Welcome New Kindergarten Students

This year, for the first time, Victoria has full day Kindergarten!

To help our incoming kinders to transition to kindergarten ... and a long day at school... we offered a Summer Kinder Academy! Our academy was held the week of August 9th - 13th for two hours a day. Students practiced various school procedures (i.e. walking in line, playground rules, sitting on the carpet, etc.), teachers were able to complete pre-assessments/ observations of participating students, and students were reassured that their parents would come pick them up after school and they would not be stuck at school forever. While our new kinders completed activities in class, parents of each incoming student participated in the “Parent School/Home Connection” component of the academy. These informative workshops were designed to build parents' knowledge to support their kindergartener’s academic success. Workshops included:

• Building Your Kindergartner's Social and Language Skills
• Understanding the RUSD Kindergarten Standards in Language Arts
• Understanding the RUSD Kindergarten Standards in Mathematics
• Unlocking the California English Language Development Test (CELDT)
• English as a Second Language-Improving Your English to Support Your Child
• RUSD-Opportunities for Parent Involvement

A thank you to the students, parents, teachers, and presenters that made our first Kinder Academy a huge success.

Victoria Families Come Back-to-School

Tonight was our annual Back-to-School Night. Despite the 100+ degree weather outside, we had a great night!

Again this year we began the night with a family BBQ/Picnic. Our fabulous PTA slaved over the hot grill and cooked up hamburgers for us. However, rather than eating outside in real picnic fashion, we moved indoors and enjoyed our food in the comfort of the air conditioned cafeteria!

We also had several booths set up inside the cafeteria. The PTA recruited new members and sold Victoria Spiritwear. There was also information describing opportunities for parent involvement, i.e. School Site Council, English Learner Advisory Committee, and Parent Wednesday Workshops. We advertised our after school program that we will start in September and asked parents if they'd like to volunteer to share their talents and hobbies with our kids. (I'll blog more on our After School S.O.A.R. Program in a new post!) RUSD Nutritional Services was there to assist families in completing lunch applications and offered samples from our "Farm Fresh Salad Bar". The YMCA also shared information about their program that meets across the street at the church.

Teachers prepared wonderful presentations to share with families about their classrooms and the grade level standards that they will teach their students this year. They repeated their presentation for families who had more than one classroom to visit tonight.

As many families left to go home, they stopped by the 6th Grade Outdoor Ed. Bake Sale for a sweet treat.

Thank you to all of the teachers for their hard work and dedication to make Victoria an outstanding school. Thank you to all the parents/grandparents/guardians for your continued support. This is going to be another extraordinary school year!