Monica Ros School

January 23, 2008

Hard to believe we are almost entering the last week of January.  We have been busy at work this month with many varied art experiences.  Today we discussed friendship and the act of complimenting each other.  We introduced our “Friend of the Week” program and Noelle was the first friend selected.  The children share their observations of each other noting their special interests and talents.  These comments are illustrated in a poster and book that will go home with the each week’s student. 

Along these lines we have introduced a program called “Second Step”.  It is a curriculum presented in sequence as each unit builds upon skills presented in the previous lessons.  The first unit involved the concept of empathy.  Empathy is an important ingredient in developing pro-social behaviors and being able to solve interpersonal problems successfully.  We begin by giving children a selection of dolls which they use to identify their own feelings and extend this awareness to the feelings of others.  Developing the ability to perceive, predict, and identify with another’s feelings helps children to choose appropriate behaviors and help them develop and maintain friendships.  These lessons involve the use of pictures, posters, puppets, songs, and poems.  Your children can recite “eyes watching, mouths quiet, ears listening, and body still”. 

Thursday, January 31, 2008 is Founder’s Day. We are planning on sharing the little poem “When Clouds Meet” in the school-wide assembly.  Don’t forget to drop by Meyer Hall for the Arts Month exhibit.  Our work will be on display next week, until Friday afternoon at which time it will be taken down.      

Founder’s Day is a fitting end to the month’s activities.  We hope you all take the opportunity to enjoy not only our exhibit in Meyer Hall, but those of the entire school.  Art’s month is meant to be a showcase of the wonderful opportunities in the arts that our children are afforded and one of the traditions that sets Monica Ros apart.  Mrs. Ros felt so strongly about exposing children to creative arts, music, and theater and we still hold true to those ideals today.  We are honored to pay tribute to Mrs. Ros in such a fine way.    Should Mrs. Ros ever pause to look down, she would be proud to have established this lovely place where children still begin their school careers with such a rich and full experience.  We celebrate what would have been her 107^th birthday; she was born 1-30-1901. 

In language arts we began work on our alphabet books.  Even though we started with A we are concentrating on consonant sounds.  They are much easier to detect as beginning, middle, or ending sounds in a word.  Our daily chapter read is getting exciting.  We are traveling with Jack and Annie through the Amazon rainforest.  We have encountered millions of ants, snakes, crocodiles, and a prankster monkey.  We can’t wait to see what happens next.  The Magic Tree House series provides the perfect platform for a little research into these compelling topics.  We have gone back in time and visited the Dinosaurs.  We are saving our visit with the pirates until the years end, June is the time for pirates in the Red Room!

In math we are working on recognizing and writing numbers 0-5.  As we play games like number bingo, dice games, and 5 little pumpkins (or valentines!), we observe, manipulate and chant the numbers, thereby making our work more meaningful and memorable. 

A look forward to February:

The children are blossoming into great writers as they “write” letters to their friends and family and mail them in our classroom mailboxes.  We will be learning our addresses, the role of the mail carrier and learning to identify objects found in a post office.  This practice of writing to each other is further spirited by the upcoming Valentine’s Day Holiday. 

With a classroom focus on the garden and insects we will begin our work on an acrylic on canvas painting of garden life.  We look forward to creating this enchanted masterpiece as a group and plan to showcase this work in the Art Auction.  Be sure to keep that bidder number handy at the auction, the concept of this painting is simply charming. 

Points to Ponder:  “what would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” unknown   Fondly, Kathy_Smith

Dear Kindergarten Parents,

Our best wishes for a very Happy New Year, and we are pleased to welcome your children back to the classroom-we have missed them!

January plans to be an interesting and invigorating month for the children. Our winter classroom theme is the investigation of the life cycles of many penguin species.  We will explore where they live and how they survive the harshness of their environment.  Some of the books we will be reading are The Penguins, by the Cousteau Society,

Mrs. Fiore and Mrs. Krout