Dear families,

It has been a very exciting two weeks of getting to know your children and beginning to explore how we can all learn and play together.  I greatly appreciate all of your support and understanding as we’ve worked out various kinks. So far, our classes have all met Twiggle the Turtle who will be helping them learn all about emotions and self control.  Twiggle has many adventures that we all learn from throughout the year. Today we got to experience our first fire drill!  We’ve also been talking about what happens in a school as well as which things we like.  I am hoping to get the children’s self-portraits and “What I like to do at school” pages uploaded into Seesaw this weekend (fingers crossed) so you can see what there first pieces of school work turned out as.  Hopefully, you all have received an invitation to join our class site on SeeSaw so that you can view what we are doing in class. Next week we plunge into our first STEM unit of the year – Friends and Families.  This is a great unit to start out with as it lets us share about ourselves and also talk about the values of kindness, sharing, and respect.  Your child’s first assignment was sent home this week – an All About My Family Bag.  Please return these by the end of next week, September 6/7.  The students will each get to share with the class the items in the bag and explain what they mean to your family.  Technology willing, we will record these for you to see what they say via our SeeSaw accounts.  I also sent home a page for you to fill out together about your family.  We don’t need this back until September 17.  We will be laminating the pages and putting them into a class book for the students to enjoy year round.  Your family’s page will be given to you at the end of the year. Please be sure to read the Spark! newsletter for more information about carpooling, the Love and Logic Parenting class, our part in the Miners’ Day Parade, volunteering, picture day, and so much more.  Thank you for sharing your children with Ms. Tawna and I! Sincerely, Ms. Kiersten Next week’s other instructional focus elements: Tuesday/Thursday class:  letter L, number 1MWF class & M_Th class:  letters L and F, number 1