Program Chair at a cooperative Nursery School working closely with staff and families in parent education programming and curriculum development. Mollie has a B.F.A. in Visual Art with a postgraduate in advanced printmaking, she has studied Early Childhood Education at UCLA and is currently completing her California Teaching Credential at Cal State University. Mollie is passionate about the Arts and education, she is very excited to be joining us here at Odyssey and is looking forward to getting to know all of you over the next few weeks!

Tags:

Add comment

COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first!

9/10 Newsletter

September 10, 2009

Dear Families,
Welcome to the 2009-2010 school year at Odyssey! Ms. Molly and I are looking forward to an exciting year! Today we continued getting to know each other and our new school, and will be getting comfortable with each other and the routines of our classroom for the next few weeks of school. Your children are working hard at learning each other’s names and learning about the things in our classroom (such as how to hold scissors, cleaning up after Creative Workshop, and washing our hands).
Please check in with me to let me know how your child’s first week of school is going! You can contact me anytime before or after school (I will normally be on campus from 7:15 until 4pm) or by email at erinw@ocsmail.org. I look forward to working with you this year!

Extra Clothes
In case we get messy or have accidents, please send an extra set of clothes in a Ziplock bag for your child. Please clearly mark your child’s name on the outside of the bag.

Favorite Book
We will be learning a lot about each other as readers. One way that we do this is by sharing our favorite books. I’m hoping that each student can bring their favorite book from home on Monday to keep at school for a few weeks. We will take very good care of these special treasures!

Volunteering
I was excited to learn that many of you want to volunteer in the classroom (and outside the classroom!), however, it may be a few weeks before we are ready for classroom volunteers. You are welcome to join us for the beginning of the day. Each morning for students to put their things away, complete morning jobs, and read a book. Please feel free to stay with them and help them get settled until we are ready to start our morning meeting at about 8:30. If you have any questions, please let me know.
We will have a KINDERGARTEN PICNIC for both kindergarten classes! We will have a potluck lunch and then the yard and other activities for children, and some special work for parents/other family members on Sunday, October 11th from 1:00-3:00 Please feel free to stop by for as much or as little time as you can! We will have a food sign-up when it gets closer!

Please fill out the attached surveys to let me know about your volunteer preferences as well as helping me learn about your child.

Family Tree
We have a family tree in our classroom so that we can all feel the presence of our families throughout the year. Please give your child a picture of your family to put on our tree. It will be returned at the end of the year.

A little bit more about me…
As many of you noticed, I am pregnant and expecting my first child! I am due January 1st, which means I’ll be taking my maternity leave during the time between Winter Break and Spring Break. We are incredibly fortunate to have Ms. Molly with us, who will be taking over during the time I am gone. She has extensive experience in the classroom, and is completing her teaching credential this year. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to ask me or Ms. Lauren.

On Wednesdays, we have PE (ask about their fun time today with Mr. Denny!). Please make sure your child comes to school dressed appropriately on these days.
Also, please make sure your child comes to school in closed-toed shoes—meaning no sandals or Crocs.

More Volunteering:
•    I have a small cutting project that needs to be done this week.
•    We are going to need help washing our dress-up clothes and hand towels. I am going to put up a sign-up sheet on the Parent Board in the classroom, so if you could lend your washing machine, please sign up!
•    I also need help putting up chairs each afternoon and taking them down in the morning. We have a great cleaning crew who wants to make sure the floor is clean, but can only do it if everything is off the floor. If you can help, please stay a bit after school or help in the morning when the door opens.
Thank you, thank you!!

We will be here Saturday from 3-6 for the Orientation and Picnic. Looking forward to seeing you!

Storytelling:
We are working on oral storytelling in class, and have heard stories from each student about his/her summer. This is a great skill to practice at home!

Wishlist
If you would like to help our classroom, please check the class wishlist on the classroom blog (at www.odysseycharterschool.com click Teachers and then Erin Munavu)

I was hoping to bring the turtle to the classroom this weekend, but unfortunately do not have all the supplies I need. If you can, please help by donating a gift certificate to PetCo so our turtle can join us as soon as possible!

The 09-10 Parent Student Handbook, which contains a plethora of information regarding our official school policies and procedures, is being sent home today.
You can also access this online at:

http://www.odysseycharterschool.org/parents/Documents-and-Forms.cfm

Please help me get to know your child better by filling in this form. All information is confidential and will only be used by me to work with your children, but because you are your child’s first teacher, your input is extremely valuable! Please return the surveys by Monday, September 14th. If you have anything else you would like to tell me about your child, please feel free to attach another sheet. Thank you!

Child’s Name __________________________________________________________________
Parent or Guardian Name(s) ______________________________________________________
Address ______________________________________________________________________
Phone # Home _________________________________________________________________
Any other # you want me to have ____________________________________________
Child’s Birthday ________________________________________________________
What languages are spoken at home? _______________________________________________
Names and ages of siblings: ______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Does your child have any allergies or any medical conditions we should know about? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What are the most challenging issues you experience with your child? _____________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
What holidays do you celebrate? Are there any you do not celebrate? _____________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
What are your child’s interests? ___________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
What do you see as your child’s strengths? __________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
What do you hope your child learns or gains this year? _______________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
What are some places your child visits frequents? ___________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Do you ever read with your child at home? Does your child like to read? ________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Please list some of your family’s favorite books, authors, characters, cartoons, or videos ____
___________________________________________________________________________

Volunteer Survey
Do you use email? _________ Email address: __________________________________
What is your preferred method of communication? ______________________________
If we were to have a meeting before or after school, what would be the best time?
    (Please circle)     before school        right after school        in the evening
Please check all they ways you would be interested in helping.
    _______     Share about your culture ___________________________
    _______     Share about your occupation ___________________________
    _______     Share a hobby or skill ___________________________
    _______     Volunteer in the classroom to work with small groups of students
    _______     Volunteer in the classroom to work one-on-one with students
    _______     Assist on special days (Stone Soup Day, celebrations, etc.)
    _______     Chaperone field trips
    _______     Prepare supplies at home or school
    _______     Make copies (if you have access to a Xerox machine)
    _______     Wash dress-up clothing throughout the year
    _______     Make phone calls or emails to other parents
    _______     Organize the Scholastic Book orders for our class
    _______     Other suggestions? _____________________________________________
Comments? _____________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Please tell me anything else you would like me to know about you _________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Thank you so much for all your support!

Tags:

Add comment

COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first!

Preparing for the first day of school

September 03, 2009

Preparing For the First Day of School

Dear Families,

Again thank you for all of your help and support as we begin our first day of kindergarten. Ms. Molly and I are very excited to begin the new school year. Some parents have asked what their child should bring and what the first day will look like so I thought I would send out a brief outline.

Each child will be given a cubby to store their snacks, lunch, blankets, and other personal items.
**Cubbies are not very big so please take that into consideration.
** I prefer students do not bring their own school supplies- we have classroom supplies (thank you for all your donations!).

Healthy snack- please provide two healthy snacks for your child: one for the morning and the other for the afternoon. Students can have these separate from their lunch so they know what is for lunch and what is for snack. If you need ideas of healthy snacks, please let me know.

Towel or small blanket labeled with your child’s name- we will have a quiet time after lunch. I will be turning the lights off and students can lie down—if children fall asleep I will allow them to take a nap while others move into Creative Workshop (choice time).
**As we move into 2nd and 3rd trimesters I imagine there will be less napping and more constructive play, science, and/or social studies.

Extra clothing- In case we get messy or have accidents, please send an extra set of clothes in a Ziplock bag for your child. Please clearly mark your child’s name on the outside of the bag.

The first week:
8:15-8:45: parents are welcome to stay and help children adapt to the morning routines.
Student and parent can decorate their cubby label and choose a cubby.
Students will put their snacks, lunches, and other items in their cubbies.
I will take first day of school photos.
Parents can read books provided in tubs to read with their child.
*At 8:45 I will put on Good Morning song and that is parents cue to say their goodbyes and students will begin their day. If your child has difficulty saying goodbye, Ms. Molly and I will be there to support them while you leave the room. I know this is a difficult time for both child and parent, but it is an easier transition if all parents leave at the given time. Thank you for helping our class adjust to our new and exciting schedule!
This routine will be repeated all week with a different project.

Week 2 and the following weeks: Parents may read with their child until 8:30.

Wish List- Many of you have asked about my wish list—I find it is best if I purchase items when I need them partly because I get a teacher’s discount and partly because I know exactly what I want. I would prefer gift cards either in the form of a Visa, Target, Staples, or Amazon. We also need to outfit the turtle tank so we can bring our turtle, Scooter, into the classroom. **If you can, PetCo gift cards would be extremely helpful so he can join us during the first few weeks of school.

Volunteer Opportunities:
1.    Weekly Laundry: We will have pillowcases and hand towels to be laundered.
2.    Wednesday or Thursday: I need a parent (or 2!) to help laminate and cut Thursday packets so they are ready to go home on Thursday.
3.    I will send home a parent survey in the first Thursday packet asking more about the types of volunteering you would like to do.

As the year progresses there will be plenty of volunteer opportunities in the classroom but I do prefer the first 6 weeks or so I prefer to establish a classroom culture with the students, Ms. Molly and I.

Daily Schedule:
8:15-8:30    Parents and children read
9:35-10:10    Snack and Recess (in the K-2 yard behind our classroom)
11:45-12:30    Lunch and Recess (in the K-2 yard behind our classroom, though children can venture to the ‘Big’ playground for recess)
2:00-2:15    Snack (if needed) and Recess
2:30        Dismissal at front of school benches (**please note that on Monday, dismissal is 1:30)

Also, the new Odyssey website has launched (www.odysseycharterschool.org)! Please check it for further school information, news, as well as classroom information. I will post all emails sent on our classroom blog, as well!

There is also a group of parents with a fantastic fundraiser: they are selling reusable sandwich, snack, grocery bags. I will have more information about this on the first day of school. If you haven't already bought your child's lunch containers, please wait to support our school!

See you on Tuesday!

Tags: parents , schedule , volunteers , wish list

Add comment

COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first!

Room A Wishlist

September 02, 2009

Room A Wishlist

•    Boxes of tissues
•    Painting Easels
•    Paint cups
•    X-acto Manual Pencil Sharpener
•    Paper Mate Flair pens black ink
•    Expo Dry Erase Low Odor Markers (Thin)
•    Washable Markers
•    Stamps
•    Stamp Pads
•    Lefty scissors
•    Dress Up materials (especially job related, such as firemen, police, singing, etc.)
•    Musical Instruments
•    Teaching Clock from Really Good Stuff (online store)

Gift certificates to PetCo to outfit the turtle tank

If it is easier, I would LOVE gift certificates to Staples, amazon.com, or Target to purchase the items on the wishlist.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF OUR CLASSROOM!

Tags:

Add comment

COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first!

Email sent 8/31

September 02, 2009

It was great seeing some of you today. I will be at school tomorrow morning if you'd like to stop by, and then, as I'm sure you have already heard from Odyssey, we will be closed the rest of the week. I have a few requests and reminders:

I got an aquatic turtle for the classroom and am very excited to set up the tank! We have a wonderful 4' long tank, but I need a bit of help outfitting it to be ready for the turtle (and hopefully some fish). Are any of you experienced in setting up a tank and would be willing to help?

We also have 2 beanbags that need new stuffing. If any of you receive packages with packing peanuts, please save them and bring them in. We are trying to have a green classroom and use recycled products as much as possible!

Reminders:

Please make sure your child has a healthy snack separate from his/her lunch.
Also, please refer to your Parent/Student Handbook for the Odyssey dress code. I know it is hot, but students must wear closed-toed shoes and no tank tops.
You will be welcome to stay with us in the classroom for the first 15 minutes of school (a bit longer the first week).
If you have any other questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to email!

See you next Tuesday!
Sincerely,
Erin

P.S. Please check back in the next few days--I'll post and email one more update before school starts!

Tags:

Add comment

COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first!