Friday Update September 8 to 12

September 12, 2014

Dear Parents,

Another exciting week in the yellow starfish classroom!                                                                                      

This last week we… (and wow we have done a lot!)

*learned the sound, formation, and hand motion for the letter Aa.

*added apple stickers to our ‘feely letter’ Aa.  Please add it to your feely letter ring and review Ss.

*glued pictures of Aa words in our alphabet journals, and drew pictures of things that start with A.

*learned the Alphabet Song and compared/matched the upper case letters with the lower case letters.  Can your child remember the number of letters in the alphabet?

*learned and decorated the song Apple Bingo for our Poems and Songs folder.

*Read Ten Apples Up On Top by Dr. Seuss, as well as An Extraordinary Egg, Little Blue and Little Yellow, Feelings, Alphabet Mystery, and many many more! J

*learned the story of The little Red House  (an apple) and made a riddle book to share with you.

*Read books on feelings, played feeling games and practiced different faces for different feelings.

*painted a rainbow.  Can your child tell you the order of the colors in a rainbow?

*made rainbow chains (to practice the word/preposition “through.”)

*Painted ourselves with details for our body parts and clothes.  We are practicing body parts that may not be the easiest like earlobe, elbow, waist, wrist, eyebrow.

*practiced one-to-one correspondence and using a ten frame in math to count apples and then made our own.

*made name bracelets to practice the letters in our names and other students in the class.

*made yummy APPLESAUCE and tried it out! Most of our cuties thought it was delicious!

*participated in an “exploding colors” science experiment!  Have your child tell you what happened to the colors in the milk!

*sang the hokey pokey and danced around J

NEXT WEEK

Next week we will learn the sound for Tt, and we will begin activities about families in preparation for UN Day.

UNITED NATION’S

During the next couple of weeks we will be doing activities pertaining to UN Day and family celebrations. The following 2 days are ones for which you will need to have your child prepared.  Thanks in advance for your help.

On Wednesday, September 24th  the Pre-K classes will celebrate a USA DAY with (indoor) camping, making  s’mores and western dancing. We invite every Pre-K student to join the spirit of the day by wearing red-white-&-blue, whether it is their school uniform, an alternate red-white-&-blue outfit, or full Americana attire with blue jeans, cowboy hats, boots, etc.

On Friday, October 3^rd,  Pre-K students will join the kindergarten-to-2^nd grade for the UN Assembly in the High School Gym.  As part of this celebration, students are invited to dress in the native costume of their home country, a costume representing their heritage or even a costume of a country in which they have lived or visited.

These two days will be an alternate dress days though children may also wear their regular school uniform.

HOMEWORK

In the blue Friday Folder bag is the newest homework, a family banner.  Please read the directions that are attached to the banner and return it. J  Have fun…the entire family can help with this project. J  (After this you are pretty much free from doing things at home for school!)

REMINDERS/IMPORTANT DATES

Wednesday, September 24:  USA DAY—Wear red, white and blue

Thursday/Friday September 25^th/26^th:  Faculty Inservice—NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS

Friday, October 3^rd:  UN DAY—wear clothes from home country

Monday, October 6:  Hari Raya Haji—NO SCHOOL

Thursday/Friday October 16^th/17^th :  Parent-Teacher Conferences

*Return blue Friday Folder bag and library book on Monday

*Return Family Banners whenever they are finished.

*Let me know if you would like to share something about your home country for UN Week.

Thank you!!!  Have a wonderful weekend!  Lynsey and Aidah

Friday Update and Pictures: September 1 to 5

We have had another wonderful week in the Yellow Starfish classroom!!!!  

One point of interest…I have watched your cuties become more and more independent as the days have progressed! Really encourage your child to practice being independent at home as well.  Feeding themselves, starting to help dressing themselves, doing up their bags, and also starting to practice things like using safe scissors to cut will really help them out! J

This week we…

*read the book Mouse Paint (along with quite a few others such as A Color of His Own, Dog’s Colorful Day, Little Rabbit’s Color Book, and Pete the Cat (which has turned into a lot of singing! J) and learned the three primary colors. Can your child tell you what they are?

*learned the Color Song and decorated a copy to put in our Poems and Songs folder

*started the big task of sorting all of the colors from our homework, discussing the different shades of each color and creating color collages to decorate the room.

*practiced writing color words with “over-writer markers”

*learned the sound, formation, and hand motion for the letter Ss.

*drew pictures of words/cut out pictures of words that start with Ss in our alphabet journals.

*added sparkly, silver/blue sand to our “feely letter Ss”.

*read “S” books such as Smelly Socks and Silly Sally.

*observed (with our sense of sight) a real snake skeleton and drew a picture of it.

*played with snakes (pretend onesJ) in the sensory table

*wrote numbers on paper snakes and dotted the correct number of dots to practice one to one correspondence

*learned the poem The Sandwich and made real and paper sandwiches that are just like the ones in the poem!

*spread butter and jam on bread to make sandwiches.

*cut out a long snake to hang from the ceiling to practice our cutting

*made slime and played with it! EWWW! J Some of your cuties were COVERED!!! Don’t worry—it easily washes off J

*worked with S pattern blocks

*learned the poem “I Am Special” and drew a picture of ourselves on the poem

FEELY LETTER RING

Today your child will bring home the first of the 26 feely letters, letter Ss, attached to a ring.  Please keep this letter ring in a safe place (i.e. bed post, door knob, dresser handle). Each week a new letter will go home and your child should add it to the ring and review the sound, motion and formation of all the letters.

NEXT WEEK

Next week we will introduce the letter Aa.  We will do lots of activities with the alphabet. We will revisit our colors and All About Me and My Friends

LOOKING AHEAD TO UN DAY

I wanted to give you advanced notice that the ECC will celebrate UN activities from Monday 29 September to Friday 3 October.  On Friday, October 3^rd, we will join the rest of the Primary school for a UN Day assembly.  On that day the children may wear an outfit from their home country or a country in which they have lived or visited. Our class would welcome any parents who would like to share information or do an activity about their home country.  This would be for our class only…you don’t have to present to the entire ECC. I will send a separate e-mail/note home for this, so keep on the lookout J.

ALL ABOUT ME

This week we practiced learned specific vocabulary for parts of the body. We played Simon Says using these names and also sang Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes using different parts of the body.  We are concentrating on those parts of the body that we might not normally be familiar with:  forehead, eyebrows, eyelashes, chin, earlobes, biceps, elbows, wrists, knuckles, abdomen, chest, thighs, waist, knees, ankle, and heel.  Give your child a butterfly kiss with your eyelashes, just for fun (just flutter them against their cheek or arm! They will love it!)

REMINDERS

*Check in your child’s Friday Folder (the BLUE BAG) take everything out and return bag back to school on Monday.  We keep certain projects/activities here at school to put in your child’s portfolio.

*Return Library books and RED LIBRARY BAG on Monday.

*ALTERNATE DRESS DAY on WEDNESDAY!!!

*Please make sure you have the lunch menus back by each Friday (we always send them out on Monday—by that next Friday have them back to us) even if your child is having home lunch every day.  Keep half at home for reference

WE HAVE LOTS OF PHOTOS THIS WEEK, SO BE SURE TO LOOK AT BOTH SLIDE SHOWS!!!!!!

Have a wonderful weekend!   

Lynsey and Aidah J

Friday Update Week 3 August 25-29

Can we BE any cuter?!  I don't think so!!!!

August 29, 2014

Dear Parents,

It was so wonderful seeing so many of you Wednesday night!  Thank you for coming!  I know you have had lots of information thrown at you during the past few weeks.  Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need any clarification.

The yellow starfish are doing a fabulous job, are figuring out our routines, and are becoming pros!  Here are some of the events this week.  Please take a few minutes to discuss them with your child.  We…

*brainstormed lots of ways we can be KIND and RESPECTFUL to our friends. (focus: friendship)

*graphed the number of letters in our classmates names. (focus: graphing, more)

*learned the words and hand motions for Hello Neighbor and decorated a copy for our Songs and Poems folder.  Please have your child teach you the hand motionsJ

*read the book “Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie jar, and made our own book.

*went to the “construction zone” block room and built houses with blocks.

*decorated paper “friendship” dolls to look like us! (focus: body awareness/friendship)

*were introduced to Pete the Cat and began a review of our colors

A LOOK AT NEXT WEEK

Next week we will continue our theme of “About Me”, this time focusing on ourselves and how we are alike and different from our classmates.  We will do some work with colors and we will also introduce our first letter- Ss.

SONG BOOKS!!!!

Your cutie’s Poem and Song book is coming home in their blue Friday Folders today.  Have fun as they use their “magic music wand” to “read” the words and sing the songs to you.  You are encouraged to sing along and help them at any point.  This helps with directionality for later reading, and even if your child is pointing no where near the words on the page, encourage them on their amazing singing!!!  Please return the Poem and Song book AND the blue Friday Folder to school on Monday.

HOMEWORK

In the zippy pouch today you will find your child’s first “homework” assignment. Please take a few minutes this weekend to find items for our color collages.  The whole family is welcome to help!  Have funJ

REMINDERS

*Return library book (in bags) on Monday.  You will get a new one on Wednesday.

*FRIDAY FOLDERS COMING HOME TODAY!!!!  Please have your child read their poetry and song book to you and return them on MONDAY.

*Return color homework on Monday.

*Check your “zippy pouch” nightly as it often contains important information from school and then return it the next day.

*Please return lunch menus, even if your child is having lunch from home, no later than Friday. 

*Please let me know if there should be any changes on the contact list in your Back to School Night packet. 

*Please let me know if you want to add your name to our VIP list!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Lynsey and Aidah J

CHOCOLATE GOO!!

ONE, TWO CHOCOLATE GOO

1   One, two,

2   Chocolate goo.

3   Three, four,

4   Want some more?

5   Five, six,

6   Pudding mix.

7   Seven, eight,

8   Bring your plate.

9   Nine, ten,

10  Hungry again!