Room 5
2009-2010 Archive
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February
December
November
October
Orientation
May
Wow! It is hard to believe that we are in the final stretch of the school year. It feels as if the months have just flown by! The days we have left together are going to be very busy! Please see a calendar of events below!
Of course, the highlight for April was our pretzel factory and store. What fun we had! Be on the look-out for pictures showing what a wonderful job your children did making the pretzels and then selling them. We ended up making over 600 pretzels and over 200 Oreos. We sold almost everything and ended up making over $790! This will be added to the money we are collecting in our change jar (we are still collecting change!) and will be used to benefit the children who attend the Village of Hope School in Haiti. The change jar and the pretzel store have really been a great opportunity for the children to learn about community service and the fact that they can have a positive impact on the world! Special thanks to Mr. Muscatello, Mr. and Mrs. Barrett, Mrs. Marraro, Anthony’s grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson, Mr. Walsh and Mrs. Patt Poklemba for helping during the two days of our pretzel factory! It was a crazy day, but it sure was a lot of fun! I’d also like to thank those parents who provided all the supplies for our factory and store. We couldn’t have done it without you!
This Friday from 9am-9:45am we will be having a spring tea in our classroom. Hopefully you have all seen the invitations your children made! Each child may have one guest. This guest may be mom or dad, a grandparent, aunt or uncle, or a family friend. We would appreciate it if you would not bring younger siblings. We will be serving a special snack prepared by the children. Please let Mrs. Miller or Mrs. Lawson know if your child will be having a guest attend. For the Music and Movement demonstration that starts at 9:45am your child may have additional guests.
On Wednesday, June 2nd at 7pm we will be having an end of preschool celebration. This is a special evening for the children and we really hope that you will all be able to attend. Please make sure the children wear casual clothing. They will all be provided with special tee-shirts for the evening. The whole family is invited to this event. Please let Mrs. Miller or Mrs. Lawson know by Tuesday, June 1st how many people will be attending so we can set up the appropriate number of chairs.
As always, if you have any questions, comments or concerns please let us know. We are here for you and your children. Also, if anyone would like to have an end of year conference regarding their child please let us know as soon as possible so that we can find a convenient time that works for everyone.
May
5-Cinco de Mayo Celebration
7-Spring Tea (9am-please, only one guest per child. Please RSVP by Wednesday)
7-Music and Movement Demonstration (9:45am-additional guests may attend)
20-Field Trip to Mrs. Lawson’s (be on the look-out for a sing-up sheet for drivers)
25-Chapel (9:30am)
31-No School
June
1-Outdoor Day
2-End of Preschool Celebration (Please have children wear comfortable clothes and shoes that can get wet and please apply sunscreen before they come to school if they need it.)
4-Last Day of School
April
April will be a very busy month in Room 5. During the first few weeks of the month we will be making plans for our pretzel store to benefit the Village of Hope School in Haiti. It will be open for business on Thursday, April 21st and Friday, April 22nd right after school and on Sunday, April 25th after each of the morning church services. Our actual pretzel factory will be up and running on Tuesday, April 19th and Wednesday, April 20th. We will need your help in a variety of ways. We will need AT LEAST two volunteers to help each day while we are making our pretzels and we will also be asking you to donate all the supplies (pretzel rods, chocolate, decorations, ribbon, pretzel rod bags, etc.). This project is a lot of fun and we learn a lot! As a group, the children will decide on a name for the store and how many pretzels they think we should make (Last year we made over three hundred pretzel rods and sold every one!). We will make posters to advertise our store and we will learn about money. The children will be doing the sales and taking care of the accounting and inventory for the store. In order for our store to be a success we need your help! Please be on the look-out for additional information regarding volunteers and needed supplies.
During the week before spring break Pastor Qualley came down to talk to the children about his recent visit to Haiti and the Village of Hope School. The school hopes to reopen on April 5th. It serves about 650 students, many who are afraid to come back to school because of their experiences in the earthquake. In order to help the children with this transition each child’s desk will have a small gift on it for them, as well as a small supply of beans and rice for them to take home for their families. The money we have collected in our change jar (over $180 so far!) and the money from our pretzel store will help purchase much needed supplies for the school and things like plastic to help keep the children’s homes dry during the upcoming rainy season. Please remember that we will continue to collect change for the remainder of the school year.
Now that warmer weather is here we will be spending lots of time outside. Our recess time is early in the day so please remember that even though the forecast may be calling for a nice warm day, it is usually still a bit cool when we go outside around 9:30am. Also, be sure that your child is wearing shoes that are appropriate for running, climbing and playing on the playground.
Lastly, thank you all for your generous gifts and kind thoughts you provided us for Teacher Appreciation Day. No two teachers have ever felt more appreciated.
As always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Below you will find a calendar of our upcoming events.
Thank-you!
April
19-Pretzel Factory Day 1 Chapel (9:30am)
20-Pretzel Factory Day 2
21-Pretzel Store Day 1
22-Pretzel Store Day 2
25-Pretzel Store Day 3 (between 9 and 11 a.m.)
May
7-Spring Tea (9:15am-10am)
Spring Fling (10am Music and Movement demonstration)
25-Chapel (9:30am)
June
1-Outdoor Day
2-End of School Celebration (7pm)
4-Last Day of School
March
It’s hard to believe that it is already March! Thanks to the snow, we lost a lot of time in February. Hopefully the bad weather is behind us because we have a lot going on this month. Our first big event will take place on Monday, March 8th. We will be celebrating out 100th day of school! There are a lot of special activities planned. Please help your child compile a collection of 100 items that they can bring in to school on the day of our celebration. It can be stickers, trading cards, paperclips, rubber bands, noodles, marbles, etc. They can bring it in a box or bag or even glue it to a poster. If you have any questions, please let us know. For our snack that day we will be making a snack mix. We are asking each child to bring in 100 snack items. For example, 100 cheerios, 100 raisins, 100 marshmallows, etc. PLEASE be sure to consider that we have a peanut allergy and a dairy allergy when deciding what to send in. Your child can still bring in their individual snack if they would like. At the end of the day we will be attempting to spin 100 tops at the same time. If anyone is available to help us with this endeavor please join us at 11:30am. We can use all the help we can get. Please do not to bring younger siblings to help with this activity.
Traditionally, in the wee hours of the morning on March 17th a pesky leprechaun visits us in room 5. He or she tend leave a mess for us to clean up, but so far we have never been able to catch the pesky little imp! Who knows what your child may find when they arrive at school on St. Patrick’s Day!
On Friday, March 26th, our last day of school before spring break, we will be having our Easter egg hunt. As soon as we have a time and location, we will be asking for two volunteers to come in and help us hide eggs.
The children have been doing a great job using Kiss and Ride! I wish you could all see their smiling faces as they round the corner to the classroom! As soon as we have thirteen of our friends use Kiss and Ride on the same day, the children will get a special treat. Please help our class achieve this goal!
Our collection for the Village of Hope School in Haiti has almost reached $170. This is fantastic! Please continue to send in your spare change. The children have really been enjoying watching the coins add up! Sometime in the next couple of months we will start making plans for our chocolate covered pretzel store. This is a really fun activity that will require lots of help from all of you! Last year our pretzel store made over $300 for the Village of Hope School!
As always, thank-you for your continued for support!
March
8-100th day of school celebration
16-Chapel (9:30am)
17-St. Patrick’s Day
26-Easter Egg Hunt
February
February is definitely off to an interesting start! We have a lot going on this month and the snow will only make things more interesting! This month we will be celebrating Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year.
On Friday, February 12th we will be exchanging Valentines. Below you will find a list of all of your child's classmates. Please let your child write their friend's names by themselves. We know this may take some time and patience, but it's really good practice for them. If you feel that the names are too hard to read just write the name lightly in pencil on the back. The morning of the 12th we would love it if two or three parents could come in first thing in the morning to help the children distribute their Valentines into their friend's bags. Please let us know if you can help.
On Tuesday, February 16th we will be celebrating Mardi Gras. Our day will end with a Mardi Gras parade at 11:45am if the weather cooperates. We would love for you to join us out front to watch our parade. Lastly, on Friday the 19th we will be celebrating Chinese New Year. Mrs. Wilcox will be teaching the children a dragon dance. If you would like to see the children doing their dragon dance please join us at 11:45 in the gathering area.
This month we will also be making spaghetti sauce and fried rice as well as tasting authentic King Cake and Cajun dirty rice. These are usually favorites of the children! It is always fun to see who finds the baby in the King Cake. The person who finds the baby is supposed to bring the King Cake to next year's party!
This month we will be doing more activities with maps. If you have any old street maps, map books or even maps from old National Geographic please send them in. We will also continue to work on learning phone numbers and addresses. The children will also be doing a lot of different activities using the letters in their names as well as the names of their classmates.
Some of the children may have mentioned our Kiss and Ride chart. We are really working on fostering the children's independence and Kiss and Ride is a good place to start. Our goal is for everyone to use Kiss and Ride. We've made a deal with the children that on the first day everyone uses this service we will give them all a special treat!
Our collection for the Village of Hope School in Haiti is almost to $140. Thank-you so much for you contributions to this great cause! Over the next few days please take some time to look at some of the store flyers and help your children find pictures of items they think the school children might want or need. Send them in and we will glue them in our journal.
Below you will find a calendar of upcoming events as well as a list of the students' names for the Valentines. As always, if you have any questions or concerns please let us know.
February
9-Hat Day (Wear your favorite hat)
12-Valentine's Day Celebration
15-No School (We will not be having school on this day even though FCPS will be in session)
16-Chapel (9:30am)
16-Mardi Gras Parade (11:45am)
19-Dragon Dance (11:45am)
Amy
Anthony
Bryan
Evan
Jane
Kate H.
Kate W.
Liam
Madeline
Mason
Noah
Ryan B.
Ryan L.
Sammy
December
It is hard to believe that the holiday season is already upon us. It seems like just yesterday your children were joining us for the first day of school! We have a busy couple of weeks ahead of us so brace yourselves!
In November we enjoyed our Thanksgiving feast. Thank you to everyone who sent in food and other items for our feast and special thanks to Mrs. Barett, Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Muscatello for helping us prepare and serve our feast. We also placed Indian corn in our media table and the children had a great time taking the corn off the cobs and using the kernels to make turkeys and other crafts and the cobs to paint our Thanksgiving placemats. We hope you enjoyed learning how to cook a turkey courtesy of your children. They have great imaginations!
December will be full of all kinds of fun! The children were welcomed back to the classroom after the Thanksgiving holiday with a Christmas tree with lights and garland. It will be the children's job to decorate it with ornaments they will be making over the next couple of weeks. We have also started out own version of "I Spy." Each day we will add something a new holiday decoration to our classroom. When the children arrive in the morning they need to look around the classroom and see what is new. By the time December 18th comes around our classroom will be looking very festive!
Please see the calendar below for information about important dates that are coming up. Have a wonderful holiday season!
December
5-Breakfast w/Santa
16-Chapel (9:30am)
16-Sing-a-long (11:45am)
18-Carols and Cocoa (This is a special room 5 event. We will share a Cocoa and a special treat prepared by the children)
21-January 1-No school
November
Wow! Where did October go? It is hard to believe that it is already November. We are heading into a very busy couple of months so be sure to check out the calendar below to be sure that you are ready for all the great things we have coming up.
October was a very busy month. We'd like to start by thanking the Muscatello family for the pumpkins they provided us. The children had a great time painting them and only a couple of shirts were ruinedJ! Special thanks also go out to Mr. Muscatello and Mr. Barrett for carrying in our giant pumpkin. We weighed it and it weighed over 100 pounds! The children had a wonderful time pulling out the "guts" and watching Mrs. Lawson carve the face.
It was really wonderful seeing all of you at our open house. We really enjoyed meeting you and sharing the children's delicious pumpkin bread with all of you. They were all so proud to make such a special treat for you!
Mrs. Lawson has run into a snag with sharing pictures using Shutterfly. Please be on the look-out for an e-mail inviting you to join a photo group from Wal-Mart.com. This is the service we used last year and it was very reliable.
A few of you indicated that you might be interested in coming in to cook with the children. Please take a moment to talk to Mrs. Lawson so that she can get you on the schedule. It would also be great to have some of you come in to share a holiday craft with the class. This is a great opportunity to visit the classroom during the school day.
As you can see below, our calendar is very full. We do our best to give you advance warning to plan accordingly because we know that you all have busy schedules. Please look at the upcoming events, particularly those in December, as a variety of opportunities to spend time with your child at school.
Lastly, please remember to send your children with jackets. Even though it gets warmer later in the day, the fall mornings are still pretty cool when we go out around 9:30am.
We are truly enjoying having your children in our care each day. They are so much fun! Thank-you for sharing them with us!
November
11-Veteran's Day Celebration (If any of you are Veteran's and would like to join us for a special treat prepared by the children and a short question and answer session please let Mrs. Lawson know ASAP.)
13-Book Orders Due (this will be our last book order before Christmas!)
17-Chapel (9:30am)
24-Thanksgiving Feast (This feast will be for the children only. Please be on the look-out for a sign-up sheet for things we need for our feast and volunteers (we will need three).)
25-27-No School
December
1-Tiny Tots Concert at West Springfield High School (Please be on the look-out for a sign-up sheet for drivers. We will need five.)
5-Breakfast w/Santa
16-Chapel (9:30am)
16-Sing-a-long (11:45am)
18-Carols and Cocoa (This is a special room 5 event. We will share hot cocoa as well as a special treat prepared by the children.)
21-January 1-No School
October
It's hard to believe that October is here already! We have really been having a good time getting to know each other and learning our classroom routine. During the last few weeks we have divided the children up into groups-anteaters, platypuses, porcupines and armadillos! Four days a week the children are divided into their groups and then they rotate through a variety of activities-two are teacher guided, one is the art center and one is the toy center.
Last week we began to learn some American Sign Language. The children have learned a few colors as well as the first few letters of the alphabet. Be sure to take some time to ask them about the signs they have learned.
This week we will be cooking for the first time. Cooking will be a weekly part of our routine, usually Thursdays. We hope that you will all join us for our Open House on Wednesday, October 28th (please note that this is a change of date) so that you will have the opportunity to sample one of our recipes.
Sometime in the next few days your children will be bringing home a "book in a bag." This activity is based on a book we have read in class called "Ten Red Apples" by Pat Hutchins. It is a fun book and the children have enjoyed reading it. Please take the opportunity to ask your child to retell the story to you using the props in the bag. This is just the first of many book based activities we will be doing this year. We will also be learning and talking about poems. The children will be bringing home a copy of each poem we work with in class. PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO MAKE THEM MEMORIZE THE POEMS! The children will most likely learn the poems just by working with them in class and this is meant to be a fun activity.
Since Halloween is on a Friday this year and it is our Music and Movement day we will be having a very simple celebration on Friday, October 30th-a special snack and our parade at 11:45am. The children are welcome to wear costumes as long as they do not include masks or restrict their movement in any way. We would also appreciate it if costumes do not include any weapons. We will be doing a number of fun activities during the week leading up to Halloween.
Below you will find a calendar of upcoming events. As always, please feel free to contact us with any questions, comments or concerns.
Thank-you,
October 12-No School
16-Book Orders Due
20-Chicken Out "Fun-Raiser" (noon-8:30pm)
22-School Pictures
24-Lord of Life Lutheran Church Fall Festival
28-Open House (6:30pm-7:30pm)
November 2-No school
3-No School
11-Veteran's Day Celebration (if you or another family members are Veterans please and would be interested in participating in our celebration please see Mrs. Lawson)
24-Thanksgiving Feast (more details to follow)
25-27-No School
December 1-Tiny Tots Concert at West Springfield High School
21-January 1-No School
Orientation
A Little Bit About Our Class…
Our Class Goals-
Our goals are to build self-esteem and to instill a love of learning that will encourage the natural curiosity of each child. Teaching young fives is exciting and rewarding. We will send them off ready to face the challenge of kindergarten by developing their social, emotional, physical and cognitive abilities.
Book Club Orders-
We will send book club orders home once a month with your child. Each book you order helps us earn free books for our classroom. If you wish to order, please enclose one check with your order forms made out to "Scholastic Book Club." The books will arrive in about two weeks and we will put them in your child's tote bag. Let us know if they are meant to be a special gift that you do not want your child to see. On-line ordering will also be available. More information on that will follow.
Snack-
We are asking that each child bring their own snack daily. Our classroom will be peanut -free. Please make sure the snacks you send in do not contain peanuts or peanut products. The container (lunch box or bag) must be clearly dated and labeled in such a way that will identify the owner. Do not send in a drink-we will provide water. Snacks are required by the Virginia Department of Social Services standards to be two parts. From the list below choose two categories for each day and please send in a snack with one item from each of your chosen categories.
Grains Protein Fruit or vegetable
Snack cracker Cheese Fresh fruit (we can cut)
Bread, muffin, or roll Egg Carrots or celery
Dry cereal yogurt Canned fruit
Applesauce
Please do not send in candy, cookies, or popcorn for snack.
We strive for independence during snack time and ask that the snack be in containers that the children can open or can be taught to open.
Special treats for birthdays are welcome but will be served in addition to the children's regular snacks. A list of items that accomadate our children with allergies is attached.
Groups-
After the first week of school the children will be divided into groups. During a portion of each day the groups will rotate through different centers. Two of these centers will be teacher guided activities, one will be at the art table and the fourth center will be the child's choice.
Show and Tell-
Please refer to the monthly calendar to determine what day your child will have show and tell. Please be sure that your child brings only one item on their show and tell day. Also, please make sure that your child's show and tell requires no special set-up. We only have about five minutes each day for show and tell. No weapons please!
Sign-In
Each day when your child arrives they will find a sign-in sheet on the desk closest to the door. This sign-in sheet is for your child to sign his or her name by themselves. Do not worry if it is not legible! It is meant to be practice.
American Sign Language-
Throughout the school year your child will be exposed to American Sign Language (ASL). They will be learning signs for the letters of the alphabet, colors, animals, family members and many others. Learning ASL will help your child to refine their fine motor skills as well as build their self-esteem. It is a huge boost for them to be able to teach others a new skill so be sure to ask them to show you the signs they have learned!
Lou and Ray-
Every Friday a different child will be bringing home Lou and Ray, along with their sleeping bag, pillow, books and journal. Lou is a stuffed monkey and Ray is his teddy bear. Please take the time to write a short entry in the journal about their stay at your home. We will read the journal entry to all of the children on Monday morning during circle time.
Photographs-
We take a lot of pictures of the children during the school year. These pictures are made available at Shutterfy. They are downloaded to a private account where they can only be viewed by people who are invited. You may also purchase copies of the pictures for a nominal fee. If you would like to be invited to view the pictures please be sure to put your e-mail address on the student information sheet. Please be sure to let us know if you do not want your child's pictures to be posted.
Last but not least….
PLEASE READ TO YOUR CHILD EVERYDAY!
We are very excited to have the opportunity to work with your children this year. We are always available to discuss any concerns or answer any questions you may have.