OUR WEEKLY 2 YEAR OLD NEWSLETTER

September 16, 2010

Dear Parents,

School is off to a wonderful start!

The children are getting use to our classroom routine and adapting well to their new environment. Our day begins with “free play” in our different centers. We have a building and creative center, a home center, a reading center, a painting center and a work center at our class tables to explore puzzles, play dough & shape blocks. After cleaning the room which we do to our song “Everyone clean up….” We do a project related to the theme of the day (this week we painted and decorated a giant class “Birthday Cake”).

Snack comes next, which is cut up fruit. They Love it! This week we had cantaloupe, apples, strawberries and watermelon. Circle time seems to be their favorite time! We gather at the center of the rug. This week we sang & read “The Wheels on the Bus” and learned to “Freeze Dance”! (they can dance!!) We played & and sang to hand puppets of “Five little monkeys” and “Five Little Speckled Frogs”. Morah Sandy blew bubbles and sang “Pop-Pop-Pop the Bubbles”. Next is outdoor/indoor gym time. This week we did both! We are learning how to hold onto rope and stair rail when we walk outside. It was a task, but we made it! When we get back we wash up and have lunch. It is interesting to watch how they interact with each other at this time.

At the end of the day we sing our goodbye song “See You Later Alligator….” and say goodbye to our friends!

We had a great first week! We enjoy having your children.

Shana Tova!

Morah Sandy

Morah Cindy (in the morning)

Morah Levana (in the afternoon)

OUR WEEKLY 3 YEAR OLD NEWSLETTER

Sept.16, 2010

Dear Parents,

We had an amazing first week of Preschool! The children came right into the class comfortable and ready for the day ahead. We started out on Monday reading the well known children's book "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Penn. The story is all about little Chester Raccoon who is uneasy about leaving mommy and going to school. We made orange hand prints with a special heart kiss sticker right in the middle just like Chester's!

We are becoming familiar with what an alphabet letter is by playing with foam letters, stamping letters and reading ABC Books; Dr. Suess's ABC Book, Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and Aa Is For Apple by Omri Stephenson.

We decorated one of our bulletin boards with a large alphabet tree just like the one in Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom. The children all colored a piece of paper with tree trunk colors and we taped them together and cut out a tree shape and then decorated it with the leaves they decorated with alphabet pasta. We also painted this week with dot paints and water colors.

For Yom Kippur we talked about how we are kind to our friends in school and how we listen to our parents and Morahs (teachers). One way to be kind to our friends in school is by sharing. We love singing our sharing song every morning during circle time.

We had so much fun with puzzles, blocks, legos, bristle blocks, the doll and housekeeping corner and getting to play outside in this beautiful weather Hashem (G-D)has given us.

Please bring your child to school on time in the morning and come on time in the afternoon. When your child comes late he or she is missing a very important part of the morning; structured free play with his friends. Remember to send a healthy snack and drink for the afternoon. If you did not send the supplies from the supply list please bring them on Monday.

Good Shabbos and Good Yom Tov, Morah Chaya and Morah Lynn

OUR WEEKLY PRE-K NEWSLETTER

Dear parents,

This first week of Pre-K was Awesome.

Our Theme was Yom Kippur. We are all friends in our class and we are learning how to listen to one another. When a friend wants to speak, we all say “shhh”. We use our eyes and ears to listen to our Morah’s and our friend’s. We used cutting, gluing, pasting and painting to decorate our Yom Kippur Book. We also practiced singing our sharing song: “You share, I share…”

In our handwriting program, we are practicing to recognize our right hand. (Note: we do not encourage right hand over left, but it is easier for children to identify their sides by starting by their right hand.) We are also signing in our names every morning, starting at the top and sing the following song:

Where do you start your letters? At the top!

Where do you start your letters? At the top!

If you want to write a letter,

Then you better, better, better,

Remember to start it at the top!

Is this the top, top, top? No it’s the bottom.

Is this the top, top, top? No it’s the middle.

Is this the top, top, top? It’s the top, top, top,

Where do you start your letters? At the top!

In the afternoon…

We went over class rules:

*Indoor voices *Walking feet *Listening ears *Hands off

We are all friends. We are learning to all work together, play together and respect each other in our classroom community. We listen to each other, take turns, respect our friends belongings and share with each other.

We started the Weekly Reader Program. Each student will receive a weekly age appropriate children’s newspaper called The Weekly Reader. Each week high lights a topic of interest that we will discuss in class.

We will be learning a new letter each week. We started the letter ‘A’ “a”. We made a letter ‘A’ page for our alphabet book that we will be adding to all year as we learn our letters.. We ate red, yellow and green apples. We graphed which was our favorite apple. Red was definitely the favorite! We are also working on name recognition- our own name and the names of our friends.

In our reading program we read Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus. Ask your child all about Leo.

*Please send in watercolors (8 colors), 1 glue stick, 1 liquid Elmers glue and a pair of scissors for your child.

Have a good Yom Kippur fast and a happy and healthy new Jewish year.

Morah Chaya and Morah Arielle