Dear Parents,
We had such a wonderful first full week of school! First of all, we want to thank all parents who came last Wednesday for Back To School Night. It was a good start to our home-school partnership and we look forward to more collaboration. We would truly appreciate your feedback, as we’re always looking for areas where we could improve as a team.
We will be having other parent sessions in the future to address the specifics of KG’s curriculum and how parents can support their children at home. Stay tuned!
On Tuesday we had our first Elementary assembly, these assemblies happen every Tuesday from 7:55 to 8:25. All KG classes leave the playground when the music starts at 7:45 to drop backpacks in front of our classrooms, then we head down to the ES Hall. If your child comes after 7:45, please make sure you drop their bags in front of the classroom and then walk them to the ES Hall where they can join us. Parents are always welcome to all assemblies!
House Event!
This Tuesday the assembly will be our first House Event, all kindergarteners are in a house with other elementary students. For these events students are expected to wear the color of their house until we receive new house shirts that will be provided to all students. Most house events happen on the ES lawn or Middle School field, students will drop their backpacks in front of their classrooms and then join their house! Here are all kindergarten house teams:
KGB HOUSE TEAMS
Red
|
Yellow
|
Green
|
Blue
|
Dina
Leila
Yorgo
Adam
|
Nayla
Nada
Susanna
|
Yasmina
|
Noah
Carter
Hang Hang
|
KGC HOUSE TEAMS
Red
|
Yellow
|
Green
|
Blue
|
Mia
Catherine
|
Malak
Lara A.
David
|
Tallis
Andres
Marie
Aly
|
Mariam
Ramsay
Amy
|
KGS HOUSE TEAMS
Red
|
Yellow
|
Green
|
Blue
|
Lara K.
Farouk
|
Rasheed
Finlay
|
Ethan
Maliya
Clara
Nicolas
|
Kalliope
Engel
Tamara
Salwa
|
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CELEBRATES
EACH PERSON AS THEY MAKE
CAC THE BEST PLACE TO BE!
ELEMENTARY BANNERS
Students, faculty & staff are invited to draw, paint, sew, or image their self portrait on a banner provided by school. Our self portait banners will be displayed around our division to celebrate each of us and our school community.
We look forward to seeing your creative designs! Please be sure to put your name on your banner and enjoy working on these at home. We ask that the banners are submitted to your class teacher by Tuesday, September 5.
If you have any questions please ask your class teacher.
Best regards
Mrs. Jackson-Jin
Elementary Principal
Important Reminders!
Snack and Lunch
Thank you to all parents who have supported us in teaching students independence by sending two separate bags for snack and lunch. It is important that meals are packed in a bag that they can easily hang and carry, throughout the day students leave their meals in certain areas for easy transitions, for this reason it is very important that silverware or containers come inside a bag or lunchbox. Please make sure your child has enough food for the day and all utensils they will need to eat their food, such as napkins and spoons/forks.
For lunch, we have sent a small envelope where you can place their lunch card or cash for Monday lunches. Students will be asked to take these lunch envelopes out every morning, your help is much appreciated in making sure they know where their lunch card is!
This Monday the lunch option will be pizza (each week we will post the lunch options in our KG calendar), if you would like your child to eat pizza please make sure you send exact change in the lunch envelope for the amount of slices your child will eat. The cost also includes a juice box and a cookie.
1 slice 20LE
2 slices 25LE
3 slices 30LE
Extra Clothes
If you haven’t done so already, please send a bag with extra clothes for us to keep in our classrooms. Accidents happen and we want to make sure all students have a change of clothes they can wear.
Folders
It is wonderful to see all folders coming back to school every day! Please make sure you keep the lunch envelope in the “Bring back to school” pocket, and that you empty the “Keep at home” pocket each week. Students will start taking books home very soon, and these books will go in their folders!
Counseling Corner
Dear CAC Parents,
Welcome to the new school year! This year I am fortunate in that I will be meeting with your child’s class once a week. The first few weeks will be dedicated to “getting to know you” activities. In a couple of weeks we will begin Second Step guidance lessons. This is the guidance curriculum that we use in the elementary school K-5th grade. This program is designed to help students think about, develop and practice positive social skills. Research shows that children who learn and use these skills are more likely to get along with others and do better in school. Throughout the course of the year, students will learn about skills for learning, empathy and understanding feelings, how to use problem-solving skills, and how to manage strong emotions such as anger or fear.
Throughout the year I will be updating you on general areas of social and emotional learning but also on specific skills that you can help support at home.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Dana Purpura
CAC School Counselor
dpurpura@cacegypt.org
Learning in Kindergarten!
Balanced Literacy
Kindergarteners had a wonderful first full week learning routines for reading and writing workshop. It is important for us as teachers to make sure that all students feel comfortable and confident when starting their reading and writing journey, and for that reason taking the time to teach and practice these routines is essential.
Reader are learning how to choose books for their book bags by asking themselves these three questions:
- Is this book interesting?
- Can I read the pictures?
- Can I read some words?
They are beginning to see themselves as readers as they learn that there are many ways a book can be read even if they can’t read all words yet. Reading the pictures is a valuable strategy for storytelling and building stamina. During Reading Workshop they all sit with their book bags to read the pictures in each book they’ve chosen. As teachers, we are motivating and praising their efforts every minute! Soon, we will start assessing our young readers to initiate one-on-one and small group instruction.
Writing is so much fun! But it is also hard work!
Kindergarteners started the writing process last week, by learning that all of us have stories to tell and that writers start by thinking of ideas they would like to share with the world. The writing process is something that writers will come to know very well, and we would like to share it with you so that you can support them at home:
This week they will add more to their writing by learning strategies to add words to their sketches. One of these strategies is “Sound it out” or “Stretch the word”, writers say the word they intend to write and repeat it very slowly, trying to add sounds they hear. This work will be enhanced by the work they will do with beginning sounds during Phonics, handwriting and shared reading.
We will also introduce two sight words from our KG Sight Word list to teach them about patterned sentences and how to include a sentence in their writing. So much learning coming their way!
During handwriting students learned they ways to pick up and hold the pencil. We encourage students to use the tripod grip:
They have also started to learn proper letter formation by sorting letters in groups such as “those that look like capitals” and “the ones that start with Magic C”. This week we will continue practicing those, and teaching new letters.
Sorts and more sorts!
Last week all students learned about sorting pictures and objects in Phonics and Math, that routine was necessary for the first phonics sort that students will engage with this week. We will start with consonants as beginning sounds and students will have picture sorts to learn and practice these sounds, we will be checking for understanding and support students as needed. At the beginning of the school year, all students work on the same sorts, later on and depending on their progress, more differentiated sorts are planned for small groups.
Math
What a fun week we all had with our first Eureka lessons! Students are having a great time engaging with the different parts of the math lesson. This week we will cover lessons 7, 8 and 9. Here’s some information about this topic:
Mathletics at home!
Please click here to read the parent letter. We will be sending username and password cards this week.
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In our next blog, we will share with you information about Social Studies and Circle Solutions. Thank you all for coming to Parent Day, it was a pleasure to meet all of you and listen to you speak about your children and their goals for Kindergarten. This will be a wonderful year, as we work together to guide, challenge and support all students.
Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter, and as always please email us with any questions, concerns or feedback you may have!
Ms. Ana (KGC) - achavez@cacegypt.org
Mr. Balazs (KGB) - nbalazs@cacegypt.org
Ms. Paola (KGS) - psadek@cacegypt.org
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