I can’t believe the first week of September is gone already! We’ve been busy learning about how to be part of a group, talking about feelings, and learning all about school. Now we are ready to take on more challenges.
This week we will dive deeper into our transportation unit by focusing on how people travel in the air. We have an airport dramatic play area set up as well as toys and books about airplanes, hot air balloons, and helicopters. When we are outside we will be busy watching the skies and seeing how many of these we see. You can have fun with your child doing this as well – they always love to point out the para-gliders, parachuters, and balloons in our Colorado skies. After air travel, we will begin exploring how people travel on water. If you have any pictures from trips, etc. of boats we’d love to share them! Things may get a little wet next week as we explore what things float and what don’t. We will also be beginning our new literacy program, Fundations. For those of you with Spark! alumni children, this will look a bit different from what you’ve seen before. We will be studying two letters a week during our full weeks and be learning about the names of the letters, their shapes, and the sounds they make. We will also be learning hand motions to help us remember those sounds. This week we will be focusing on the letters Aa and Bb with Cc and Dd next week. We also will be working on recognizing our name in print – be on the look out for a book in Thursday folders next week that will help your child with this. In math we are focusing on noticing groups of things and counting them. For instance, we will say we see three cars, instead of some cars. This is another activity you can practice at home or as you drive – see what groups of 3 items you find! We’ve been combining literacy and math in our explorations of letters and shapes these last two weeks, focusing on noticing the difference between curvy lines and straight lines. This will help us as we start noticing the differences between shapes and those between letters. With Twiggle, we will be exploring what parts of our faces show how we feel. The emotions we are starting with are happy and sad but we will soon be adding others. Next week, Twiggle will be teaching us all about friendship. This is a lesson that we will return to many times over the year as we talk about how friends play, help, and share. A few of you have shared stories about your children seeing songs at home. Yes, we are learning to say the Pledge of Allegiance! We practice it every day at the start of class. We have also been practicing singing the Alligator Song, the Baby Turtle Song, the Dinosaur Family Song, and Fish Alive. We’ve been working on the fingerplay Where is Thumbkin so if you see your child trying to point with different fingers, do not worry. Becoming able to move and control our fingers for these different songs helps students develop the strength they’ll need to write and is always very fun to do with funny voices. Parent teacher conferences are coming up at the end of this month. Hopefully you received an email sign up letter last week. If you did not receive one or would prefer a paper sign up option, please let me know as soon as possible. I hope to have all responses back by Thursday, September 12 so I can begin creating a schedule that will work for all of us. With three separate classes, I will be meeting with over 35 families those three nights. I will be trying to accommodate requests as best I can. Upcoming Events: Monday, 9/16: Picture day for both the MWF class and also the afternoon class. Tuesday, 9/17: Picture day for Tuesday-Thursday morning class. Saturday, September 21 – Miners Day Celebration in Frederick. Come help us celebrate by joining us in the parade! More information to come from the office. Thursday & Friday 9/26-27 Celebration with Parachutes if our class has earned enough Starpowers. All three classes are well on their way to earning this special treat! Monday, 9/30: Parent Teacher Conferences Wednesday, 10/2 Parent Teacher Conferences Thursday, 10/3 Parent Teacher Conferences If you have any questions or would like to talk with us, please give us an email or a call. Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us! Sincerely, Ms. Kiersten & Ms. Maria PS – Scholastic book order has been placed and should be delivered sometime next week.