Newsletter #1
Friday, August 15th is a new family welcome and meet the teacher.
Monday, August 19th is the first day of school.
Newsletter #2
What a terrific first week of school! The Happy Campers got off to a great start and I see they have adjusted beautifully to our routine. We are still working on class rules for safety and kindness and making strides.
In religion we learned about Jesus' friends who helped him spread the Good Word. They were fishermen who used nets and followed Jesus to be his friend and help Him.
In science we are studying our class pet, a snail. We have created a "habitat" for our little creature and added some friends to his home. Thank you Georgia for bringing in a new pet with friends. We drew snails (please check the folder) and watched a 2 minute video to learn more about them.
We have enjoyed wonderful stories this week. Pout Pout Fish Goes to School, Click Clack Quack to School, Whiffy Wilson Goes to School and David Goes to School. We drew illustrations about each book and are working on fine motor skills.
Thank you for your cooperation and support with the snack routine, nap bags and other matters to foster independence and self-esteem.
Have a fun weekend!
Newsletter #3
This week was all about classroom rules (to keep us safe and happy) AND about being a friend. We heard stories about friendhip, Stick and Stone and talked about what it meant to be a good friend. Our activity was to illustrate us with a friend, cut it out and paste on colored paper. This was a fine motor and executive function skill. If you are looking to reinforce lessons we learn in school, try to organically incorporate letter identification and sound in every day activities. Also, make counting fun. Have the little ones help set the table and count out the silverware or napkins.
Our class is making great strides daily in following our routine and being awesome listeners.
Stay safe and we will see you next week. As indicated in the school wide email, we follow Broward School regarding school closure and Back to School Night may be rescheduled.
Newsletter #4
We are all thrown off this week with the disruption in schedule due to the hurricane threat. There is a collection for the residents of the Bahamas, please see the school email from our administration.
Despite our short time together, we have begun to focus on our name. Identifying our name, the letters and correct writing is the goal and we are all at various levels of development in this area. We also talked about how Jesus has a special love for children and the expectations of our behavior when we start to attend Mass in a few weeks.
Tonight is Back to School Night at 5:30. Come visit our classroom and find out what we have been working on.
Tomorrow is early release at 1:00.
Note from administration: Please use the Dismissal Manager to enter absences and pick up procedures.
Newsletter #5
This week we practiced fine motor skills by using scissors (correct posture) and coloring in the lines. Many students have mastered these skills and additional challenges are added to their activities as assessments are made and recorded. We continue to participate and engage in the daily NeuroNet exercise and I have taken the baseline assesssment using the NeuroNet App which will be used as data as evidence of progress in math fluency.
In religion we learned about what it means to be a friend and we have heard stories all week about friendship. We reviewed classroom rules and continue to make daily progress in all areas.
Our Scholastic activity was about the parts of an apple and the literacy component was to identify the color words and use crayons to fill in the specific colored area. We incorporated a math skill of one to one correspondence by counting apples, tracing the number and drawing that number of lines.
Newsletter #6
What fun we have had all week listening to stories and illustrating the main characters. During this skill, we are being assessed on comprehension skills, fine motor and executive function with regard to "planning" our activitiy. Students are reminded to think about what supplies are needed to complete the work. A step by step guided presentation is done then students put their plan into action. Our themes are chosen by our religion and Scholastic Let's Find Out magazine. All this month has been about friendship and realizing that we are special to God, our families and each other. Math (counting and number identification), Literacy (letter identification and sound), science and social studies are incorporated in the weekly activities. To reinforce what has been learned this week, talk to your child and make a game out of counting and letters. Compare and contrast items around the house and outside too. At the preschool level, learning is fun when it is organic and relevant to real-life situations.
Newsletter #7
This was a week of review and assessment. We learned more about shapes, sorting and writing our names using only upper case for the first letter. Please talk at home and reinforce what is taught during the week. The little ones are doing a great job of keeping their supplies organized and ready to use when needed. These little life skills are the foundation of taking on more complicated projects and assignments as students move from one grade to the next. We are building vocabulary words during story time using context clues from our book of the day. Stories we read this week are No Norman, Olivia Goes to Dinner and The Giving Tree. An activity went along with each story to assess fine motor, spatial relations, motor planning and literacy. We talked about the first day of fall, as this is a new season! Next week our activities will have a fall theme.
Newsletter #8
This week the focus has been on science. Our language skills have been expanded by learning the meaning of hibernation, equator and chlorophyll. The theme of our stories has been about the change of seasons and how God's creatures (plants, animals and people) are affected by the change. We learned that since where we live is close to the equator, we do not have snow or very cold weather. For music enrichment, we listened to Vivaldi's Four Seasons and many little ones recognized the music. We made scarecrows by coloring, cutting and piecing together the parts of his body. We learned that the job of the scarecrow is to protect the crops and talked about different types of vegetables and fruit that farmers grow.
Newsletter #9
The highlight of our short week, was a presentation from a firefighter. We have been learning about fire safety and made our own firefighter to decorate our classroom! We had a visit from the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department, last week and saw the K9 dog, SWAT unit and motorcycle squad. It was a wonderful lesson in our community helpers and hometown heroes.
It was a pleasure to meet for conferences this week and if there are any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me and we can always make time to talk.
Newsletter #10
This week we had a good time learning about the rainforest. We loved the story, The Rainy Day and learned a new vocabulary word, monsoon. We looked on our globe where the rainforest is located and remembered our lesson about the equator and saw how close it is to that. Our religion lesson was about Noah's ark and the flood. We learned about God's love for us by His creations of all living things and how Noah had to save the animals and his family. The activity for Noah's ark, was to match the pairs of animals and color them to be a pair. That was an opportunity to assess a math skill.
Next week we will celebrate Halloween. Students may wear a Halloween tshirt and socks with their PE shorts. Our parent volunteers have a craft and special snack for the celebration.
Please mark your calendar for Tuesday, November 26th. We will be doing a Thanksgiving presentation in the gym at 8:00am.
Newsletter #11
It was a week long celebration of pumpkins, bats, and all things Halloween. Our science activity was to illustrate the life cycle of a pumpkin and on Halloween, we had a wonderful sensory experience, feeling the inside of a large pumpkin. Our math lesson, we learned about 5 little pumpkins and pasted them on a gate in numerical order. The added challenge was to write the number from one to five on each pumpkin.
Entering the month of November, we will talk about gratitude (our scripture spark of the month). Our religion lesson was to illustrate one blessing from God, that we are grateful for. The added challenge was to write the sentence "I am grateful."
Newsletter #12
We have started preparation for Thanksgiving, this week. Our presentation is Nov. 26 and we are rehearsing our lines and songs. Please check your child's folder for their lines. It is stapled to the folder.
One story that we loved was Strega Nona's Harvest. We learned that the story is set in Italy and looked on our globe how far away it is from our country. The students asked if it snowed there and they located the equator on our globe and concluded that in fact, it did snow.
We discussed how we are learning about the world around us (social studies) and made a "Fall Harvest" booklet with illustrations of things that grow from a seed. The students were very original in their illustrations and drew exotic fruits that were very impressive. Then Thanksgiving Food Drive begins November 18. Our class is responsible for bringing in boxed stuffing mix. Thank you for adding this item to your weekly shopping list.
During art, we made paper bag puppets of pilgrims and Native American Indians. We are learning the history of these people and how they worked together and helped each other.
We are excited about the changes in our grade! Mrs. Cobb and Miss Reilly will team teach and have the use of Room 115 and 116. The added space will allow for additional centers and acceptance of new friends who apply to our school.
Newsletter #13
We have loved using our new space and increasing our number of centers to choose from! This week we shaped turkeys from Model Magic, wrote and illustrated little booklets about gratitude and painted paper plates to create our own turkey by combining various materials. The sensory table was a treat for many and painting on our new easel was a wonderful center. In religion, we learned that God blesses us every day in many ways and talked about how we can show Him how thankful we are to Him. It is always good to remind the little ones, at home, that they have so much to be thankful for and there are many ways to show God at home and school that we are grateful.
We have been rehearsing our lines and song for the presentation on November 26. We are all so excited to showcase our talents. Please review the lines at home.
Don't forget, we will begin collecting boxed stuffing on Monday, the 18th.
Newsletter #14
The highlight of the week was our Thanksgiving Presentation. The students did a terrific job of remembering their lines and they behaved beautifully. This week we learned about our five senses. We made a booklet with illustrations, of things we are thankful for when we use different senses. That activity incorporated science and literacy. Our science center was making butter and observing the change from liquid to a solid by shaking a jar of cream.
Our theme when we return to school will be about winter and the birthday of Baby Jesus. To kick off that theme, we read Where Is Home, Little Pip and watched a video on penquins. We made Little Pip and her family using Play Doh. We learned about a penquin's nest and how it is so different from other bird nests. We observed on our globe the location of Antarctica and described the weather and habitat. The students asked why there are numbers on the globe and we talked about latitude and longitude and how the numbers/coordinates, help pilots and sea captains when they travel. We compared our globe to the flat map of our country and how each was used for a different purpose. We talked about how we are getting kindergarten-ready by learning so much about the world around us.
Happy Thanksgiving and we will see you back at school on Tuesday, December 3.
Newsletter #15
This week we have started to talk about Baby Jesus' birthday. We learned about preparing for the celebration and the season of Advent. We looked at our globe to see where Jesus lived. The students learned about Bethlehem and how Jesus was born in a stable. In math we introduced the concept of subtraction during our Scholastic News activity. In literacy we learned the significance of the candy cane at Christmas time. Our hands on activity was to cut out red and white circles and alternate them on a candy cane template to make a pattern. We decorated our classroom with our work and it looks beautiful.
We will have our Christmas party on December 19 (Thursday) and the students may wear their pajamas to school. The last day before break is Friday, December 20 and is early release.
Newsletter #16
Happy New Year to all the Happy Camper families. It was great to get back to school and be with classmates. Our theme this week was the solar system. We learned about the eight planets and different characteristics of each one. It was wonderful material to cover and incorporated science, math and music. Ask the children to sing the song about the planets.
In literacy, we loved the story Here Comes Trouble and drew (free hand) the main character, a dog. We practiced writing the title, above our illustration.
In religion, we celebrated the feast of the three kings and learned about the holy family.
The second semester will be major focus on letter identifcation and sounds, handwriting practice and basic math which includes number identification, sequencing and elements of addition and subtraction. You can play games at home to reinforce letters and numbers too.
Since some students are already proficient in these skills, they will be presented additional challenges and activities.
Next Wednesday is early release.
Newsletter #17
We continued with our study of space. The children made headbands with the planets, in order of closeness to the sun. They also learned what the planets are made of and about the dwarf planets.
In religion we are practicing making the sign of the cross and talking about the importance of prayer. When we are praying, we should be thinking about our words and what we are saying to Jesus.
Some of us are working on number identification and others are having fun with different patterns, basic addition and subtraction.
January 31 is Grandparents Day. The day begins with Mass, attended by students and grandparents. After Mass, everyone is invited on campus to visit the classrooms and enjoy light refreshments. If your child will be leaving, for the day, with their grandparents, it must be in the Dismissal Manager. Students will be assiggned color-coded wrist bands that will be issued that morning. The color indicates whether the child will be leaving. There is no school on Monday, January 20.
Newsletter #18
This week we learned about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We watched a video, Martin's Big Words that provided a glimpse into the childhood and life of this peaceful man. The message and theme was to stand up for what is right, even if it is not easy. We loved the story, Leo, the Lovable Lion. It was a fictional tale about a little lion who did not want to hunt. .These lessons incorporated religion, social studies and literacy.
In math, we are working on sequencing (please look at the booklets in your folders). We are reviewing number identification and having fun with addition and subtraction.
A reminder that next Friday is Grandparents Day. Please read the school emails to notify the administration that your child will be attending, with a grandparent.
Newsletter #19
We celebrated the 100th day of school this week. Our activity was to fill a gumball machine with ten, sets of 10. We used stickers, beads, symbols and other objects for the assignment. In social studies, we talked about being part of a family and made our family tree. We had fun showing our work to our grandparents on Friday. They had a chance to visit our classroom and see what we do every day.
Newsletter #20
We started off the week by celebrating Ground Hog Day. We made little creatures coming out of the burrow which was a fine motor and science activity. In science we learned about the water cycle and a song that will help us remember the words evaporation, condensation and precipitation. We created our own diagram of the cycle by using different shapes and colors of construction paper and identified each word in the cycle.
This theme incorporated music, language arts, fine motor and science!
In religion, we learned about the miracle of the loaves and fishes. We loved hearing the story of how Jesus fed 5000 people with only 2 fish and 5 barley loaves. We incorporated a math/pattern activity with that lesson.
Next week is Valentine's Day. I sent an email regarding the plans for that day.
Newsletter #21
Valentine's Day was a hit for sure! We played games, made crafts and exchanged Valentine goodies with our friends. We heard special stories with a Valentine theme and made a mouse using only heart shapes. It was also Groundhog day this week and we learned about that legend. We made funny groundhogs, attached to paper plates and worked on fine motor skills during that craft.
Newsletter #22
This was a short week and we celebrated President's Day. We learned about George Washington and Abe Lincoln. We drew illustrations of them and made a log cabin using popsicle sticks. It was a math lesson and social studies too!
In math we learned about measurement and are reviewing number identification with our daily bingo game. In religion, we learned about Holy Communion.
Newsletter 23
This week we celebrated Ash Wednesday. The students received ashes after mass and learned about lent. We talked about how important it is to be extra kind these 40 days and remeber the sacrafice that Jesus made for us.
In science we learned about dental health and how to take care of our teeth. We did math activies to assess sorting and measurement and heard funny, rhyming stories about teeth. We loved hearing about the different kinds of teeth that animals have and also those animals that have no teeth!
Next Wednesday we will begin Show and Tell. Please choose something that is no bigger than a gallon zip lock bag.
Field Day is scheduled for March 18. Stay tuned for more info to come as we get closer to the date.
Newsletter 24
These past two weeks have been fun-filled with Dr. Suess activities and learning about animals that live in freezing habitats. We made hats, like Cat In the Hat, Wockets in pockets and funny socks after reading Fox In Sox. In math we are learning about measurement. We painted a snowy scene, made polar bears out of different sizes and shapes of tag board and learned about symmetry by drawing a cutting a penguin.
Next Wednesday, the 18th, is Field Day. Please send your child in their PE uniform. There is no school next Friday, the 20th or Monday, the 23rd.