January Newsletter 2014

 

     Happy 2014!  Welcome back and we hope you had a wonderful holiday! We enjoyed having time off, but truly missed seeing your 4K friends! It is hard to believe that it is almost second semester.  We have a lot to do in the month of January!  We will continue to work on writing first and/or last names and drawing people… correctly and cutting.  Please continue to work on these skills at home.  In math we will continue working on identifying numbers 1-20, focusing on introducing the “teens” and understanding the symbolic meaning of each number, as well as patterns!

   We will also continue with our letters and their sounds, and at the end of the month we will begin writing what we call our Daily News!  Each day a different child will get a chance to give us some news, and we will write it on our easel. Each day we will practice the previous day’s news and then on Fridays these daily sentences will be sent home and hopefully most of them will be able to read the sentences to you!  J (If not, just practice these sentences at home… it is a meaningful way to practice our reading.)

Letter People

Our letter friends from Letter People Land this month are:

Ms. J is joyful and loves listening to the sound of her jingle, jingle jacket when she jumps and jogs around!  When she stops – there is no sound.  She never jaywalks, likes to write in her journal, and enjoys playing jacks and jump-rope.  Her capital J is on the front of her jingle, jingle jacket.  Her lowercase j is on the back.

Ms. E has exercise energy!  She is an extrovert and enthusiastically enjoys being with people.  Ms. E tells us that everyone needs exercise, food, sleep, a home, and love to grow.  She holds bar bells in her hands and has a lower case e on her ponytail holder.  Her regular /e/ sound is just like the /e/ in exercise energy.  Her Same Name Sound, or long /e/ sound, is just like her name: Ms. E.

Mr. H has “happy hair”!  He is a handsome, happy-go-lucky fellow who can handle anything – even getting his hair cut once he realized it didn’t hurt. He is also very healthy and bathes and washes his hands before he eats.  He hopped a plane for a fun holiday in Hawaii and was glad to get back home, too!

And, finally Ms. V wears a vegetable vest.  Veggies give us vitamins!  She is a vigorous vegetable gardener and serves her vegetables in her restaurant, Mrs. V’s Valley View Café.  Many families eat vegetables in her restaurant because the food is good, the price is very reasonable and violins play while you eat!  There are lower case v’s on her cuffs.

***Remember to keep these a secret!  If your child wants to bring in an item that begins with the letter we are learning that week, they are more than welcome and we love to hear the letter’s sound as many times as possible~!

 Inquiry Unit 

   This month we are going to begin an inquiry unit on community helper Postal Workers and health.  Inquiry is defined as ‘seeking information, knowledge; an investigation’ and that is exactly what we will be doing in our animal unit!  Our classroom will become saturated with books, apps, computer programs, photos and our drama center will be transformed into a Post Office.  If you have something you can contribute to help us create an environment that helps us inquire about health or the post office, please let us know!  We would love you have your involvement!

   Many of you have kindly asked, “What can I do to help my child?” You can help by working on the items mentioned above, reading to them every day, making sure your child is able to follow directions at home, is a good listener, waits their turn to talk (doesn’t interrupt you whenever they want something), knows how to solve problems in a positive manner, knows how to take care of personal belongings (getting dressed, cleaning up after themselves, etc.), knows how to work (even when it is difficult!) and demonstrates respectful behavior towards others, especially adults.  What you do as a parent is so important and you may not realize it but it affects every part of your child’s life...home, school, friendships and eventually their life’s work.  Keep up on the discipline at home...most of you are doing a great job...and it is the most important job you will ever have! Thank you!

Winter and Outerwear

We have begun looking at the ‘signs’ that tell us it is winter…one of which is lots of clothing!  Coats, mittens, scarves, boots, etc!   Please make sure that if your child is wearing boots to school that they have a pair of shoes to wear in class!  We do too many active things in school and boots get way too hot and are difficult to move in.  If you send your child with snow pants (especially for Safe) please make sure they have a special bag to hold those pants, boots and extra outer wear.  Backpacks are really needed for that extra set of clothes, school papers, books, and other important things…so please put snow pants and boots in an extra bag, thank you. If your child wears these items to school then we do our best to make sure that they wear home everything you sent them to school in.  And finally, thanks for your patience at the end of each 4K session…getting dressed will take a bit longer and I don’t want to miss a minute of instruction times so we may be a bit later each day for dismissal. It is also great to see many of our students doing a good job of dressing themselves…keep up the good work parents! J

Reminders...

«  Please send a healthy, ready to go snack when it is your child’s turn and send your child to school with a good breakfast or lunch, low in sugar.

«  Read everyday to your student...it will make a difference!
«  Please be sure to look at your child’s Friday folder every week and look over there daily school work and notes!
«  Please check backpacks!  Too many backpacks and folders are coming back to school never emptied or looked at! L
«  Please make sure that your child is at school and on time everyday! It is hard for them to get the instruction they need if they are absent...but of course don’t send them if they are not healthy.
«  Gym….. will take place on Fridays.  Please make sure your child has gym shoes on or has some in their backpack or they will not be able to participate in gym. I am also looking for some extra gym shoes to keep here in case someone forgets their shoes ( I disinfect them with LysolJ )
«  Library…..Please make sure you send your child’s book back to school every Monday.  If your child has lost their book we will send you a replacement bill…just let us know!

Finally, thanks to all of you who helped with our recent celebrations and to all who helped supply the extras that we do not have the monies to purchase, like plates, sticky tape, etc.  Currently we are in need a few things to complete some upcoming work. If you could help supply any of the following things we would greatly appreciate it! We could use:

ü  Small shovels, rakes

ü  Simple games, trucks

ü  Construction paper…brighter colors

ü  stamps

ü  stamp pads

ü  Menus, placemats, napkins and other items for our restaurant (McDonalds stuff works too!)

Thank you so much parents for helping out with all of these things!  You are helping to make our 4K experience a wonderful one for our children and we appreciate it! Oh, and…
                   Happy New Year!