Happy Spring

Happy Spring Preschool Families!

Boy have we been busy since the first of the year!  I cannot believe how fast time is going.  We are definitely on the home-stretch for the 2015-2016 school year.  Here are some pictures of what we have been up to!

 Using tools for building in the Dress-up Center.

My dad, John teaching us all about tools that are used to build, buildings!

The Morning class got to attend a PBIS assembly for Read Across America Week!  A few of us even won prizes for reading at home!

Playing at the park for Monster points reward

Hunting for 100 eggs on the 100th day of school!

Announcements:

Coin Competition
We are so thrilled with our Preschool Coin Collection Competition.  All preschool students had a chance to participate in distributing/collecting buckets and coins daily and the afternoon students enjoyed watching Mrs. Kaleen and Mrs. Stacia counting coins day after day.  Our fundraiser was a HUGE success and we collected over $900 in coins for the Christensen/Clark family! Thank you all so much for your ideas, support,patience and donations, it is MUCH appreciated!

We will be hosting the winners on Friday for Preschool Play time!  In the morning, Mrs. Droll's class 1B will be joining us and 5A, Ms. McAtee's class will join us in the afternoon.  Here is a picture of the coins on display for the students to see.

Walk-a-thon Fundraising Envelopes
Your student brought home an envelope last week with a bright green sheet of paper attached to the front.  That envelope is for a fundraiser put on by our PTO and is associated with the Walk-a-thon event that will be help on April 22.  We are hoping for each student to raise $25.00 to help with projects/events at the school. I will attach more information in my email.

Snack Calendar and Changes
I have posted the snack sign-up for April, but I want to make 1 small change to our original process.  If you are signing up to bring fresh produce, like strawberries, please check the snack calendar we send home and send the snack item for the week we will be eating it.  This will help us to cut down on food spoiling before we are able to eat it.  We LOVE having fresh produce and HATE having to waste anyone's money!

Drinks at School
The temperate outside (and in our classroom) is on the rise (HOORAY!) and so is our thirst!  If you are willing and able, please send us a water bottle that can be kept at school for drinks during the day.  This will help to minimize the interruption and the trash!

Family Art Project
We are going to be making a flower garden on our family board so please keep an eye out for your piece and instructions to be completed at home and returned to school.


Afternoon arrival
We are noticing more and more issues with afternoon arrival to school!  It is very important that you bring you afternoon student INTO THE BUILDING every day!  It is also very important that you bring your student to school in the 12:05-12:20 time frame, before that, there is a very good chance that we won't be in the classroom and after that, we have already started our learning for the day.  Now, more than ever, every minute counts as we speed through our last remaining days in Preschool.

Book Orders
Book orders were sent home this week. Please check it over and place an orders online or return to the classroom by next Wednesday, April 6.

Pictures
Spring pictures were also sent home on Monday.  If you are interested in ordering, please pay online or return your order form as soon as possible.  If you are not interested in ordering, please return the picture packet to school.

Afternoon Intern
We will be having a high school student joining us for the remainder of the year.  Miss Rachel will be in our classroom everyday for the afternoon class.  Monday will be her first day and we are very excited to have her.


Upcoming events

April 12: Walking field trip to the Wellman Library
April 22:  Walk-a-thon at North Park
May 13:  Field trip to Washington Sunset Park (Volunteers needed)
May 26:  Last day of Preschool
May 27:  Preschool Celebrations (time and location to be announced)

A few reminders

Can you believe we have almost finished the first month of the new year?  Happy 2016 everyone!  I absolutely cannot believe how quickly time is passing.


I would like to first, remind you of the Wellman Elementary School Carnival this Saturday from 3:00-5:00 PM.  A letter came home in your students folder, providing you with some information about the Preschool Carnival basket.  The basket we create will be used as a way to raise funds for our school.  I have received some Minnion items (Thank you) but we need many more.  Please consider finding/donating a Minnion item for the Preschool Carnival basket. I will include a copy of the letter in an email home in case you have misplaced yours, it has many suggested items on it.  I believe we have received all the necessary movies.  We will be assembling the basket later this week so please send your items ASAP.

We will be starting our Buildings Unit next week, the first of February.  I sent a letter home in your student's folder (I will attach it in the email) about collecting Building supplies and collecting pictures.  Please take a look at the letter and see what you might be able to help with!  The students seem to be very excited about it and have already started thinking/talking about some great building/architecture language.  I will also be sending home some homework in your students folder, to begin thinking about the building of your own house.

A couple of reminders:

It is necessary for your student to bring snow gear including; coat, hat, gloves for snow, snow boots, and snow pants EVERY DAY now.  The playground is still full of snow and sometimes mud and these items are all necessary for warmth and protection of clothing.  Please be sure to send a pair of shoes if your student will be wearing their snow boots to and from school.

Afternoon parents:  The afternoon arrival is a very tricky time.  We have asked that your students not arrive before 12:05.  This allows for Kaleen and I to eat lunch and prep for your students after our morning students leave.  If you are having another person bring your student to school, please be sure that they are aware of the arrival time as well.

For your student's safety it is ABSOLUTELY necessary that you bring your student into the building.  If you arrive at school before 12:05 you are more than welcome to wait in the entry or on the bench outside the office.  We will be sure to open the door at 12:05 as a signal that we are ready for students.  There will be days when the classroom is empty until 12:05 because of teacher lunch or prep and we want to be sure that no students are left unattended.  The inside door to the school is locked at all times making it very difficult for your students to enter the building on their own. Please be sure to bring your student inside the building between 12:05 and 12:15 daily.  We appreciate your support in keeping your student's safety a priority.

I would like to have a Valentine party for both classes on February 12.  We will use Valentines to show our appreciation and friendship for each of the kids in our class.  Start now and encourage your student to write their own name on the Valentines the choose.  Each class has 14 students.  I will send home a list of first names in your student's folder ASAP.

Please continue to keep the Christensen/Clark family in your thoughts and be on the look-out for information regarding continued support activities at WE.


Here are some upcoming events:

January 30 3:00-5:00    PTO WE Carnival   (Donations and Volunteers still needed)
February 12                  Class Valentine Parties
March 1                         Conferences

I am wanting to post a bunch of pictures from the Children's Museum and other fun happenings, but they are on my phone and I haven't been successful at transferring.  I might have to Facebook them.

Welcome to November Preschool Families!  This month is going to go by so quickly, but it is going to be another fun one.  I have a few bits of information and reminders I would like to start with and then I will share some Halloween party pictures.  Spoiler alert:  we had a mummy paper fight!

Boxtops

Your older students may have already shared with you that we are having a box tops contest at Wellman Elementary.  We are trying to collect 2,000 box tops by Nov. 13.  We sent home a turkey paper to return your box tops on yesterday.  Please check your student's folder and send back what you can!

Classroom rewards

In our classroom we are using DOJO as a behavior management/reward system.  We have used it very little until now, but this week both class decided on the prize they would be working towards.  The morning class has decided on a party day and the afternoon class has decided on a pet day.  These are ideas straight from their little minds and we are more than willing to make it happen when we reach our goal.  Individual students can also pick a prize from the prize box when reaching their individual goal.

Book Orders

We will be sending home book orders tomorrow.  There are some great rewards for November so check it out.  Books make fantastic Christmas gifts, so order now.  Our class order code is PDVY2.  Orders will be due on November 18 in order to ensure delivery before Christmas.

Family Project

Friday we will be sending home TWO feathers for our first family project.  We would like you to be creative and decorate the bigger feather with anything from home.  (macaroni, glitter, stickers, cereal, paint, whatever you choose)  For the smaller feather, have a discussion as a family about what it means to be thankful.  Choose the thing you are most thankful for and write it on your feather.  We will be using these for a family bulletin board.  PLEASE take this time to spend as a family.  Life is so busy and hectic these days, we could all use a little extra family time. We cannot wait to see what you come up with!

Weather

This is a quick reminder about appropriate outside wear for your students while at school.  We spend a minimum of 20 minutes outside when the weather is appropriate and our playground is not shielded from the wind.  We would prefer to have your students dressed too warm and be able to take layers off as appropriate.  Please send hats and gloves and coats as appropriate.  Soon, we will be needing snow pants and all that get up.  EEEEK!

Also, we are working hard to encourage independent dressing as the cooler weather approaches.  When there are 14 preschoolers needing help with every outside item they wear the process of getting outside can be very overwhelming. If you are willing and able, we would appreciate your help in teaching and encouraging this independence in your student at home as well.  Please feel free to practice putting on coats, snow pants, gloves, and boots/shoes.  Zipping practice is also needed.



Ok, now for the fun stuff!  Halloween party pictures!  We had a blast partying together and working hard for our treats.  Again, we really appreciate all of the donations and volunteers that helped to make the party possible!

We played 5 games. The Spider game, Witch game, Pumpkin game, Mummy game, and Halloween Toss.  It was almost unanimous that the spider game was their favorite.  I hope you didn't miss out on the picture of Ms. Stacia demonstrating how to play the Witch game. ;)

October is quickly coming to an end.  I am sure that you have noticed the worksheets and/or heard from your students that we have officially began practicing our letters.  I talked with a few of you about how we follow the Handwriting Without Tears approach to learning how to write letters, here is what that looks like.

We are currently working on the letters we call "frog-jump capitals."  All of the letters in this group start with a big line down and then we "jump" to the top, by picking up our pencil and moving back to the top of the big line before finishing the other lines of our letter.  For example; you might hear your student say these things when writing the letter D.  "Big line down, jump to the top, big curve to the bottom."  The letters included in this group are:

F     E     D     P     B      R     N     M

We work with one letter on Monday and Tuesday and move to a different letter on Thursday and Friday.  I encourage you to talk about/practice writing/build/ and look for these letters as you go about your day.

This is what letter practice looks like right now in Preschool

Also, we have officially started our "Star of the Week" fun.  This week's stars of the week are Alex from the morning class and Abe from the afternoon class.  Next week's stars will be Brennick and Adin.

Upcoming events include:

Friday, October 23:  The Library will visit to read to us

Friday, October 30:  Fall/Halloween Party

Note:  I would like to try a "trick-for-treats" obstacle course at our Halloween party.  If anyone is interested, we could use some non-candy "treats" (pencils, balls, Halloween trinkets, etc) I am aiming for about 5 obstacles, so we would need 5 different types of treats, 30 treats each.  Please let me know if you are interested in contributing "treats" for our party.  

Because I just flooded the feed with a lot of reading, I thought it might be more fun see what your kiddos have been up to lately.  I hope you'll enjoy these "snapshots" of our work here at school.

Pictures from Dot Day!

Free play fun!