St. Matthew's Kindergarten!



November 7, 2011

 

Dear Parents:

            Last week seems like it happened a LONG time ago!  We had a grand time with at the Halloween party!  Thanks to Trevor’s Mom, Emme’s Mom, and Zachary’s Mom for organizing our first party of the year!  We LOVED hearing stories about loved ones on Dia de los Muertos!  The conference was lovely.  We had a chance to hear some inspiring speakers, visit with lots of folks from different schools, eat lots of great food, pick up a new idea or two and most importantly, do some soul searching and pondering about what I do in the classroom and why I do it.  Attending these conferences also reminds me of one critical lesson we adults tend to forget…sitting still all day is HARD WORK!!!  Although we are never still in Kindergarten for very long (and note that “still” is a relative term!), I have renewed my commitment to making sure we are “up and moving” all through the day!   On to the week…

 

Native Americans…

            We jumped into our unit on Native Americans with both feet last week and the children LOVE it!  (Me too!)  There is SO much we can learn from these very special people…about being resourceful and being problem solvers, about living together in a community and helping each other, about counting our blessings and taking only what we need, about being good listeners and observers…all those wonderful life skills we are learning about in Kindergarten!  As I explained last week, we are focusing on Native Americans of the southwest – the pueblo peoples (Anasazi, Hopi and Zuni), the Navaho and the Apache.  We have already learned about the homes of these tribes (pueblos, hogans and wickiups).  This week we will be learn that the tribes of this region depended on hunting and gathering for much of their food, but that since they had a more “stationary” lifestyle, these tribes also raised sheep and goats and planted crops.  We will learn that corn was their most important crop and will have fun shucking corn today and having corn-on-the-cob with our lunch on Tuesday.  We will learn that bows and arrows were hard to make and very precious, and that it was important to keep up with your arrows.  We will learn about using every part of an animal and about making buckskin.   

This week we will also learn about life in the pueblo.  We will learn about the foods of the tribes who lived in pueblos. These people hunted, just as all Native Americans did, but they also raised crops (corn, squash, pumpkins), and eventually became herdsmen with great flocks of sheep.  (The sheep were introduced by Spanish explorers.)   We will learn that although the men did the hunting, it was the women who were the most “powerful.”  In these cultures, the land and the home belonged to the women.  The men did the building, but whatever they built belonged to the women in their lives. 

Native Americans are known for their bravery and daring deeds. Anyone could hide behind a tree or a boulder and shoot an enemy with an arrow from a distance, but it took a terribly brave person to be willing to wade right into the middle of an enemy’s camp, get close enough to touch your enemy, and then to escape!  We will make coup sticks this week to be used for just this purpose.  The coup stick could be no longer than a person’s arm (you had to get within an arm’s length of danger!) and would be decorated with beads and feathers that would have represented other acts of bravery or prayers for safety.  In addition, we will learn that coup feathers were a gift from the elders of the tribe.  They were awarded to a Native American for acts of selflessness or bravery.  Certainly, one might receive a coup feather for bravery in battle, but one might also receive one for killing a buffalo, taking in a family member, striking a deal with a neighboring tribe for safe passage, teaching a skill, or finding a new source of water.  Native Americans wore their coup feathers proudly in their hair, or hung them in places of honor in their homes.  When a Native American had accumulated a number of coup feathers, he would make what we call a “war bonnet” to display his collection of coup feathers and to wear for special ceremonies (but never in battle). 

            The last lesson from our Native American unit for this week will be to learn that the Native Americans we are studying did not have a written language.  They used picture writing to keep records and to tell stories.  We will learn some of the symbols the Native Americans used in their picture writing, and will have fun writing stories with those symbols.  We will learn that these wonderful people depended on an “oral tradition” to keep their stories and history alive.  They TOLD stories to each other…over and over and over again…to be sure that the next generation knew the stories by heart and could then pass the words on to their children. 

Our Creative Dramatics corner has transformed from the “Fix It Shop” to a pueblo village where the children can explore what life might have been like for children living in a pueblo.  We will be weaving, learning to identify animal tracks, gathering food and playing games the Zuni, Hopi or Anasazi children might have played long ago. 

Last, but certainly not least, although we will be learning about what life for these people was like long ago, we will talk about the fact that there are active Hopi,  Zuni, Apache and Navajo tribes TODAY.  Some people still choose to live in pueblo villages, but some live in cities.  Some choose to wear traditional clothes, but some wear jeans and dresses and coats and ties.  Some still make their living in traditional ways, but others choose to be doctors and lawyers and school teachers…just like all the rest of us!  It will be an exciting week!

 

Let’s Have a Powwow!

            It is time to start making plans for our annual St. Matthew’s Powwow!  The “tribes” will all gather in the courtyard between Huffman Hall and the sanctuary on Friday, November 18^th.  The festivities will begin at Noon, but the tribes may begin drifting in a little before Noon.  Just as with a real gathering of the tribes, different “tribes” travel at different speeds from different distances and there is no telling what kind of problems the “tribes” will have to solve in order to make it to the powwow location J, so some may arrive at the powwow a little early and some may be a little late. If you plan to be in the courtyard at 11:45 you won’t miss a moment of the fun.  The parents will gather on the steps of the sanctuary.  The “tribes” will make a horseshoe around the courtyard.  Traditionally, the Kindergarten tribes will be on the side of the courtyard closest to the big parking lot (west).  We will sing some songs, hear a story or two and celebrate being part of this special St. Matthew’s “family.” 

            After the powwow, the Kindergartners and their families will move to the Memorial Garden for our feast.  The children will present a traditional Native American legend for the parents.  We will all sit down to a feast together following the presentation of the legend.  After the feast, each class will dismiss to their own classroom for closing circle.  We will dismiss for the day from the classrooms after the feast – probably about 1:30 or 1:45.   

            We hope you will all be able to join us for the Powwow and feast.  I will post an RSVP page in the hall so you can let us know how many from your family will be attending.  Many, many thanks to the feast teams from Ms. Meyer’s class and our class for getting things organized for us!  Our feast parents are Val Grayson, Chere Atkins, and Sharon von Wupperfeld.  Thanks, ladies!!!   I will meet with the feast teams on Wednesday morning to finalize plans and will get back to you with final details by the end of the week.  

 

Letters, Language and Reading…

            S is our letter of the week.  We will discover that the upper and lower case S are both formed the same way…and BOY is it tricky to get our wrist to “flip” around so we can make those curves go the right way!  We will note that S makes the same sound at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of a word.  We will also learn that sometimes you need TWO s’s in a word to make ONE s sound.  We will have to depend on finger spelling, and asking “is it one or two?” to help us discover the right number of s’s in a word. 

            We will begin to identify plural forms of nouns (naming words) this week and discover that you make most words plural by adding an s to the end.  Note that if the word ends in an s you have to add “es” to make the plural.  We will talk briefly about “changing y to I before adding es” for those of us who are ready for that step. 

            This week the children will begin bringing home book club readers.  You will notice a vast array of books that come home.  Some are very short and simple; others are longer and much more complex.  The books will be in the child’s blue take home folder.  We are bringing the books home to build reading fluency.  Fluency is the speed at which your child is able to read.  As children build a working sight word vocabulary and become more proficient at decoding (sounding out words), their fluency increases.  Just as with playing basketball, riding a bike or playing the piano, the more we read, the more fluent we become.  I ask that you spend a little time each afternoon or evening allowing your child to read to you.  If the book is short, read the whole book.  If the book is longer, read it over two days.  Your child should be able to read the book to you with very little intervention or assistance, but it is important that you sit and actually watch as your child reads so that you can help your child make sure he/she is reading the words correctly.  Pointers to remember as your child reads:

·         Start with the title and the author

·         Ask your child to give you a hint about what the book is about; summarize the book in just a sentence.  If your child doesn’t remember, then predict together from the picture on the cover and the title.

·         Ask your child to point to the words he/she is reading as they read the words until your child becomes a confident reader. 

·         Talk about the book for a moment after you have finished reading…what do you remember…what was the problem and how was it solved…remember details. 

·         Help your child fill in the reading log page in their blue folder. 

·         DO NOT STRESS over reading…or let your child stress!  Encourage, but don’t “push.”  If your child is showing signs of stress over his/her reading please let me know immediately. 

·         Please be sure the books come back to school each day.  We will need them in class!

·         Enjoy this special time and one more reason to cuddle for a minute with your child!!!  Before long, they will be off in the far corners of the world (like Egypt!) reading books on their own!!! 

 

Numbers and Math…

            We will be working on place value for numbers in the twenties this week, writing our twenties correctly, and number sentences using +/ – 1 and +/- 2.   As we translate “stories” into number sentences, we will look for “ands” to change to +, “take away” to change to – and “is/are” to change to =.  For example, if I had two ears of corn and my friend gave me two more ears of corn there are four ears of corn all together becomes 2 + 2 = 4.

This week we will also work on reviewing the attributes of different shapes, comparing those shapes and stating our reasons for grouping shapes into categories. 

 

Chapel this week…

            Our chapel lesson for Wednesday will be the story of David and Goliath (I Samuel 17).  On Thursday we will hear the story of Daniel and the Lions’ Den (Daniel 6:1-23).  Both of these stories remind us that God loves us and that we can trust God to take care of us NO MATTER WHAT!  Remember that our class will have Chapel responsibilities on Thursday for the month of November.  Other classes have signed up to be “story helpers” for the next couple of weeks, so we will not be acting out the story for a bit. 

 

Reminders and Happenings…

 

El Buen Samaritano, our Episcopal mission in south Austin is hosting their annual Thanksgiving Basket event, “Hands for Hope.”  St. Matthew’s School will again join together with St. Matthew’s Church to participate.  Kindergartners and their families are asked to bring boxes/packets of biscuit mix and 16 oz cans of cranberry sauce.  Donations are due November 14.  Last year we collected enough donations for 175 baskets!  We hope to meet – or beat that goal this year! 

 

There is still time to bring in Velveeta boxes!  Please send boxes to school by this Friday (Nov. 11^th).

 

Book Fair – November 8-11.  (Hours: 8:30 – 3:30 Tuesday-Thursday; 8:30 – 1:00 Friday)

 

We will go for a Book Fair preview visit on Tuesday, November 8^th  from 1:45-2:15.  Each child will make a “wish list” to bring home for you to ponder with your child.  Grandparents are invited to visit Book Fair before school on Thursday, November 10.  Thanks so much to all of you who are helping to make the Book Fair a success!  J

 

Golf Tournament — Friday, November 11.  We are going to decorate our sign today and tomorrow!  Thank you to all who have contributed to our class hole and/or volunteered!  I know it will be a special day!

 

 

Nutcracker Field Trip – Tuesday, December 6.  Thank you again to those who have signed up! 

 

Homework

·         Monday – Write three lower case and three upper case letter “S’s”.  Draw a picture of something that begins with the letter “s” and write a sentence with that word.  Remember, a sentence:

o        Is a whole thought

o        Begins with an upper case letter

o        Ends with a punctuation mark

o        Has spaces between words

• ·         Tuesday – Share your Book Fair “wish list” with a parent and make a plan for going shopping or for books you might want to put on your Christmas list! 

 

·         Wednesday – How many things can you do that start with “s”?  Can you sit, stand, sing, skip, scoop, or swing?  Try them all!!!   

·         Thursday – Write a word problem or draw a picture that illustrates a word problem.  Then, write the addition or subtraction problem that goes with the word problem and/or picture illustration.

 

Last but not least, Ms. Meyer attended a workshop in Dallas that shared a web site she highly recommends.  I am passing this along to you for fun.   If your child is excited about doing games on the computer, check out this web site:  http://kellyskindergarten.com/Online%20Games/online_games.htm.

 

I hope you all have a wonderful week.  As always, give me a call if you have questions or concerns.  Thank you for sharing your little one with me! 

 

God’s peace,

Kathy   423-1681

 

 

 

 

 

October 31, 2011

Dear Parents:

Happy Halloween! This is going to be a VERY exciting week in Kindergarten – but, I guess that isn’t unusual for Kindergarten! It is also going to be an unusual week as far as dismissal times go, so please take note:

Monday – normal day with our Halloween party from 1:00 – 2:20 (parents are    invited to join us for “mummy making” in the fire lane near the playground at 2:05)

Tuesday – dismiss at 1:00 for monthly staff meeting

Wednesday – normal day, dismiss at 2:20

Thursday – dismiss at NOON – teachers leave for SAES convention in Dallas

Friday – student holiday for SAES convention

Happy Halloween, What’s Inside and Dia de los Muertos!

This is going to be a “don’t blink” or you will miss something kind of week! We begin the week with a “wrap up” day for our What’s Inside unit. We have had SUCH fun learning about what is inside everything from cookies to computers to our bodies. The Fix It Shop will be open for 3 more days. Thanks so much to all of you who sent in things for us to take apart! Now you know what to do with broken “stuff” ANY time you have it…just bring it to me and I will save it for next year! We finished writing our What’s Inside a Jack-o-lantern books last week. This week we will finish the illustrations. The books will come home at the end of the week for you to enjoy. Please be sure the books get into your child’s Kindergarten treasure box so we can re-discover them at the end of the year.

Of course, the highlight of the day will be the Halloween party this afternoon. Thanks so much to Emme’s Mom, Zachary’s Mom and Trevor’s Mom for putting together a special celebration for all our “goblins.” We will end the celebration by turning each other into toilet paper mummies in the fire lane next to the playground. You are invited to join us for the mummy fun beginning about 2:05.

Tuesday we will be celebrating Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead). This is a tradition that began with the blending of the celebrations of the indigenous people of Mexico and their Spanish conquerors, and has gradually spread northward. Dia de los Muertos is a day when we remember loved ones who have died. We tell stories and keep memories of our ancestors and loved ones alive in our hearts, celebrate the lessons these loved ones taught us, and pass on those memories and lessons to the next generation. Dia de los Muertos is also a day when we can remember that death is nothing to fear and that one day we will all get to be together again in heaven. Finally, our celebration allows us to get a glimpse of how Halloween and All Saints’ Day are celebrated in another culture.

In Mexico, families spend the day at the cemetery tidying up the graves of loved ones, and having fun telling stories about those ancestors. As evening falls, the families have a picnic right there at the grave side! There is always music and lots of laughter. It is a wonderful opportunity to help us all realize that we are only here for a short time and that we must use that time wisely. And more importantly, it is a time for us to remember that one day we will all be together again in heaven!

As families prepare for Dia de los Muertos, they prepare an altar in their homes in honor of loved ones who have died. Families place pictures of loved ones, along with trinkets from that person on the altar. Food is placed on the altar as well…foods that were special to the person you are honoring, foods that that person might have taught you to cook or things from the garden that the person might have raised. There is always something nutritious to sustain us here in this life and something sweet to remind us of the both the joy that the memory of the person we are honoring brings, as well as the joy that being with them in heaven holds for each of us! It is important to remember that we are NOT worshiping these wonderful people…we only worship God. We are honoring them with our memories and we offer prayers of thanksgiving to God for the impact they had on our lives.

We will build our own Dia de los Muertos altar in our classroom. We will have photos of loved ones, special bread (pan de muerto), sugar skulls and sugar coffins, and all kinds of trinkets to help us remember these special folks in our lives. We will talk about “ancestors” and how important it is to keep their memories alive in our hearts. We’ll talk about saints (people who love God and share God’s love with others) and ways we can all be saints ourselves. It will be a wonderful way to bring our Halloween celebration full circle.

Please send in a photo of a loved one (person or pet) for your child to add to our altar today or tomorrow. You are welcome to send in foods or trinkets from that person as well if you like. We will send all the items home on Tuesday.

Wednesday we jump into Native Americans…

We will spend the month of November learning about Native Americans. We will remember that these people were already living in North America when Columbus got “lost” and “discovered” this land. Since Columbus thought he was in India, he called these people “Indians.” We will call them Native Americans. The pre-K classes focus on the Native Americans of the plains. We will focus on the Native Americans who lived in the desert southwest – the Anasazi, the Hopi, the Zuni, the Navajo and the Apache.

We will begin our studies by learning about the great circle of life. The Native Americans believed that all things came from the Great Spirit and that all things were connected. Whatever has an impact on one thing in creation…no matter how small…has an impact on all other things. The Great Spirit chose “helpers” to watch over each of the things in his creation. These helpers had different names in different tribes. According to Hopi legend, the kachinas were helpers of the Great Spirit. They lived high in the mountains so that they could see far and wide. Once each year, the kachinas came to the pueblo to join the people in a grand celebration of life and thanksgiving. There was a kachina for each thing in creation…corn, buffalo, sun, eagle, sky, deer, river, rain, etc. The kachinas came down from the mountains and visited the people. If the children of the pueblo had been kind and helpful, the kachinas danced with them, taught them games and told them wonderful stories about life high in the mountains with the Great Spirit and all the animals. But if a child had been lazy, disrespectful or rude, the kachinas would carry them away into the mountains and keep them all year long to teach them how to behave!

The last lesson from our Native American unit for this week will be to learn that the Native Americans we are studying did not have a written language. They used picture writing to keep records and to tell stories. We will learn some of the symbols the Native Americans used in their picture writing, and will have fun writing stories with those symbols. We will learn that these wonderful people depended on an “oral tradition” to keep their stories and history alive. They TOLD stories to each other…over and over and over again…to be sure that the next generation knew the stories by heart and could then pass the words on to their children.

Thank you so much for sending in Velveeta boxes. There is a growing stack of boxes on the bottom shelf under the parent board right as you walk into the room. We will turn these boxes into our own pueblos a little further along in the unit. If you haven’t sent in your box, there is still time!

Letter/Language Arts for the week…

Now that we have finished the “real” vowels, we will take a look at Y which is a “sometimes” vowel. We will learn that Y can be used as a consonant at the beginning of a word, or as a vowel in the middle or at the end of a word. If Y is used as a consonant, it makes the sound we hear in “yes” and “yellow.” If it is used as a vowel, it makes the sound of either long e or long i. We will learn a little “Y at the end of the word” dance to help us remember those two options. For now, I will tell the children when you are reading and come to a word with a Y at the end, you just have to “pick” a sound (long e or long i) and try it. If it doesn’t sound right, then try the other sound. When you are writing a word with a long E or long I sound at the end and the word is longer than two letters, then it is probably a Y instead of an e or an i. If it is a short word (two or three letters) and ends with a long e sound, it is probably an e. If it is a longer word with a long e at the end, it is probably a Y. The word length doesn’t matter as much when it is a long I sound. Long I at the end of the word is nearly always spelled with a Y.

We make an upper case Y with two strokes. Both start at the “sky line.” We make the left hand slant first, stopping at the dotted line in the middle of the page. Then we pick up our pencil and go back to the sky line to make the right hand slant, and then keep that line going to make a “stick” for the top to stand on. Note that Handwriting Without Tears uses a slanted “leg” for the Y to stand on instead of the traditional “straight” leg. The children will have to help me try to break my “straight leg” habit! The lower case y is also made with two strokes and reaches BELOW the grass line. This is our first letter to reach “down in the dirt.” We will practice making y so that the “v” part of the letter is right in line with the lower case letters that come before it and the “stick” part of the letter goes down in the dirt below the other letters.

Math lessons for the week…

This week we will focus on the “twenties.” We will discover that “twenties” have two sets of ten with something left over. We should all be able to name, write and explain any “twenty-something” number by the end of the week. We will also beginning to work with some very simple number sentences … x + 1 = , x + 2 = . Making the move from “counters” to symbol work is a BIG jump. We will take it very slow and easy this week, beginning with the + sign and then moving to the minus (-) sign if we are ready.

Chapel News…

Wednesday will be a “Make a Joyful Noise” celebration day. We will have fun singing and making a joyful noise unto the Lord in Chapel. In chapel on Thursday we will hear the story of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. This story reminds us that God is with us and has a plan…ALWAYS! It is our job to pay attention to God so we can hear the plan, and then to follow it even if the plan doesn’t seem to make sense to us! We have to choose every day whether we follow God or choose to go down another path. God never forces us to follow Him or His plan. He loves us so much that He allows us to make that choice. When we DO follow Him, amazing things always happen!

November is personal information month …

This month we will tackle writing both our first AND our last names with full force. Some of us have really complicated last names! From now on, please help your child to write both his or her first AND last name on homework papers. (Some of us are trying to write our middle names as well! That’s fine, but NOT required! J ) Be sure there is a space between the two names and that both the first and last names begin with an upper case letter.

We will also work on being able to write our phone number this month. Writing our phone numbers is a great way to be sure we know how to reach Mom and Dad, as well as a wonderful way to practice writing our numbers correctly. Please send me a note telling me the phone number you would like your child to learn. It seems so funny to have to ask that question, but now with some of us having multiple cell phones in addition to a home phone I always feel like it is better to ask! Watch out for incoming phone calls now that we will be sharing our phone numbers!!! J

Upcoming events for November…

Halloween Party TODAY! Your child will need a normal lunch but the party Moms will provide an afternoon snack as a part of the celebration. Join us in the fire lane at 2:05 for the fun!

Monthly Staff Meeting, Tuesday, Nov. 1st – Dismiss at 1:00!

SAES Conference is this week! The Southern Association of Episcopal Schools conference is being held in Dallas this week. It is always exciting to get to meet and share ideas with other educators from across the country who share the same ideals and struggles we face on a daily basis. The trip also gives the teachers and staff a wonderful opportunity to just be together. Although we are in the same little hall every day most days I rarely see, much less exchange words with, the other teachers because we are all so focused on the little folks in our care. It is great to have a chance to “re-connect” with each other. I sincerely appreciate both Mrs. Thurman and our Board of Trustees for providing the opportunity for us to be “in class” ourselves for this special event. We will dismiss school at Noon on Thursday, Nov. 3^rd so that we can make it to Dallas in time for the opening worship service. There will be NO SCHOOL on Friday, Nov. 4^th.

Golf Tournament is Nov. 11^th ! THANK YOU to all of you who pitched in to help sponsor our class hole! It isn’t too late to help out! Look for the envelope near the sign in clip board. Thanks also to all of you who are working to make the event a success…especially Loula’s parents who are the event coordinators!!!

Powwow Time, November 18^th! The Kindergarten will gather with all the pre-K “tribes” for our annual St. Matthew’s Powwow on Friday, November 18^th. The powwow will begin promptly at Noon, with the Grand Procession beginning a few minutes before that. ALL Kindergarten parents are invited to join us for the Grand Procession, Pow Wow and the feast that will follow. Although I believe strongly that every day is a celebration of some sort in Kindergarten, this is our first “official” GRAND celebration of the year. I hope you’ll all make plans to join us from about 11:45 – 1:15 or so. Be sure to bring your camera!

Thanksgiving Holidays – We will dismiss at Noon on Tuesday, Nov. 22^nd for the Thanksgiving holidays.

Homework for the week…

Monday night: Be safe and have fun as you are out Trick-or-treating! Come see me! J

Tuesday night: Learn a story or listen to a special memory about someone who was important to your family.

Wednesday night: “Sometimes vowel” practice – write 3 or 4 excellent upper case Ys and 3 or 4 excellent lower case ys. Make a list of 3 things in your home that are Yellow. Please use lined handwriting paper for this exercise. (You can pick up a variety of sizes of lined paper from me.)

And last, but not least, (with many thanks to Mrs. Fabrega) I have our class web page up and running! Email will still be the first line of communication between us for important information, but now you can check out the web page for weekly newsletters, important dates, and other fun information! Go to www.stmatthewsschoolaustin.com and have fun staying up to date on events for the class and the entire school!

That’s all the news for now! Thanks so much for sharing your angels with me. We’re having a great time! Give me a call if you have any questions!

God’s peace,

Kathy

423-1681

October 24, 2011

Dear Parents:

Time is FLYING by!  Is it REALLY the last week of October???  Now THAT is scary!!!  J  We have an exciting week ahead and don’t intend to just let October slip away!

Parent Conferences…

Thank you so much for taking the time to come in and visit with me about your little angels last week…or the week before…or this week!  I do SO enjoy being able to share what I have learned about your child and hearing about the side of your child that you see at home.  Please remember that I am available ANY time you have a question.  If you look over all those documents I gave you and have questions, just send me an email or give me a call and we’ll find a good time to visit.  You and I have to be on the same “page” for your child to have the best advantage this year, and we have to visit regularly to be sure we stay on the same page…SO…I’m serious when I say to give me a call ANY TIME you have a question!

I know I didn’t have time to talk to all of you about schools for next year…and it is already time to start thinking in that direction.  If you are leaning toward private school for next year, now is the time to be making visits and lists.  Paperwork will be due shortly after the first of the year and it takes a while to make the rounds (more than once) and to think through all the options.  If you have questions about schools or the process, just give me a shout.

What’s Inside…

This will be the last week of our What’s Inside unit.  L  We will start off the week by discovering what’s inside a pumpkin as we all work together to carve a jack-o-lantern.  Carving a jack-o-lantern will set us up for our next BIG writing project.  We will each spend this week working on a “How to Make a Jack-o-Lantern” book.  We will work on the books a little bit each day and have a really cool book with our name on the cover as the author – hopefully by the end of the week!

It has been SO much fun to learn about “what’s inside” our bodies.  We will finish out the unit this week by taking a look at the circulatory system on Tuesday.  As we learn about the circulatory system, we will discover that just like everything else in the world, blood is made up of little parts…and each part has a special job to do.  We will learn that red blood cells carry oxygen to our body, platelets “patch” holes and help our bodies to heal, and white blood cells fight germs.  We’ll learn that “scabs” are God’s band-aids and that they are made out of dead blood cells that are doing their jobs to keep us healthy and safe.  We’ll also learn that our bodies make blood at an amazing rate…INSIDE our bones!  This “what’s inside” business is just amazing!   On Wednesday we will learn about this amazing stuff we call “skin.”  Our skin protects us from germs, makes us water proof AND keeps water inside our bodies, and helps us to regulate our temperature.  We’ll have fun talking about why fingers wrinkle up in water and why we get goose bumps.  Thursday we will focus on our nervous system — “mission control” for the rest of our body!  We will learn that although our bodies need rest, our brain NEVER goes to sleep.  We will end the week with some Halloween “what’s inside” fun by looking at what’s inside a haunted house.

Of course, the “Take Apart Shop” will be in full swing as well.  As evidenced by the bags of “parts” that have been coming home, our part specialists have been hard at work.  We could still use a few more things to take apart.    If you’ve been putting off sending in things for us to work on, now is the time!  Call your neighbors and tell them we can help them clean out their garages!  J   We’ve all become quite adept at using a screwdriver and at problem solving.  It has been lots of fun!

Letters and Language

The letter for the week this week is our last real vowel…U.  If you thought O was tricky, just wait!  There is a reason that UGH begins with U!!!  We will look at both the short and long sounds of the letter.  Take note that with U the short sound is the sound we hear in “umbrella.”  There are VERY few words that use the pure long U sound we hear in “unicorn.”  There is a LONG list of “other” sounds U can make as well…especially if you live in Texas!   (Texans aren’t very good at pronouncing their vowels!) And just to make things interesting, sometimes we have a u sound in a word WITHOUT there being a u anywhere around!!!  J  Remember that we are looking for spelling patterns or options, NOT trying to memorize how to spell every word that has a U sound.  When your child is writing, remember that at this stage in the game it is important for them to write the sound they hear, NOT to spell every word correctly.  We will touch on the following sounds and spelling patterns for U this week:

v-c-e  (June)

c-v-c (cup)

and then the oo sound… We will still call this sound “owl eyes” and will lean on spelling it with two o’s, but now we will discover that there are MANY ways to spell the sound:

oo (moon)

sometimes it is o at the end of a word (do)

ew (new)

ue (blue)

ui (fruit)

ou (soup)

and then, of course, there is “two” which follows NO rule at all!

It is AMAZING that any of us ever learn to read this funny language of ours!

In addition to “owl eyes” (tool, pool) we will continue to reinforce the O rules we learned last week:

• “old O” – When you get OLD you get to do what you want to do and OLD always wants to make the long o sound even if it looks like it should make the short sound since there is only one vowel in the word – cold, bold, told
• Pushy O — sometimes O has a hard time being a good friend, especially when O is next to U or W.  When O stands next to U or W, O pushes and pushes until one of them shouts “OW!” (cow, now, out, shout)

How to help your child with writing/spelling was a frequent question in our conferences.  I am THRILLED your children are writing at home!!!  J  When you are working at home, don’t worry if your child doesn’t spell the words correctly on his/her own.  Ask your child to say the word and listen to the sounds they hear.  If they can’t hear ANY of the sounds as they say the word, then say it for them – slowly.  Ask your child to write what they HEAR.  If your child is writing a whole sentence, remember that the most important step is to organize their thoughts – a sentence is a WHOLE thought.  Have them tell you their whole thought before they begin.  If your child is writing a whole sentence, remind him/her to put spaces between the words as they are putting the thought down on paper.  Finally, have your child READ the words he/she has written to you.  Be sure to have your child touch each word with their pointer finger as he/she reads it.  That will help your child read what they have actually written instead of what their brain THINKS they wrote!  Last, but not least,  go back to check for upper case at the beginning of the sentence and a punctuation mark at the end of the sentence.

Getting the WHOLE THOUGHT on paper is infinitely more important than upper case and punctuation mark, so we focus on that “whole thought” first.

If your child asks you how to spell a word, ask them WHAT SOUNDS THEY HEAR instead of spelling the word for them.  If they ask you if a word is spelled right, be honest with them.  Say something along the lines of, “Man, that word is really tricky.  I see you knew it was a U sound (or A sound or E sound…) and that is GREAT but there are so many ways to spell the U sound that you just never know which way is the right way.  This is the way to spell the word…”  and then write the word correctly on ANOTHER PIECE OF PAPER.  Then have your child draw a line through the word he/she wrote and write it correctly above his/her original word.  Remember that we are focusing on getting the THOUGHT on paper and on hearing sounds letters make, NOT on spelling!!!  Spelling will come…eventually!  J

At school, we are learning to look at the word (a model written on another piece of paper), close our eyes and see the word in our brain, then open our eyes and write the word and finally we read the word we wrote by sounding out each letter, checking to make sure all the letters are in the right place.  It will help tremendously if you touch each letter as you make the sound so that you are sure you have the letters in the right order.  Brains are tricky.  Our brain tries to make us see things the way we know they ought to be rather than the way we have actually written them, so it is really important to make our brains “see” the actual letters we have written by pointing to them as we read them.

In addition to our regular letter work and our journal writing, we will be working on a How to Make a Jack-o-lantern book this week.  This will be our first published piece…the first piece we have taken all the way through the writing process.  That means each child will have made a plan, written their story, edited and revised the draft, and then published (added illustrations and finishing touches.)  We may not finish the books until next week, but we will work on the books a bit each day. We will discover that writing a book is a tedious process!!!  It will represent LOTS of hard work and will be QUITE an accomplishment!!!  Get ready to “ooo” and “ahhhh!”  J

Math this week…

Math lessons this week will take us up to the numeral 20!  We will continue to work on place value, one-to-one correspondence and graphing as well.

Chapel this week…

In chapel on Wednesday we will hear the story of God calling Samuel (I Samuel 1:- 4:21).  Once again, this is a story about God’s special plans for EACH of us.  The story reminds us that God loves us and is calling us by name.  Sometimes we get so busy or so tired that we don’t hear God calling us, or we don’t pay attention to God when we hear His voice.  Sometimes we need a friend to help us understand what God is trying to say.  God puts those friends in our lives every day…and we have to remember to listen to them!

On Thursday we will learn about All Saints’ Day.  On this special day we remember all the saints that have died and gone to live in heaven…and remember that one day we will get to join them!  On All Saints’ Day we remember saints with Upper Case S’s (those who have been designated by the church as extraordinary examples for us to follow) AND saints with a lower case “s” – like you and I!  A saint is someone who loves God and shares God’s love…and that is what we strive to do each and every day!  Halloween is the celebration of All Hallow’s Eve…the night before All Saints’ Day.  We will continue this lesson in our classroom next week as we celebrate Halloween on Monday and  Dia de los Muertos on Tuesday!

Other important notes and reminders …

We will be making wooden jack-o-lanterns this week.  Thanks so much to Jud’s parents, Drew’s Dad, and Charlotte’s Dad for helping out with the sanding and stems to get us ready for this project!  Please send your child to school in paint clothes on Monday and Tuesday.  This isn’t a “messy” project, but we will be using acrylic paints which don’t wash out easily.

Vision and Hearing Screening is this Friday. Forms are available in the school office if you need to sign up.

Halloween Party on Monday! Let the wild rumpus begin!  Your child is INVITED, not required, to wear his/her costume for the day on Monday.  Please review costume details in last week’s newsletter and be sure to send a change of “street clothes” just in case your child gets tired of wearing his/her costume.  Your child will NOT need an afternoon snack on Monday.  Thanks so much to our party moms for organizing this first special celebration of the year:  Sharon von Wupperfeld, Chere Atkins, and Elizabeth Hickman.

Monthly Staff Meeting – Tuesday, Nov. 1^st.  Dismiss at 1:00.

SAES Conference – Thursday, Nov. 3 and Friday, Nov. 4.  The teachers will be traveling to Dallas for the annual SAES Conference next week.  We will dismiss at noon on Thursday.  Friday is a student holiday.

Time for Velveeta boxes!!!  Each child will need at least one Velveeta box by the end of next week.

It is Book Fair Time! The dates for the Book Fair are Nov. 8 – 11.  The Book Fair will be open from 8:30 – 3:30 Tuesday – Thursday and from 8:30 – 1:00 on Friday.  We will go for a preview visit on Tuesday.  Each child will make a “wish list” to bring home for you to think over.  There is no obligation to purchase books, of course, but making a “wish list” gives us a fun reason to practice some reading and writing!

St. Matthew’s Golf Tournament – Nov. 11^th! Thank you to all of you who have already pitched in to help sponsor a hole for our class…as well as to those of you who are helping with the tournament in other ways.  Our class will be making a snazzy sign for our hole so be sure to look for it when you are on the course on the day of the tournament.  A HUGE thank you goes to Loula’s Mom and Dad for organizing this school-wide event!

Dia de los Muertos…

Next Tuesday (Nov. 1st) we will celebrate Dia de los Muertos.  This is a tradition from our neighbors to the south in Mexico in which the living honor the memory of those who have died.  It is a special time to think about loved ones who have passed away and gone to heaven, the lessons they taught us and the happy memories we have.  It is a time to reinforce family traditions and share family stories. In Mexico, families decorate their houses with skeletons doing all sorts of fun things people do when they are alive.  (One of our Fallfest pumpkins was a Dia de los Muertos scene.)  The families prepare special meals that include family recipes and go to the grave of a loved one to have a special picnic and celebration.  They picnic in the evening, surrounded by other families who are also celebrating and sharing stories, then they all go to church at midnight.  We won’t go quite that far, but we will have our own special celebration!  We will set up a special altar to CELEBRATE our loved ones.  (It is important to note that we are CELEBRATING and REMEMBERING them…NOT worshiping them!)  We will have fun sharing stories and will enjoy some special treats (Pan de Muertos and sugar skulls) as we remember the “sweet memories” of these special people.

I need your help!  By Tuesday of next week each child needs to bring a photo or trinket that represents a family member or someone who is special to your family who has passed away.  With each photo or trinket, your child will need a bit of background information…name, relationship to the child, why they were special, what they taught your family, how they showed others they loved God, a happy memory, etc.  If you think your child will have a difficult time remembering their “story” you might jot it down and send in your notes so I can prompt them.

On Monday I will bring in my own Dia de los Muertos memories to get us started and to give the children an idea of what they might bring.   I will bring in a picture of each of my grandmothers.  I will also bring a little quilt piece from one of my grandmothers and a coffee cup from my other grandmother.  I can remember SO MANY happy times sitting on the floor while Nanny was sewing and telling me stories, and every time I hold a warm cup of coffee I can almost hear Mema laughing…she ALWAYS had a cup of coffee in her hands and had the most wonderful laugh!  I’ll also bring in a box of dominoes that has been passed down to me from my grandfather.  Some of my happiest memories as a child involve the clinking of dominoes… I would sit on the floor under the table playing dolls with my cousins as the adults clinked dominoes and laughed and told stories.  Then came my first domino games sitting in my grandparents’ laps, followed by my own games with dear friends, and finally teaching my own children to play dominoes!

You are also welcome to send in mementos or photos of family pets instead of a person if you would rather.

If you choose to send in something from a person, remember that the person need not be someone your child actually knew.  The whole point of Dia de los Muertos is to pass on family stories and traditions and remember the example of those who lived before us, so this is the perfect time to pass along a story about a beloved ancestor to your child.  You are welcome to send in the photos and special items on Friday or Monday, but we definitely need them on Monday.  The photos and “things” will come home by Wednesday of next week.

Questions…don’t hesitate to ask.  I’m happy to visit with you about our plans.

Homework for the week:

Monday night:  Uu practice.  Write 3 or 4 excellent upper case U’s and 3 or 4 excellent lower case u’s.  Write a sentence about something that is blue.  (The sky is blue.  A lake is blue.  The dots on my car are blue.)  I will send home handwriting paper for this assignment.  By now, we should all be trying to make lower case forms of ALL the vowels unless the vowel is at the beginning of a sentence or the beginning of a name.  Don’t worry about lower case forms of the consonants just yet.  Remember that the children aren’t accountable for the lower case form of the letter until we present that letter in class.

Tuesday night: Be on the lookout for “BLOOD” to come home on Tuesday!  This is one of our favorite projects of the unit!  Your children will have great fun scaring you with their “blood”, as well as explaining to you the three parts of their blood and the jobs they do.  By the way, did you notice that “blood” doesn’t follow the “owl eyes” rule?  J

Wednesday night:  How long does it take your fingers to get wrinkly in water (a bowl or the sink or a bathtub)???  Set up your own experiment!  What questions can you find the answers to?  Does the temperature of the water make a difference?  How long does it take the wrinkles to go away?  Do toes or fingers wrinkle first?

Wednesday night: How long does it take your fingers to get wrinkly in water (a bowl or the sink or a bathtub)???  Set up your own experiment!  What questions can you find the answers to?  Does the temperature of the water make a difference?  How long does it take the wrinkles to go away?  Do toes or fingers wrinkle first?

Thursday night: Place value practice – pick your favorite number between 11 and 20.  Bring little objects to school to show us how many “tens” and how many “ones” or “left overs” your favorite number represents.

That’s all the news for right now.  It is going to be a fun week.  Give me a call if you have questions or concerns.  Thank you so much for sharing your angels with me each day!

God’s peace,

kathy     423-1681

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

October 16, 2011

Dear Parents:

Hip-hip-hooray for the Fallfest team!  I hope you and your little ones had as much fun Friday night as I did!  You ALL did an amazing job of getting things organized and pulling off a GRAND evening.  Although I wouldn’t have minded having some rain, it was the perfect evening to be outside having fun.  THANK YOU to all of you who baked and decorated, worked a shift (or two or three), set up, cleaned up, bought tickets, sponsored booths, and most importantly of all, brought your family out to have fun with the rest of us!  It was a HUGE hit!

I also want to thank those of you who gave up your day to join us on the field trip on Thursday.  Inner Space was awesome!  I hope you heard lots of wonderful stories on Thursday night.  We saw all the “usual” formations, several bats (both sleeping upside down and in flight), and heard some wonderful stories and cave jokes (our guide was quite a storyteller!).  One of my favorite parts of the trip is when we get to turn the lights out and discover that you really can’t SEE anything at all in total darkness…not even your hand when it is right in front of your face!  Be sure you stop by the hallway to see the cave mural (made out of torn paper), read the children’s field trip stories and enjoy the photos.

Now, on to this week!

What’s Inside…

We will continue discovering “What’s Inside” this week by taking a look at what is inside our bodies.  We will start learning about what’s inside our bodies by looking at our skeletal system.  We’ll learn that our bones give us our shape and protect our organs, but they can’t move us without the help of our muscles.  We will have fun learning the names of some of the bones, and looking at how they are connected to form our skeleton.  We will take a look at different kinds of joints, talk about what happens when we break a bone, and what we need to do (and eat!) to keep our bones healthy and strong.

Tuesday we will learn about our muscular system.  We will learn that we have two types of muscles:  skeletal muscles that we can control to make us move and involuntary muscles that we can’t control, but that keep us alive.  We will learn that muscles work in pairs and that they have to be attached to a bone to make us move.  We will learn that muscles can only PULL, they can’t push … that is why they have to have a partner to work with.  We’ll learn that muscles get stronger when we exercise them and that we need to exercise EVERY day.

Wednesday and Thursday will be devoted to the systems that fuel our bodies so they can work properly.  We will talk about the respiratory and digestive systems, and how the two work together to give us energy.  We will learn that it takes food AND oxygen to fuel our bodies, that that we need to eat healthy foods to keep our bodies running at their best.   We will spend a bit of time on good nutrition and on teeth, which happens to be a VERY important topic for 5 and 6 year olds!!  J

The Fix-It Shop is still open for business and continues to offer us a WONDERUFUL laboratory for problem solving and fine motor development.  An added bonus of the shop is that the children are actively engaged in conversation and community problem solving!  It is just amazing to listen to them share ideas and work through “what if we try…” with each other.  It is fertile ground for that cooperative spirit we are working so hard to establish in our classroom, and I just LOVE it!  We will have the shop open this week and next week, so keep on sending in “stuff!”

Letters and Language…

We will stick with the letter O as our letter of the week this week.  It is a good thing that O is easy for us to write because it is TERRIBLY difficult to learn all of O’s tricky spelling patterns!  We spent last week on the long and short sounds of O.  On Monday we will review long and short O.  Tuesday we will look at “owl eyes,” Wednesday we will look at “pushy o” and Thursday we will look at “Old O.”

In addition to the long and short sounds that O makes, we will pick up two more fun vowel rules this week.  The first is “owl eyes.”  When two o’s are found right next to each other in a word they look like “owl eyes” and what sound does an owl make?  OO as is “who!” (tool, pool)  Now for the fun part of the “owl eyes” rule.  Owls talk to each other in the night from far, far away.  One owl will say “hoo” and his friend far away in another tree will answer “who” and the conversation keeps on going…until one of the owls gets distracted and doesn’t hear exactly what his friend said.  Then that owl will ask, “What did you say?” by using the OTHER sound oo makes – the sound in “book.”  So the conversation goes:

“Hoo” (as in too)

“Hoo” (as in too)

“Hoo” (as in too)

“Hoo?” (as in book!) – as if one of us saying “huh?”

We will always try the oo as in who first, then if the word doesn’t make sense we will try the oo as in “book.”

The second rule for this week tells us that sometimes O has a hard time being a good friend, especially when O is next to U or W.  When O stands next to U or W, O pushes and pushes until one of them shouts “OW!” (cow, now, out, shout)  If the “ow” sound is in the middle of the word, it is probably spelled “ou.”  If it is at the end of a word, it is probably spelled “ow.”

Thursday we will look at “old O.”   When you get OLD you get to do what you want to do, even if it

means you don’t always follow the rules.  (I can’t wait to get old! J )  OLD always wants to make the long o sound even if it looks like it should make the short sound since there is only one vowel in the word – cold, bold, told.

The hand clue for “owl eyes” will be circles around our eyes.  The hand sign for “OU” or “OW” will be to push your two index fingers together and then pop them apart.  Remember, of course, that there are lots of exceptions to all these rules, but it gives us a starting place to try to decode this funny thing we call language.  In addition, remember that I want the children to learn the rules, not just memorize them.  The rules we learn and can apply will stay with us for a lifetime.  The rules we memorize are likely to get lost or rusty if we don’t use them regularly.  We will go over these very same rules all year long, so don’t worry if your child isn’t picking up on them of the first try.  We have seven months left to work on them!  J

Sight words for this week will be you, two, to, too, do, and blue.

Numbers and Math…

We will continue working our way up the number line this week.  We will be working on writing the numerals correctly, one-to-one correspondence, and number sequencing up to 18.  Place value will still take center stage in our math lessons this week.  We will also continue working with graphs this week.

Chapel…

On Wednesday we will learn that because God does love us, He gave us a set of rules to live by so that we could all be safe. We call those rules the Ten Commandments.  Moses delivered the Ten Commandments to God’s people long, long ago…and as God’s people, we still live by those very same rules today.  In Chapel on Thursday we will be “making a joyful noise” to the Lord with our voices.  We will not have a story for Chapel on Thursday.

Parent Conferences…

Although by now I hope you all realize that ANY day you have a question or concern is “conference day” in my class, this week is officially parent conference week and Friday is our official fall parent conference day.  There is NO school on Friday!

Fall conferences are goal setting conferences.  These conferences give you and I an opportunity to share observations, establish some “base lines” and set goals for your child for the year.  At our conference, you can expect to receive a conference summary page, a copy of the progress report and a HUGE stack of work your child has done since the first of the year.  I have been saving work from these past 3 weeks or so to help paint a picture of where your child is at this point in the year.  More importantly, I want you to walk away from the conference with a clear idea of our goals for your child for the next months.  I also want you to have a chance to ask ALL the questions you have been pondering during these weeks since school began, so bring your list!

I am including a little “homework” for you with this newsletter – a form to fill out to help you organize your thoughts a bit before we meet.  You may send the form back to me in your child’s blue folder, email it back to me or just bring it with you to the conference.  I look forward to visiting with you about these special little angels!

Looking ahead…

Book orders are due Tuesday of this week. I am trying “on line” ordering from Scholastic Books this year.  We will try it a couple of times and see if it works.  If not, we’ll go back to the “old way.”  Go to www.scholastic.com and see what happens!  You will log on as a parent and look for our class.  Our class code is: F87DT.  Please let me know if you have problems with the site.

Monday, Oct. 31^st – Halloween Party! The children are all invited (NOT required) to wear their costumes on Monday.  Please keep the following guidelines in mind as you think about costumes:

• the costume must allow for safe play indoors AND out…can your child climb, run, and “work” comfortably??
• Appropriate school footwear (tennis shoes) must be worn, even if your child is Dorothy and the picture calls for ruby red slippers!
• Your child will need to be able to handle getting out of and back into the costume on his/her own for restroom breaks.
• Please send a change of “street clothes” in case your child gets tired of wearing the costume during the day.
• Remember…we don’t have weapons at school…spears, knives, light sabers, guns, bows and arrows, clubs, and web making devices need to all be saved for the actual trick-or-treating at home and in the neighborhood.
• I encourage you to consider “saints” (historical figures or people that love God and help others), storybook characters and things found in nature (animals, butterflies, etc.) as the focus of costumes rather than monsters, witches, “mean things” and “dead things.”  Please save the blood, guts and gore, extra eyes and scary things for another venue…some of our friends are still a bit troubled about monsters and costumes in general, and we want EVERYONE to be able to enjoy the day.  Monsters are certainly ok…we’ll just need to remember to be on our best “friendly monster” behavior.  J
• And last, but not least, remember that as careful as we are, accidents happen at school…paint gets spilled, ruffles get caught on trike wheels and get torn, we trip and fall and scrape knees on the playground which adds a bit of real blood to the picture…If you want your child to look PERFECT for trick-or-treating on Sunday night, think twice about sending them to school in their “fancy” costume.
• Give me a call if you have any questions about your child’s costume.  Remember…costumes are OPTIONAL.

Tuesday, Nov. 1^st – Dia de los Muertos and Noon Dismissal for monthly staff meeting

Homework for the week:

Monday night – Since we are working with the letter O again this week we will deviate a bit from our usual Monday night homework.  The children have been working on identifying vowels and consonants in words and looking for patterns (Consonant – Vowel – Consonant, Vowel-Consonant-Silent E, Two vowels go walking, Vowel at the end of a word).  Your child will bring home a page that asks them to:

1. identify vowels and consonants

2.  look for spelling patterns

3.  code (mark) the vowels

4.  draw a line to match the word to the picture

The children should write V for vowel and C for consonant in the boxes below the letters in the word.  Once they determine the letter pattern in the word, they will know how to “code” the vowels (mark them long, short, or silent).  The mark for the short vowel sound is a little smiling mouth above the vowel.  Long vowels get a line over them.  Silent vowels get one diagonal line marked through them.  We will do a page just like this in school on Monday, so the children should know what to do.  If it is stressful, DON’T push…and please let me know!  J

Tuesday night:  Muscles and bones need lots of exercise to keep them strong.  Do something to exercise and be ready to tell us what you did!

Wednesday night:  Our bodies need good fuel to function properly.  Look in your pantry or refrigerator and find 5 things that would be good fuel for your body.  Make a list of things you find.

Thursday night:  NO homework since we do not have school on Friday.

Finally…

I will be absent on Monday.  I will be in Houston putting Will on the airplane to Egypt.  I am leaving the children in the wonderful hands of Mrs. Susie and Mrs. Ward.  I will look forward to being back in the classroom with them and being VERY busy on Tuesday!

As always, please give me a call if you have ANY questions.  Thank you so much for sharing your little ones with me!

God’s peace,

Kathy    423-1681

Fall_Planning_and_Goal_Setting_Conferences_–_Parent_report

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~