Starting February with an opportunity to meet with all of you was wonderful. Thank you so much for coming in to discuss your child’s growth and for being so flexible as the Colorado snow made for some interesting schedule changes. It was a pleasure to meet with you for the conference and then just a few days later celebrate Valentine’s Day with so many families.
There have been some wonderful happening during regular class time as well! We have finished our Robotics unit at the end of January with a creative twist. We read a story where a family had bought robots to handle bedtime tasks and then during class discussions decided we could use some robots to help with various things at school. Each class suggested an OpenBot to open up snacks for them as well as a CleanBot to handle that pesky chore of cleaning up toys. There were some more unique ideas as well – a BuckleBot to put on bike helmets on the playground, a SwingBot to help push on the swings, a CookBot for more snacks, and even a DanceBot to provide music and dance with us. Hopefully you had an opportunity during conferences to check out the different robots the students made to accomplish these tasks. They were amazing! We kicked off our new unit, Exercise and Health, with a doctor’s office play area and some fun experiments to learn about how germs grow and spread. Hopefully seeing how easily those glitter-germs spread has led to some increased handwashing for students! We’ve also been talking about different parts of our bodies and what they do. This week as we are exploring exercise and how it feels we will be learning about muscles, the heart, lungs, and also our blood. Since we had a great experience looking for our veins in our arms during class this week don’t be surprised if your child tries to find them in your hands as well. They were very excited to learn what those spidery blue lines were and that all people have them. Next week we will be diving into nutrition with talks about healthy vs. unhealthy foods, dental care, and even preparing some of our own snacks in class. Be on the lookout for a sign-up sheet asking for donations for both our class cooking experiences and also our design challenge – make a great tasting smoothie without too much sugar. It should be fun! For our pre-K students the second half of the year our literacy curriculum moves into the early stages of teaching students to write the letters. Students in the Monday/Wednesday/Friday class and the afternoon class will be spending more time practicing writing their names and also time each week practicing the correct way to write the letters. You will also have noticed a change in the homework. It now includes a practice page for the writing as well as practice listening for letter sounds. This homework is intended as a chance for you to share in your child’s interest in learning and help them practice developing skills. If the homework is a struggle or your child is tired don’t push too hard. We want students to enjoy learning so please let me know and we can find other ways to work on these same skills. Please be sure to read our school newsletter for further information about upcoming special events like pj day and our next PBIS party and so much more. Thank you for sharing your children with us! Sincerely, Ms. Kiersten and Ms. Maria