This week in Advocacy, we will be reading the story “Feelings Need Feelings”. This story talks about how big feelings sometimes need other feelings to help calm us down. This is a great story that explains how to come back to a peaceful spot if you are escalated! 

You can listen to the story here. 

We will also be doing a “Dream Drawing” with our students of what we want our future Gymnasium to look like, if we were to receive the BEST Grant that would give us the funds to do so. It is a fun way for the kids to get involved, and these drawings will be sent right to the Developing company. Some of the drawings might be picked to be shown at the Carnival on May 29th, so make sure you join us to see if your students' picture got chosen! 

Upcoming Events: 

• 🎭 May 23rd: Reader’s Theater 
• Students will perform a play based on a well known book. The performance will be open to families and will be held at different times for each class. If you are not sure when your performance is, see the Social Studies section of Edlio, or ask your students teacher. 
• 🎓 May 28th: Kindergarten Continuation
• Continuation will be from 9:30 am - 10:15 am. All families are welcome to attend. If you are unable to be there, please let us know in advance. 
• 🎉 May 29th: Half Day & School Carnival
• 🎉 May 30th: Half Day & Last Day of School

This week in Advocacy, we will be reading A Little Spot Learns Kind Words! With this book, we will learn how we can use kind words to lift each other up. Please feel free to watch this book with your student and discuss how we can use kind words in and outside of our classroom.

Upcoming Events: 

• 🎭 May 8th: Field Trip to the Arvada Center
• Here is a permission slip for your student to attend our field trip to see Lyle the Crocodile. Please let us know if you’d like to be a chaperone. Click here if you would like to watch a trailer of the performance. 
• What to Bring:
• Westgate Purple Shirt
• Water bottle and Sack Lunch 

• 🏃‍♂️ May 15th: Field Day
• 🎭 May 23rd: Reader’s theater. Students will perform a play based on a well known book. The performance will be open to families and will be held at 1:00 pm. 
• 🎓 May 28th: Kindergarten Continuation
• Continuation will be from 9:30 am - 10:15 am. All families are welcome to attend. If you are unable to be there, please let us know in advance. 
• 🎉 May 29th: Half Day & School Carnival
• 🎉 May 30th: Half Day & Last Day of School

This week, it is the school wide Earth Week celebration, so we will be working through a different set of lessons that discuss Earth Week. The theme for this Earth Week is Our Planet Our Power. We are going to be learning about where power comes from and how we can keep our planet healthy.  There are also a ton of fun Earth Week things that are going on, capped off at the end of the week with our Clothing Swap on Friday May 2nd, from 3:30-5:30. We will be accepting clothing donations starting Tuesday April 29th and ending Thursday May 1st. Donations will be accepted during the PM carline. All of the clothes that are donated will be available to look at during the Clothing Swap on Friday night, and all of the clothes will be free! So make sure you bring your student to check out the awesome clothes! 

Upcoming Events: 

• 🌍 April 28th–May 2nd: Westgate Earth Week
• Monday, April 28th: Energy Education
• Tuesday, April 29th: We Don’t Waste Lunch Food Audit
• Wednesday, April 30th: Zero Waste Wednesday
• Thursday, May 1st: Sustainable Fashion Show
• Friday, May 2nd
• School Wide Global Clean Up
• Free Clothing Swap (3:30 PM - 5:30 PM)
• 🦁 April 30th: Field Trip to the Denver Zoo
• Here is a permission slip for your student to attend our field trip to the zoo. Please let us know if you’d like to be a chaperone. 
• What to Bring:
• Comfortable walking shoes
• Weather-appropriate clothing (we will be outside most of the day)
• Water bottle and Sack Lunch
• 🎭 May 8th: Field Trip to the Arvada Center
• 🏃‍♂️ May 15th: Field Day
• 🎓 May 28th: Kindergarten Continuation
• Continuation will be from 9:30 am - 10:15 am. All families are welcome to attend. If you are unable to be there, please let us know in advance. 
• 🎉 May 29th: Half Day & School Carnival
• 🎉 May 30th: Half Day & Last Day of School

This week in advocacy, we will take a closer look at A Little Spot of Love. Students will learn different ways of expressing love through listening and kindness, introduce different love languages, the importance of self-love and self-care, and how to grow love spots through empathy and compassion. 

Don’t forget that we have a field trip coming up this week! More information is below. 

Upcoming Events:

• 📅 April 25th: Field Trip to Innovage

• We’ll visit Innovage Senior Care Center to read books and play bingo with participants. Please complete the permission form here if you haven’t already. We will return before lunch, so no sack lunch is needed. Also, no chaperones are needed for this field trip.

• What to Bring:
• Comfortable walking shoes
• Weather-appropriate clothing (we will walk to the center)

• 🌍 April 28th–May 2nd: Westgate Earth Week
• Monday, April 28th: Energy Education
• Tuesday, April 29th: We Don’t Waste Lunch Food Audit
• Wednesday, April 30th: Zero Waste Wednesday
• Thursday, May 1st: Sustainable Fashion Show
• Friday, May 2nd
• School Wide Global Clean Up
• Free Clothing Swap (3:30 PM - 5:30 PM)
• 🦁 April 30th: Field Trip to the Denver Zoo
• Here is a permission slip for your student to attend our field trip to the zoo. Please let us know if you’d like to be a chaperone. 
• What to Bring:
• Comfortable walking shoes
• Weather-appropriate clothing (we will be outside most of the day)
• Water bottle and Sack Lunch
• 🎭 May 8th: Field Trip to the Arvada Center
• 🏃‍♂️ May 15th: Field Day
• 🎓 May 28th: Kindergarten Continuation
• Continuation will be from 9:30 am - 10:15 am. All families are welcome to attend. If you are unable to be there, please let us know in advance. 
• 🎉 May 29th: Half Day & School Carnival
• 🎉 May 30th: Half Day & Last Day of School

This week in advocacy, we will take a closer look at A Little Spot of Happiness. Students will learn how to spread kindness and have a positive attitude, while also building strategies and routines that can help build confidence.

Don’t forget that we have a field trip coming up! More information is below. 

Upcoming Events:

• April 16th: Children’s Museum 
• We will go to the Children’s Museum on Wednesday, April 16th. Please complete the permission form here by Wednesday, April 9th. Send your students with a sack lunch, a water bottle for the day, and have your student wear a purple or white Westgate shirt. If you are interested in being a chaperone, please email me!
• April 18th: Half Day
• April 25th: Field Trip to Innovage
• We will be visiting Innovage senior care center to read books and play bingo with some of the participants that attend the center. Please complete the permission form here by Friday, April 18th. Send your students with comfortable walking shoes and appropriate clothes for the weather as we will be walking to the center. We will be returning before lunch, so no need to bring a sack lunch. We will not be accepting chaperones for this field trip. 
• April 30th: Field Trip to the Denver Zoo
• Here is a permission slip for your student to attend our field trip to the zoo. Please let us know if you’d like to be a chaperone. 
• May 8th: Field Trip to the Arvada Center to see Lyle the Crocodile
• May 15th: Field Day
• May 28th: Kindergarten Continuation 
• Continuation will be from 9:30 am - 10:15 am. All families are welcome to attend. If you are unable to be there, please let us know in advance. 
• May 29th: Half day and School Carnival 
• May 30th: Half day and Last Day of School

This week, we will continue to work on building our understanding of economics! Well, we’re so Last week, we learned what a consumer is and how they make purchases for goods and services. This week, we will take a closer look at what a consumer is and introduce who is a producer. From there, we will take a moment to discuss supply and demand and then practice our knowledge with a purposeful play market. Here, students will get to pretend to be producers and consumers and spend money to buy goods and services.

This week in advocacy we will be taking some time to create cards to give to our older students in encouragement for their CMAS testing that starts this week. We will round out the week by reviewing our classroom expectations and reviewing all of our little spots of feelings after our long break! 

Upcoming Events:

• April 16th: Children’s Museum 
• We will go to the Children’s Museum on Wednesday, April 16th. Please complete the permission form here by Friday, April 11th. Send your students with a sack lunch, a water bottle for the day, and have your student wear a purple or white Westgate shirt. If you are interested in being a chaperone, please email me!
• April 18th: Half Day
• April 25th: Field Trip to Innovage
• We will be visiting Innovage senior care center to read books and play bingo with some of the participants that attend the center. Please complete the permission form here by Friday, April 18th. Send your students with comfortable walking shoes and appropriate clothes for the weather as we will be walking to the center. We will be returning before lunch, so no need to bring a sack lunch. We will not be accepting chaperones for this field trip. 
• April 30th: Field Trip to the Denver Zoo
• More information to come! Please let me know if you are interested in attending as a chaperone.

This week in our social emotional curriculum, we will be reading A Little Spot of Belonging. With this story, we will emphasize the importance of including others, being kind, and making friends. We will explore concepts like belonging, acceptance, and self-love. 

Upcoming Events:

• March 19th: Field Trip
• We will go to the Butterfly Pavilion on Wednesday, March 19th. Please complete the permission form here if you haven’t already. Send your students with a sack lunch, a water bottle for the day, and have your student wear a purple or white Westgate shirt. 
• March 20th: Bus Barn Presentation
• Our community helpers from the bus barn want to come into the classroom to give the kindergarteners a presentation. They will discuss safety on the bus and we may get the opportunity to tour a school bus. 
• Spring Break
• March 24th through April 4th is spring break. Students will return to school on Monday, April 7th
• April 16th: Children’s Museum 
• We will go to the Children’s Museum on Wednesday, April 16th. Please complete the permission form here by Friday, March 15th. Send your students with a sack lunch, a water bottle for the day, and have your student wear a purple or white Westgate shirt.
• April 18th: Half Day

This week in our social emotional curriculum, we will be reading A Little Spot Makes Friends. With this story, we will explore why we need friends, steps to make friends, feelings we feel when we are around friends, and how we can create lasting relationships. Please unpack these big questions and themes at home this week.

Kindergarten is going on a field trip to the Butterfly Pavilion on Wednesday, March 19th. Please complete the permission form here by Friday, March 15th. Send your students with a sack lunch, a water bottle for the day, and have your student wear a purple or white Westgate shirt. We will be participating in a Butterfly Buddies lesson to connect with our year-long service-learning curriculum.

This week in advocacy, we will be continuing our review of the Little Spots of Feelings that we have learned so far this year, and we will be taking extra emphasis on how to identify these feelings in our friends, as well as ourselves. We will be talking about how to get out of a spot that we do not want to be in, and how to get into spots that we do want to be in. Lastly, we will be exploring what to do if we see a friend in specific spots, when is it appropriate to talk to try to help someone into their happy and peaceful spots, or when it is better to let a teacher try to help students return to their happy and peaceful spots. 

We still need chaperones for our Butterfly Pavilion! Please let me know if you're interested in joining us! 

Upcoming Events:

• February 28th- Class Picture Day
• March 3rd - 7th - Book Fair (most of the books presented will be chapter books) 
• March 6th and 7th- Parent Teacher Conferences, No School Either Day
• March 19th - Field trip to the Butterfly Pavilion (feel free to email me if you’re interested in being a chaperone) 
• March 22nd - April 6th - Spring Break

This week in advocacy, we will be learning about A Little Safety Spot at School and A Little Respectful Spot. After reading each of these books, we will identify how we can practice safe bodies in and outside of the classroom and discuss how showing respect and safety skills go hand and hand. To support your students learning outside of the classroom, feel free to watch the books together and ask them questions such as: what does safety look like inside the school? Outside of school? Why is it important to talk about safety? What does respect look like, sound like, feel like? 

Upcoming Events:

• February 28th- Class Picture Day
• March 19th - Field trip to the Butterfly Pavilion (feel free to email me if you’re interested in being a chaperone) 
• March 22nd - April 6th - Spring Break

Advocacy Theme

The RISE theme for the month of February is empathy and kindness. Your students will imagine what it will be like to stand in someone else’s shoes, learn how being empathetic strengthens our community, and how it deepens the relationships with people they know in and out of school. We will be hitting this theme throughout this week by focusing on Kindness week, and different ways that we can show kindness at school, and at home. We will be making cards to take with us to the workers at the bus barn, and going to be giving the students kindness challenges that they can complete at home. For this week, we will be taking a break from our little spot of feelings curriculum to focus on Kindness Week! 

Kindness Week

The Kindness Week Food Drive Starts on Monday! We have a school goal of 1,500 cans, and an individual class goal of 50 cans to hit during the week next week! Remember the themes of each day for the food drive are as follows:

Monday: Spice it up Monday (Dried Herbs and Spices)

Tuesday: Pasta Tuesday (Dried pasta in boxes) 

Wednesday Veggie Wednesday (Canned Vegetables)

Thursday: Toiletry Thursday (Kleenex, Toilet Paper, Paper Towels)

Friday: Fruit Filled Friday (Canned Fruit) 

It is important to note: We will be accepting all types of non-perishable foods throughout the week, the themes are just ideas in case you need some inspiration! All non-perishable items will be donated to A Precious Child! If you have any further questions on the food drive, please do not hesitate to reach out! 

Westgate celebrates kindness week February 10th through February 14th. In kindergarten, we have the wonderful opportunity to visit the Bus Barn to share our thanks to our community helpers who drive, manage, and fix our school buses. Please complete this permission form to allow your student to join us on this field trip. As this is a school staffed event,we will not be accepting chaperones, however, we’d love to have you join us for our field trip in March. More information about that to come! If you want more information on why we celebrate kindness week at Westgate or how we celebrate it in kindergarten, please check out our post from January 20th. 

Upcoming Events:

• Kindness Week: February 10th through February 14th. 
• Half day of school February 14th
• February 14th- Walking field trip to the bus barn.  Please fill out the permission form so your  student can attend (see more information above).
• No School February 17th for Presidents day. 

Advocacy Theme

The RISE theme for the month of February is empathy and kindness. Your students will imagine what it will be like to stand in someone else’s shoes, learn how being empathetic strengthens our community, and how it deepens the relationships with people they know in and out of school. 

Little spot of feelings: 

On top of continuing our talks about growth mindset with the students for the advocacy theme of February, we will also continue to explore our little spot of feelings curriculum. This week we will read A Little Spot of Empathy and A Little Spot Giving because we will create cards for our community helpers that work at the bus barn and give it to them during our walking field trip. 

Kindness Week

Westgate celebrates kindness week February 10th through February 14th. In kindergarten, we have the wonderful opportunity to visit the Bus Barn to share our thanks to our community helpers who drive, manage, and fix our school buses. Please complete this permission form to allow your student to join us on this field trip. As this is a school staffed event,we will not be accepting chaperones, however, we’d love to have you join us for our field trip in March. More information about that to come! If you want more information on why we celebrate kindness week at Westgate or how we celebrate it in kindergarten, please check out our previous post.

Upcoming Events:

• Kindness Week: February 10th through February 14th. 
• Half day of school February 14th
• February 14th- Walking field trip to the bus barn.  Please fill out the permission form so your  student can attend (see more information above).
• No School February 17th for Presidents day. 

Little spot of feelings: 

On top of continuing our talks about growth mindset with the students for the advocacy theme of January, we will also continue to explore our little spot of feelings curriculum. This week we will read three new books! A Little Spot of Empathy, A Little Spot of Flexible Thinking, and A Little Spot of Disappointment. While we read these books, we will think about how we can give ourselves and others grace when we are disappointed or when things do not go our way. 

Kindness Week

Westgate celebrates kindness week February 10th through February 14th. In kindergarten, we have the wonderful opportunity to visit the Bus Barn to share our thanks to our community helpers who drive, manage, and fix our school buses. Please complete this permission slip to allow your student to join us on this field trip. As this is a school staffed event, we will not be accepting chaperones, however, we’d love to have you join us for our field trip in March. More information about that to come! If you want more information on why we celebrate kindness week at Westgate or how we celebrate it in kindergarten, please check out our previous post.

Upcoming Events:

• Field Trip: On Thursday, January 23rd we will be going to the Hammond’s Candy Factory for a tour. Please fill out this field trip permission form so your student can attend. 
• Kindness Week: February 10th through February 14th.
• Half day of school February 14th, no school February 17th.