All about Mrs. Kelley

I feel so happy to say I have loved my last 37 years of teaching! Each grade level I've taught in the past (1st-5th) has been filled with wonderful experiences and happy memories, but I have to admit I am over the moon loving Transitional Kindergarten! This will by my ninth year working with TKers. Their enthusiasm for life, as well as their eagerness to soak up all the new things around them, make them a joy to be with each day! I am one very lucky teacher!

A little about myself:
After teaching a few years out of state, I moved to California in 1989, and besides two years teaching in Indonesia, I've been so happy to call Grass Valley home. Education is a family thing, because my husband, Tom, is a school counselor. I have three grown children (Brian, Kyle and Kaity) who have fond memories of the years they spent at Alta Sierra School! We love the mountains and being at the ocean as well. Time away from school usually takes us one place or the other. In the winter I love snowboarding, and during the summer time camping and finding trails to walk are some of my favorite things!

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Be Looking for TK Conference Sign-ups

Hello Parents,

I wanted to let you know I sent you a SignUpGenius email filled with time slots for you to choose from October 2nd-6th, so that we can meet together to talk about all the wonderful things your TKer is learning and how we can help him/her continue to grow. Thank you for all you do!

TK Week of Septem 11th-15th

We've had a fabulous week in TK! We spent more time with our ZooPhonic Friends as we started to connect them to the letters of the Alphabet. At home you can have fun with your cutie as you look at the beginning letter of a word, talk about the sound it makes, and notice how the ZooPhonic Friend makes the same sound! (i.e. "Hat - Look at that beginning letter. It's an H and it makes the /h/ sound. Wow! Honey Horse makes the same sound!" - Make the sound and do the action together.)

Picture day is this coming Monday. We're scheduled a little later than usual at 11:00am. We'll try not to get too sweaty or too painted by then, but no matter what your TKer will be adorable.

Our Jog-a-Thon is next Friday (22nd). It's at 8:15am. If you can join us to help with marking tallies, spraying hot joggers, or cheering our TKers on please let me know ASAP. I also need two volunteers who can go to the MPR right after we're done to can help tally cards, put forms in envelopes, and most importantly - bring them their popsicles. :)

In our Thursday folders you saw our new peach colored TK Class Roster to replace our old blue colored roster. Hopefully it's helpful with play dates and fun things like that.

Best wishes for a wonderful weekend!

DATES TO REMEMBER
Monday, September 18th - School Picture Day
Friday, September 22nd - Jog-a-Thon (We'll have ours right at 8:30am and we'd love your help! If you can, please let me know.)
October 2nd-6th - Parent/Teacher Conference Week
October 16th-20th - October Break (No School)

TK Week of September 5th-8th

We've had another fabulous week together in TK! We've finished being introduced to all 26 ZooPhonic Friends, but that is just the beginning. We'll have more fun next week spending extra time getting to know these ZooPhonic Friends before we begin a year long journey connecting them to sound/word connections and letter formations.

We had a wonderful time in the garden this week. Miss Coco is our garden teacher, and she is so much fun to learn from! Hopefully your cutie told you about our amazing garden tour, and maybe your TKer even tried some of our garden's delicious tomatoes and our crunchy cucumbers.

We went to the library today! Most of our TKers were able to check out a real library book, and it's in their backpack ready to be enjoyed. (If your cutie wasn't with us last Friday, no worries at all! A little white paper book is in their backpack ready to read with you. They can bring it back to school next week, so a real book can be checked out next Friday.)

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

DATES TO REMEMBER

Monday, September 18th - School Picture Day

Friday, September 22nd - Jog-a-Thon (We'll have ours right at 8:30am and we'd love your help! If you can, please let me know.)

October 2nd-6th - Parent/Teacher Conference Week

October 16th-20th - October Break (No School)

TK Week of September 4th-8th

TK has had another wonderful week! We've been introduced now to all 26 ZooPhonic Friends. That's just the beginning, though. Next week we'll spend more time having fun with them all before we begin our year long journey connecting them to word/sound play and letter formation activities.

We had so much fun in the garden this week! Hopefully your cutie told you about all the things we saw growing in our garden and the delicious cucumber and tomatoes many of them got to eat.

Today was a very exciting day! Every TKer who had a chance to take home a paper practice book last week was able to check out their first real library book today. (If your cutie was absent last Friday, no worries at all! They'll have a little white paper book in their backpack for you to read together and then return to school, so that a real book can be checked out next week.)

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

DATES TO REMEMBER

Monday, September 18th - School Picture Day

Friday, September 22nd - School Wide Jog-a-Thon! (We'd love your help!)

October 2nd-6th - Parent and Teacher Conference Time

October 16th-20th - Fall Break (No School)

TK Week of August 21st-25th

Thank you to all of you who were able to join me for Back-to-School Night. It was wonderful to see so many of you! Life is busy, and if you weren't able to make it I completely understand. I'll get your packets to you, and you can ask me any questions you might have.

We had a second fabulous week in TK! We began meeting our ZooPhonic animial friends. So far we've met Allie Alligator, Bubba Bear, Catina Cat, Deedee Dear, Ellie Elephant, Gordo Gorilla, and Francie Fish. (If you check your blue pages in our back-to-school packet you can quickly catch up with your TKer, so you can have fun with these actions and sounds together.)

We began our first Second Step lesson this week: Welcoming Others. The homelink page that went home in your cutie's Thursday Folder has great information to help you reinforce this important skill of welcoming and talking to others.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend together!

DATES TO REMEMBER:

Monday, September 4th - Labor Day (No School)

Friday, September 22nd - Jog-a-Thon (Let me know if you can help! :)

October 16th-20th - Fall Break (No School)

TK Week of August 15th-18th

We've had a wonderful first week in TK! We're learning classroom routines like carpet time, group time, choice time, and figuring out what a line is all about.

This week was also filled with big kid things like practicing to use tape, glue sticks, scissors, and even a stapler. (They LOVED the stapler! :)

I'm looking forward to seeing parents this coming Thursday evening for Back-to-School Night. Our time together will be 6:00-6:20pm.

Another big event next week is our beginning of the year Book Fair. A flyer went home yesterday in our Thursday folder. Our classroom time to visit the fair is this coming Friday at 10:10am. If it works for you to come help your cutie at that time that is great! (The more the merrier during the book fair.) If you want your TKer to get something at the book fair, but can't join us I completely understand. You can just give me his/her money in an envelope with their name on it that morning, and we will be sure to help her/him. It can be a little confusing for our little ones to figure out what a book fair is all about, so if your cutie isn't going to purchase anything at the book fair this time (a bookshelf can only hold so many books :), we will have an alternate fun activity for your TKer to do instead during this time.

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!

DATES TO REMEMBER:

Thursday, August 24th - Back-to-School Night 6:00-6:20pm in Room K

Friday, August 25th - Book Fair for TK 10:10-10:30am

Monday, September 4th - Labor Day (No School)

October 16th-20th - Fall Break (No School)