Red Room News
News from the Red Room - August 31, 2007
We have enjoyed getting to know the nooks and crannies of our classroom and, of course, our new friends. It is amazing how familiar we are with this room already. We have been busy at small group time drawing our self-portraits and writing our names. We even explored a sensory activity as we created the letters of our names in salt-trays. The children seem to enjoy signing in each day when they arrive to class. This activity will continue through the school year. Please don’t feel the need to assist your child. This activity will illustrate the growth in his/her writing ability over the course of the year.
We have a busy this week with our first dictated story about friendships. We started work on a book about the friends in our classroom and I will be asking the children biography-type questions. We will put it all together in a book to take home. We have spent time introducing to your children the names of other children in the class. By clapping out syllables and holding up name cards both with and without photographs, we learn quite a bit about a child’s awareness of phonemes and words in print. It is wonderful to see the ability that already exists as they recognize their names and the names of the other children in print.
We are exploring ways to attract and hold the attention of others in a pleasant way. We are realizing that each one of us is an important member of our classroom. We are working on establishing daily routines and on being members of a group. Your children are so pleasant with each other and some true friendships have already formed. Each Monday we participate in music and movement classes with Miss Lamar. These weekly sessions prove to be very popular with the children. Miss Lamar introduce cooperative dance as well as use music from the Parachute Express and other popular children’s musicians. Next week we will have our first Spanish class with Senorita Carlson. These bi-weekly classes will focus on common everyday words through song and game.
Next week we will be making the transition from discussing friendships to a focus on colors and shapes. Color is an important part of every child’s world. We will focus on a different color each week, we begin Tuesday with the color RED, Thursday and Friday will be devoted to BLUE. As an introduction to color, we created colorful windsocks on Wednesday. There are several activities you can do at home to foster the concepts of this unit. Begin by looking for various colors and shapes around the house and pay special attention to them. Encourage your child to select clothing that reflects the color of the week
Have you noticed that your child has not been finishing his/her lunch? The weather has been warm and we have noticed that children are not as hungry. We provide a balanced snack at 10:30 each morning. We provide milk and water as well and are making sure children are hydrated. Lunches should be similar to a lunch your child has at home. Just a few items, please don’t feel like you need to provide a four course meal. Anytime you have a concern, we hope you will feel free to share it with us. Please remember to send in an extra change of play clothes as our work is sometimes messy and we do need them. This is in addition to the changes of clothes requested by the office in case of an earthquake/disaster.
Attached is our first book order of the year. Our class receives points toward classroom purchases for every book bought. This is an opportunity to build your library at home while benefiting our classroom. If you’d like to participate, please send your book order in by Friday, September 14. Tuesday, September 11 we will be hosting an Open House for Parents. This is a time for you to experience your child’s classroom and hear a little about what we have planned for him/her. Please mark your calendars. We look forward to seeing you at 6:00p.m. (Reminder: this is a parents-only event; please plan to hire a babysitter). Fondly, Mrs. Smith
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