Kindergarten News Ms. Yamazaki ~ Room 1A33 ~ May 26, 2008 Dear Parents, Well, it’s finally that time---time to wrap up the kindergarten year and take a long-awaited summer break. I hope that you and your family have planned some fun, relaxing family outings or trips together. Whether you are planning to stay on island, travel abroad, or return home, this break from school should provide you with quality time with your children. Your five or six-year-old is at a very special age now ---old enough to take on meaningful outings and learning experiences and still young enough to want to go with you. The day will come when s/he becomes a teenager, and time with friends will be take precedence over going on holiday with parents. So take advantage of this opportune time in your child’s life. Plan to spend some quality time together. Here are some suggestions for family outings: Find an art or natural history museum (The JuMing Museum has a Children’s Art Center) Visit a children’s museum or science museum Visit the library (keep reading aloud to your child throughout the summer)---this is so important! Go to a baseball game, go ice skating, go bike riding Let your child play outdoors! Take hikes and nature walks, go to the beach, plan picnics, play catch. Don’t keep your child indoors all summer! (Remember sunscreen and mosquito repellent) Less than two weeks of kindergarten left… Goodbye, Solenne We bid a sad farewell Solenne and her family as they move on to Tokyo, Japan. Solenne, Merle, and Joel Becker will attend The American School in Japan in the fall. On the following page, I have outlined some ideas to keep writing going over the summer. This has been a remarkable year---it has been amazing to see the growth in all of your children. It has truly been a pleasure working with you and this fantastic group of kindergartners. I have genuinely enjoyed teaching them, and I think they are an amazing group. Thank you for all of your support throughout the year. Please join us for the final class gathering, Tuesday, June 2nd at 12:30 for our presentation, work share, and class party. We will begin at 12:30 sharp in the lower school library for Mother Goose’s Goose is Loose---and other poems. Afterwards, we’ll move to our classroom to share our work with you and say our good-byes to Solenne. Our room mothers and other volunteers have planned a class party at the end of the day. We welcome you to join us for that, as well.

Kindergarten News Keeping a Summer Journal Now that your child is writing, keep the momentum going over the summer. Take your child to buy a journal to record summer memories. Whenever you go, to the movies or to a restaurant or other place of interest, take a brochure. Let your child cut it up and paste the pictures in the journal. This is a start for writing. Take photos of events or trips and let your child paste them into his/her journal. S/he can write about what is in the photo. Get maps or a globe so your child can keep track of the places you visit. Buy new colored pencils for drawing in the journal (I love Berol Prisma Color---available in the US in art stores but there are other good ones available, too). Get some stickers that your child can use to decorate the journal. Make writing purposeful and FUN. Mary Summer Reading Remember to read aloud to your child on a regular basis over the summer. It still holds true that reading aloud to children helps develop better readers. Reading books aloud in your home language is important, too. Discussing what is read helps build comprehension skills. Keep up the good read- aloud habits you established during the school year. I guarantee that reading aloud will pay off! Your child has started the exciting journey of reading. Please make books (just right books) available, either in your own home library or by borrowing books from the library. I will send home a few more KEEP books in June to read at home, too. Caves Book store (up the street from Hagen Daz) has short books for emerging readers. Remember, “hard books hurt readers,” so finding books a the just-right level is key. We want to develop fluency in reading, otherwise too much effort is spent on trying to sound out words and comprehension is lost. Books vs. TV… I choose books.

Kindergarten News Have a great summer, everyone!

Kindergarten News Here’s where I’ll be… This is the Monterey Bay Aquarium near my dad’s home in Pacific Grove. I will spend most of my time with my ninety- one-year-old dad, but I’ll make short trips to LA, Portland and Seattle, and maybe Hawaii to visit two of my college friends. If you know you’re going to be in the Monterey Bay area, please let me know: