November 7-9
Irvington Pre-K Newsletter November 7-9, 2011
Hello Pre-K families! We enjoyed the very short but fun-filled week and hope you all did too! Thanks to all the families who came to conferences on Monday and Wednesday! We appreciate your time, support and input. We really enjoyed speaking with each of you about your children. Next week, we will be meeting with the parents of Netta, Lucia, Paxton, Kate, Lily and Mary on Monday, and Dane, Odessa, Quinn, Darwin, Zachary and Liam on Wednesday. Please refer to the schedule posted in the classroom for specific times.
A big thanks to Zachary and his family for the snack this week. Also, the Tuesday morning breakfast-mixer was a huge success! We loved having everyone get together; chatting and enjoying the food and company. We hope to plan an evening potluck for us to get together again very soon.
This week we focused on health and wellness. The week’s theme works as a perfect transition between our units on 5 Senses and next week’s My Body. Next week we will be discussing the body systems in more detail, and our letter of the week will be “Gg”. Please help your child select an appropriate share item that is related to the theme or the letter of the week.
Throughout this week we talked about keeping ourselves healthy by eating from a variety of foods (eating from the “rainbow”), washing our hands, drinking water, and getting plenty of rest and exercise. Students had fun talking about germs, bacteria, not “sneaking candy”, how to “catch our coughs and sneezes” in our elbows and how to properly wash our hands. We switched up jobs everyday so that everyone had a chance to do a job this week since it was such a short week.
On Monday, we started out by celebrating Liam’s 5th birthday. We sang Happy Birthday, made coloring sheets to put into a birthday book and looked at some photos from Liam’s previous years. We also read from a variety of books that discuss information about germs and health. We read Why Do I Wash My Hands? and My Healthy Body. At our morning circle, we practiced proper hand-washing techniques and how to cough and sneeze into our elbows. We had an exciting demonstration of a sneeze. Students enjoyed watching the pretend sneeze that demonstrates how far germs spread when one doesn’t cover. We used a large red balloon filled with “confetti-germs” and after a long “ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, achoo!” we popped the balloon, and then checked to see how far the “germs” would spread. We then had students create a germ collage gluing a variety of mixed-media, such as confetti, glitter, small pieces of paper, colored grass, and strips of paper onto construction paper. The students then told us a bit about what kind of germs they made. This was both silly and informative! During share, Lily shared a photo of her father fishing, Jaden shared some “F” words such as fish, fort, fireworks, and fire, Lucia brought in a fork and told us that she likes to eat macaroni while using her fork, Ben shared a t-shirt with a funny fish feeding on the front which he got while on a trip, and Brady shared his flashlight that can change from red to white to blue. Fantastic job, Pre-K!
On Tuesday, we all enjoyed the morning-mixer brunch. Thanks to everyone who helped make this such a fun and tasty event! The students loved sharing food and fun with their friends and families (see all the “F” words we can come up with?). We switched up our usual daily routine and structure and had a very invigorating outside project. The students participated in our Super Star Fitness Challenge. Each student received a fancy certificate for completing a minute’s worth of jumping jacks, running in place and some serious ball bouncing. We cheered each other on and valued the importance of exercise to keep our bodies healthy! We discussed some of the student’s favorite forms of exercise such as running, climbing, swimming, biking, playing tag and chase, yoga and dancing. Many of the students prefer doing these activities with their friends and family because “it’s more fun”. During share, Tessa shared a flashlight from home, Netta shared a very cute baby fox that elicited a lot of “awww’s”, Phoebe shared two funny faces, Kate shared some “F” words like fork and fairy, Mary shared her last name, Flynn, “because it starts with the letter ‘F’”, Quinn shared the word favorite and his favorite thing to do is to go to the beach, and Olivia shared a fancy, fragile, funny fairy which “one time, mommy glued it up”. Fabulous work, Pre-K!
On Wednesday, we talked about healthy eating and focused our attention on eating a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables that we are calling, Eating the Rainbow. Students came up with a wide variety of foods that fall within the different colors from the rainbow that we listed on our Eat the Rainbow chart. We read Rah, Rah Radishes! which had some amazing photos of very colorful vegetables, Good Enough to Eat, and Healthy Eating. Students had a great time drawing their own favorite fruits and veggies to attach to our Rainbow Eating chart. During our share, Willem brought in his red-eyed tree frog who can “climb anything he wants”, Liam shared his foot of which he has two, Darwin shared a fan made from paper that he says “you can use to keep cool”, Isa told us that she likes ballet which “today I did exercise with my mom”, Paxton shared two Frisbees from his dad’s collection of over “600 Frisbees”, Helen Cruz Uribe shared her middle name which is “Fury” and the word finished, Aidan shared that “L goes with F, but I don’t know which words go with that.” This was such a fun, fast-paced, fantastic week. Thanks to all!
Pre-K Team
