Lawmakers Look at English Learner Education

Dear Parents,
Many of you have children who are learning the English language. In kindergarten, many of our students are referred to the English Language Development Center. Cupertino offers this support program which is critical to our students' needs, growth and confidence.
As parents of English Learners, the best thing you can do is educate yourselves on English learner educational policies.
Here's a report I heard this morning. I encourage you to listen to it.

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201203280850/b

Dr. Seuss Day

Dr. Seuss Day was a tremendous success. We celebrated this on March 2nd which is also called, Read Across America Day. All week, we read Dr. Seuss books, created art inspired by Dr. Suess characters, did Dr. Suess activities and even had Officer Holly from Sunnyvale Police Department come and read us The Cat in the Hat.
I can't emphasize enough how important these stories are for young, developing readers. I myself learned to read with Dr. Seuss and I'm sure some of you did as well. Here are some pictures from our fun and exciting week.

100 Days!

We had a lot of fun celebrating our 100th day of school! We had a fun rotation. Some of the activities we did were:

• Race to 100
• Made 100-shaped glasses
• Made crowns
• Drew pictures of what thought we would look like when we are 100 years old
• Made Fruit Loop or "Silly Circle" necklaces
• 100 exercises
• Made 100 handprints
• Dot-to-dots up to 100
• I wish I had 100 of...
• 100 paper chains

It was a fun day! Here are some pictures of our amazing 100 projects!

Arthur Unit

Arthur stories by Marc Brown are a class favorite. They are also a wonderful teaching tool. We've been using this Arthur unit to:

• Use appropriate comprehension skills and strategies
• Interpret and respond to literature
• Write a variety of types of texts
• Communicate effectively

Throughout this unit, we are focusing on Making Connections, Visualizing and Summarizing. The kids are responding well and as the unit has progressed, the kids have been able to make more Text-to-Text connections. Unsure what that is? Ask your child! :)

Visualizing how the characters were feeling

Welcome 2012

Happy New Year!
We welcomed the new year with writing our own resolutions. The kids had great ideas of things they could work on in the new year. "Being nice," "Helping Mommy with the dishes," and "Read more books," were just a few of the things the kids came up with.
Miss Cuenca's resolution? Getting the classroom organized and keeping it CLEAN. ;)
Hope all your resolutions last longer than mine inevitably will!

:)

Getting organized at Target. Thanks N.L for the gift card from the beginning of the year! It went to great use! (Finally!)

Gingerbread Houses!

On Wednesday we made gingerbread houses! The kids became masterful architects as they "gingerly" placed gummy bears, spice drops, jelly beans, Skittles, M&M's, peppermints, marshmallows, pretzels, red licorice and other various goodies on top. SO much thanks to those who made this possible. We appreciate all of the things you brought and to those parents who helped assemble. The kids had a wonderful time!

aMAIZEing Corn

Today we made our very own Maize or Indian Corn. We used red, orange, yellow and brown paper for the kernels. Once we created our corn, we graphed the colors that were used. It was a fun project and the kids were very excited that Mrs. Gates had real Indian Corn that we were able to pass around.