Halloween Carnival

As published in the Shamachar, this Friday from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm is the annual Halloween carnival at AISD. This is a wonderful even put on by the PTA and is the highlight of many children's fall. Children come in costume and can visit a variety of booths, including a bean bag toss, haunted house and cookie decorating. The Carnival is open to all AISD students and their parents, as well as AISD siblings and family members. Please read the directions in the Shamachar on how to gain access for family members that do not have school badges. Tickets for all children must be bought in advance. Again, please read the Shamachar for information on where and when to purchase these. 

I look forward to seeing you all at the Carnival!

Patterns

We have been looking closely at patterns and have been forming and identifying all different types. We want to create a pattern display in our classroom. Today we talked about bringing in patterned items from home to display in our room. Encourage your child to look around your house for various items to bring in. Please label these items (a piece of tape with your name works great) so they can be returned when we are finished. 

 

Let's Use Our Imagination!

 

This week we've been busy exploring our new Unit of Inquiry on imagination. We've learned that we express ourselves in many ways and have explored expression through creating, drawing, movement and writing. We used movement to imagine that we were a variety of different objects and animals. As we continued exploring this, students became bigger risk-takers, demonstrating great imagination.

 

     

With this new Unit we have also started a new writing unit focusing on fiction. We have read many fiction stories and have examined the way authors and illustrators express their ideas to make their books enjoyable for their readers. KG-M students have made incredible gains in writing and are proudly writing decodable words and sight words independently to form complete sentences and multiple-page books. They have been working hard at being creative to write unique stories, and are focusing on beginning their pieces in a way that captures the reader's attention. We have also looked at story structure and how every story has a beginning, middle and end. We are noticing that in most stories the middle part contains a problem that is then resolved at the end. Ask your child what his/her book is about!

 

This week we also celebrated Zibrail's birthday. His mom brought in a very delicious chocolate cake that we all enjoyed. Happy 6th birthday, Zibrail!

EAL Session

Please see the note below about a session on English as an additional language:

How Can I Help My Child Learn English?  Join Learning Support Teachers Liz DenHartigh and Amy Neal for a parent information session on Wednesday, October 17th from 7:55 to 9:00 a.m.  The English Additional Language (EAL) program, as well as techniques to help your child to learn English will be discussed.  Hope to see you in the MS Assembly Room next to the coffee bar!

KG Wiki Site

Save the following AISD kindergarten wiki site as a great resource to extend learning:  

http://kgwebsites.wikispaces.com/  

Students in KG-M are familiar with this site and how to access the various educational games and activities. BrainPop Jr. is one of these sites and can be logged into using the username "aisdhaka" and password "tigers". Students fall in love with the characters Annie and Moby in these informative videos. Begin by having your child watch the video on the senses. 

Learning Support

Please visit the page on the blog titled "Learning Support" for more information from Mary Schiess. You can find the link for this page right under the header picture (above the posts). Visit her wikipage regularly for more information on how you can help your child develop his/her literacy skills.