Week of May 21

Well, we have made it to the end of the alphabet. Today we learn about the letter Z. The children have been very excited about getting to the end!! Here is our tentative schedule for the week: Monday, letter Z, including dot paint activity. Wednesday: The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The caterpillars have arrived and have made their home in Ms. kristy's room. We will watch them grow and change into butterflies over the next couple of weeks. We will learn the caterpillar life cycle. Butterflies will be a theme over the next few weeks as we wait for our painted lady butterflies to emerge. Friday: end of alphabet celebration. I would like to have a small celebration on Friday for reaching the end of the alphabet. If you would like to donate an item, please let me know. Specifically, I would like Alphabits cereal and scrabble cheezits. We are off on Monday and Tuesday next week for Memorial Day, and then on Wednesday, the 30th, the farmer is bringing our chick eggs. We have so much fun learning about the chick life cycle and then watching them hatch!! Finally, does anyone have a spare keyboard (USB)that you would be willing to donate? The keyboard in my classroom doesn't work. I have so many great things I like to use the computer for during the butterfly and chick themes, but I need a keyboard :( If you have one, please let me know. Have a great week!!

Week of May 7th It's hard to believe we are into the month of May! School will be over before we know it. This week, we are on the letter X. The children are getting excited as we approach the end of the alphabet. This week, we will focus on practicing our songs for the Mother's Day Tea Party. The children have been working hard learning some songs and they have a few surprises they are working on as well. We hope to see you at our tea party on Friday. I would like to share with you some of the themes that will be touched upon this month: Butterflies and caterpillars Flowers and how they grow Chick life cycle (our baby chicks will arrive on May 30th) Please contact me with any questions. Have a great week.

Week of April 23 Hello everyone, I hope all of the children told you what a great time we had celebrating earth day. They really did a great job decorating the garden and I think they enjoyed the "cup of dirt" snack :) Well, we are getting close to the end of the alphabet!! This week we will focus on letter v. On Monday, we will do our letter V review and dot painting. I am sure you can all see the big difference in dot painting work that is coming home now as compared to the beginning of the year. We have really tuned our fine motor skills with this project!! On Wednesday, we will work on math and shapes skills though a kite shape project. On Friday, we will be doing a fun vegetable project. We will be painting with veggies!! We also will "cook" a veggie smiley face snack. I will be posting a sign up sheet outside the classroom for our letter v food day. There are a variety of vegetables that we will need so please, if you can, sign up to bring something to our class on Friday for this fun project. Thanks in advance for your support. As always, please contact me with any questions!!

Week of April 16th

I hope everyone had a wonderful spring break!!

Yesterday, we learned about the letter U. We also discussed Earth Week. We are celebrating this entire week. We discussed ways we can help the earth and keep it clean.
On Wednesday, we will begin our Earth Day project, which involves making our outside play area more beautiful! We will be painting some garden stones so that on Friday, we can place them outside in the garden.
On Friday, we will clean up the outside playground and be the "Planet Police". We will look or garbage to pick up and beautify our yard!

We will not be cooking on Friday because I really cannot find an appropriate recipe for letter U. We will, however, have a special snack in honor of earth day.

We will, however, be making some recycle art. Please send in some clean, enpty, recyclables. Examples are empty water bottles, toilet paper rolls, empty and clean yogurt containers, etc. We will use them to paint beautiful pictures. You can begin sending these on Wednesday and continue on Friday. We will need them by Friday morning. Ideally, it would be great to have one item per child.

Thanks and have a great week.

3/26

Hello families,
We have been busy!!! Last week we learned the letter S and talked about the Spring. We have been singing our spring songs. Ask your child to sing them for you!! We had a "camp out" on Friday and made some yummy s'mores. We even told a spooky story. It was fun!!

This week, we have begun letter T.
We will continue to talk about spring, birds, flowers, etc.
On Wednesday, we will make a flower craft.
On Friday, we will cook toast and serve it with butter, jelly, and cream cheese.

Next week is our spring celebration. Info. Should have gone home. Check your cubbies. Rain date is Wednesday the 4th. We will be making some fun Easter and spring crafts this week and next.

I hope everyone has a wonderful spring break, which starts Thursday, April 5th.

Week of March 12

This week we will begin our unit on Rainbows. You will see our classroom and hallways start to come alive with color over the next few weeks as we make colorful rainbows and welcome the spring. It is always a fun time of year.

Monday, we will learn about the letter R. We will do our dot painting activity. We will also do a small group activity of rainbow necklaces (using fruit loop cereal).

Wednesday will be our cooking day. We will be making and enjoying Rice Krispie Treats. If anyone would like to donate a bag of mini marshmallows or a box of rice krispies, please see me. Your donations are always appreciated!!! We will also be making a rainbow craft during group activity time. We will focus on what makes a rainbow, what colors we see, And the order of those colors.

Friday, we will have a special snack in celebration of St. Patrick's Day. We will make a pot of gold craft. I think the sneaky leprechaun will visit us as well!! He always seems to mess up my classroom, but he does always leave special treat behind to enjoy!! (corn pops make great gold pieces!!) The teachers Will provide green bagels and lucky charms for the children this day. It is just a small special snack, no extra items will be needed.

Have a great week.

This Week

Hi all,
Sorry for the late post. I was having trouble accessing the Blogger site. Anyway, this week is one of my favorite weeks of the year! It's the letter P and Dr. Seuss Week.
Yesterday, we did our letter P dot painting and read Dr. Seuss's The Foot Book.
On Wednesday, we will read "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" and we will make pancakes! Yummy! You only need to send a drink for your child for snack time. I will take care of the pancakes and syrup.
On Friday, we will join Ms. Kristy's class to make Green Eggs and Ham in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday!! Wear you pajamas too!!

Dr. Seuss's birthday week is also called "Read Across America". Don't forget to look in the hallway at our "Read Across Our School" display. All of the book reports that we have worked on throughout the year. They look great!

As part of the celebration, all month, we will have parents and special guest come and read a favorite book to our class. If you would like to read to our class, please sign up in the hallway. We will be able to accomodate two readers a day - one in the morning at 9:00 and one in the afternoon at 2:15. We look forward to having you come join our class for a quick book!

Don't forget your scheduled conference tomorrow night.
Thanks and have a great week.

February 13, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day!!
Monday, we will read the book "Heartprints" and learn about showing love and kindness to others. We will use candy conversation hearts to complete a color sorting activity. And of course, we will have a small celebration.
On Wednesday, we will continue letter "n". I will be bringing in a real nest and we will study it and talk about birds, etc. During free art time, we will make "Name art".
Finally, on Friday, we will conclude the letter N with some fun number activities.

February 6

Hello,

I hope everyone enjoyed the big game!! On Friday, we read "It Looked Like Spilt Milk". We also used a felt board to resell the story. Then we made our own class book. This is the second year I've done this and I just love the result. I will put the class book out for you to view. Please take some time to check it out.

Today, we learned about the letter "N".
We learned about the letter n and the sound it makes. We talked about things that start with n and completed our dot paint activity. We also made our valentine mail bags today. Please send in your cards as soon as possible so that we can start delivering mail.

Wednesday, we will talk about dental health. We will have a visit from a dental office, talk about hygiene, and we will make a tooth craft. The children will find things in magazines that make teeth happy (like milk, fruits and veggies) and also things that make teeth "sad" (like candy, soda, etc.). We will learn a funny "brush your teeth" song! It's sure to be a really fun day.

On Friday, we will make noodle necklaces for cooking time. Although it's not something to eat this time, I think we will still have fun using kitchen ingredients to make art! Children will use fine motor skills to thread noodles onto pieces of string. We will color them with markers and paint.

Have a nice week ☺

Please don't forget to sign up for conferences and also send in those valentines.

Monkey bread recipe

The children had so much fun today making monkey bread!! They gobbled it up and wanted to make it at home so I thought I would share the easy recipe with you. I hope some of you try it :)

Monkey Bread

4 cans refrigerated biscuits, cut in fours
1Tbsp Cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1/2 stick butter, melted

Grease a bundt pan or spray with cooking spray and preheat the oven to 400 degrees
Combine sugar and cinnamon in a bowl
Roll the biscuit quarters into the cinnamon sugar mixture and drop into the bundt pan.
When you have put all the biscuits into the pan, pour melted butter on top.
Bake until brown and cooked through, about 20 to 30 minutes.
Turn out onto a dish and pull apart the little dough balls to eat and enjoy.
Mmmm delicious!!

check the flikr photo stream for pictures of our accomplishment!!

Week of January 30

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the late posting for the week. It snuck up on me!! But rest assured, we've been busy, busy, busy in the classroom!

On Monday, we began the letter "M". The students were so great and really had their thinking caps on. We had so many great responses from the them about words that begin with M. From "Mario" to "Mountains", the kids were really on the ball!! We completed our dot painting activity.

On Wednesday, we will celebrate Groundhog day. We will make a cute craft and talk about how the groundhog sees his shadow. We will talk about the coming of spring and if we can make the classroom dark enough, we will make our own shadows on the wall.

On Friday, we will cook "Monkey Bread". It is a recipe of little dough balls rolled in butter, cinnamon and sugar and then baked all together. The result is a bread that everyone pulls apart and enjoys together. Yummy!
Thanks very much to Dusty for volunteering to bring in some ingredients for our cooking this week. It is very much appreciated! If you would like to ever donate any cooking supplies, please see me and I will let you know what we need!

A few reminders:
Sign up for conferences in in the hallway outside of my door.

Also, don't forget our valentine card project. The sooner we get some cards, the sooner we can start playing mail delivery!!

Finally, I am looking for 3 boxes of rigatoni or ziti pasta for letter N week. If you would be willing to donate a box, please let me know!

On a non-school realted note, there is a sign up sheet outside my door for girl scout cookies. My daughter is selling them. If you would like any, please feel free to sign up on the order form. Thanks for your support.

Have a great week. Again, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to call or e-mail me!

Week of 1/23

Hello,

This week, we will continue the letter "L".
Monday: we will review the letter and sound it makes. Children will make a lion craft to correlate to the curriculum buddy.

Wednesday: L is for leaf. We will sort paper leaves into colored baskets.

Friday: cooking for the letter "L"

All the while, we also will be discussing winter and snow. We will read A Snowy Day and have a pretend snowball fight in the classroom. We will talk about hibernation.
Any questions at all, please let me know.

Week of January 9

This week's letter is letter "K"
Monday: dot painting letter activity will enforce letter recognition

Wednesday: math focus. snowflake counting activity, snowman counting activity

Friday: cooking Friday for letter "k"

Parents: please do not send gloves with your child if they cannot put them on themselves. There are 12 coats, hats, and scarves to put on and we appreciate any time saver. Mittens are perfect.
Also, please practice name writing with your child. We are working on it everyday, but practice makes perfect. We are only using capital letters at this point.

Happy New Year

Hello families, I hope everyone had an enjoyable break. I know I did. Thank you for all of the wonderful gifts. They were so thoughtful.

This week we will talk about winter and snow. We will talk about hibernation. We will read a Snowy Day and have a pretend snowball fight. We will also do some carpet ice skating. All of these things will help the kids get excited for winter.
We are going to learn a silly song about snowflakes. Ask your child to sing it to you.

A note about winter dress: please please label gloves, hats, mittens, etc.. It will be so helpful to us.