4 year old newsletter January 21 2011

Dear parents,

This week was short but filled with excitement!

In our handwriting program we reviewed our capital letters C, O, Q, and G with our play dough and on our slates. We are still practicing signing in our first and last names in the morning.

We started invented spelling and we were so proud to be able to write what we thought of our pictures! If you walk through the hall of our preschool you will see our sentences on the bulletin board. Note. The level has been raised for our children as they are ready for emergent writing. When writing words, some children will write only the initial or the ending sounds. Children usually forget vowels and that's ok. The fact that children are able to say that the first sound they hear is the right letter is a good indicator of later writing success.

This week we celebrated Tu Bishvat- the birthday of the trees. Every year trees get one year older. We made fruit kebabs and enjoyed tasting yummy fruits. We did not forget to say the brochas of course. We read Dear Tree by Doba Weber and spoke about the lifecycle of trees, how they change colors and that starting from Tu Bishvat the cycle starts all over again.

In the afternoon with Morah Arielle....

In our reading program, we read several books about Tu Bishvat. We also created story webs.

The letter of the week is "N". N is for NAMES. We created our alphabet page by writing our name. We tried to recognize the names of our friends.

In our math program, we are learning how many letters are in our friend’s names.

We had a special treat. Your children will tell you. It took 4 months to fill up our marble jar we have in our classroom. We had a vote and we decided to watch "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats.We had chocolate milk with colorful marshmallows. We had graham crackers and chocolate chip cookies. Thank you to Morah Zoey who went out and got all our yummy food. The class truly earned this treat. They gain a marble when we do the right thing in the classroom. We have gone over the rules many times. They had a great time and were proud of each other.

We are so glad that Jake is feeling better. Thank you to his family. They took such good care of Stella.

Have a wonderful Shabbat!

Morah Chaya and Arielle

2's Newsletter January 14th 2011

Dear Parents;

We are happy to welcome our new friends Brendan and Jack to our class!

This week we continue to learn about Winter. Morah Sandy read “Animals in the Snow” and “Winter Rabbit”. We created a class winter land. First we printed white snowflakes as a background. We glued on snowy trees, snowmen and different animals that live in the snow, (Polar bears, Penguins). We water colored snow hats(displayed on class bulletin board) and sponge painted mittens. We had lots of fun figuring out which hand went with the matching mittens! Our winter song goes to the tune of London Bridges:

“All the snow is falling down

falling down (2x)

All the snow is falling down from the sky.”

The children are improving at their tossing and catching skills when we play with the bean bags. Listening and following directions is a great part of our lolly pop game. All the children mastered it beautifully.

Please look out for more mitzvah notes in your child’s backpack.

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Sandy, Cindy, Levana