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Dear Parents,
Our field trip is fast approaching! We will see you at 9:00 on October 31! We will return at 12:00. Please be sure to feed your child a good breakfast and toilet them before walking into the classroom. If your child gets car sick, let the teacher know ASAP. If you said you would volunteer we ask you to please be sure you make it to the trip on Monday. It can be an unsafe situation when parents sign up to volunteer but do not show up the day of the trip. When this occurs, we do not have enough adults to keep the students safe and we would have to cancel the trip. If you say you can come, please show up. This trip is outdoors, please dress your child appropriately. We beg that no student wears a costume because it easily can get dirty at the pumpkin patch. There are some very small rides and loose fabric (like capes) can make using the fun rides unsafe. This week we will explore pumpkins by dissecting them, counting the seeds and making observational drawings of what we see. At the end of our pumpkin unit we will also be creating something called a Mind Map after our field trip. Children are given a topic (pumpkins) and instructed to think of pictures and important words that describe the topic. The children are then instructed to draw lines (so that people know that people know that pictures are connected to the topic). This graphic organizer helps children organize their thoughts through pictures and recalling comments. Our younger students (3 year olds) are only expected to a few pictures about what they remember about pumpkins while the staff does dictation. Our students who are heading to kindergarten next year, are expected to help sound out their words and create many detailed pictures about what they learned about pumpkins. Many parents were kind enough to donate some fall/Halloween decorations. We will be using what we have to decorate a big box in the annex for the kids to play in at the end of the week. Thanks for all of the donations! Our color of the week for 10/24 is black and our color for 10/31 is white. Please send in your small color pictures for our collage by Thursday of each week with your child’s name on the back. If your last name starts with F-J please bring in your supplies. We are out of many things and need more supplies. -2 containers of Clorox wipes -1 bottle of lysol -2 boxes of kleenex -1 bottle of hand soap -1 ream of computer paper -2 rolls of papertowels -1 sm box of Ziplock bags -1 large box of ziplock bags -1 3in black folder We will be asking you to fill out a ASQ form in the next 2 weeks. PLEASE be sure to fill this out and return it the following day. Thanks! Have a wonderful weekend! Hi Parents!
We will be wrapping up our unit on apples early next week and beginning to learn all about pumpkins! We will be exploring pumpkins in preparation for our field trip to Eden’s Place pumpkin patch on October 31st. We will depart Ray at 9:00 and return 12:00. There will be no afternoon class that day (October 31). Please turn your money and permission slip this week. We are asking for parent volunteers to ensure our trip is a safe success. This week we will be reading the books Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson, Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams, Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington and It’s Pumpkin Time by Zoe Hall. We will be dissecting a pumpkin, creating pumpkin observational drawings and labeling the parts to a pumpkin. In small groups, we will be doing a 1:1 correspondence activity and working on numeral identification. We will also be working on positional concepts such as in front, behind, next to, on top, under and around. Our color of the week is pink, please bring in your small pink picture by Thursday. Picture day is October 17th. Slips will be coming home on Friday. Please return them by Monday. The weather is changing, please be sure to dress your child appropriately. Our goal is to have students dress as independently as possible. This is how we have students put coats on at school. Please encourage your child to do this at home as well J This link is a great resource. http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/58500/kid-hacks Have a great week! Mandi Heiser Hi Parents! Just a reminder, be sure to check the Ray website or CPS website in the upcoming week to get updates about the teacher strike. An e-mail from a pre-k parent will be coming out if you shared your e-mail and contact information on the list that was in the hall. Some parents are planning play dates in case there is a strike. Also do not forget, if you are not in Ray boundaries you will not get into Ray for kindergarten unless you go through the lottery process. Please get on the CPS access and enrollment website to sign up your child. We love seeing our pre-k students year after year, but for this to happen you must go through the lottery process! Our pre-k curriculum is often driven by student interest, and often year after year students are interested in similar things. 3 year old students often experience these themes only on the surface. During the 3 year old year, our goal is to help students function, attend, interact and play with independence. When studying a theme, many 3 year old’s background knowledge is more limited (due to having less years on this plant) and they are only getting simple facts about the topic of study. 4 year old students typically come into a theme with a broader level of background knowledge. This allows me to help them target what else they want to learn about and dive deeper into during the theme. This is one reason we use KWL charts (Know, What to Learn and Learned) with the class. Together we decide what direction we want our learning to go in. With second year students we do more research and encourage students to use the books (with teacher assistance) to find facts and explore them more deeply. We encourage second year students to use more of their own writing (inventive spelling) and also to draw and diagram in more detail. Basically, themes may be similar from year to year, but what students get out of those these is drastically different when they are 3 to when they are 4. Next week, we will continue with our apple study. We will be making apple sauce and tasting apple cider. We will be reading Apple Farmer Annie, How to Make Apple Pie and See the World, by Marjorie Priceman, An Apples Life by Nancy Dickmann, How Do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro. We will be finishing up our apple age picture and starting apple stamping and creating apple diagrams. We also will begin to start reading books about Pumpkins and Halloween in preparation for our field trip on October 31. Permission slips will be handed out Friday October 7th. Please be sure to remind teachers of any allergies your child may have because we will be doing some tasting next week! Have a wonderful weekend! Selective Enrollment started October 3rd. If you are NOT in district and NOT returning for a 2nd year of pre-k you MUST apply to come to Ray next year. Please check the cps.edu/AccessAndEnrollment/Pages/Apply.aspx to register!
Dear Parents,
We have learned a lot about ourselves through our “All About Me” unit. We will not move on to learning about apples. Over the next week weeks we will read books such as Apples Up on Top by Theo LeSieg, Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace, Big Red Apple by Tony Johnston and Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington. This week we will dissect an apple and diagram the parts. Every Monday, we do something called Mat Man with is a part of our Hand Writing With Out Tears Curriculum. Using wooden pieces we create a person. Children learn body awareness, cooperation, organization, and sequencing as they build Mat Man together. After Mat Man is put together, the students are sent to draw their own self portrait hopefully adding more detail because they have put mat man together. This week, we will be putting apples on top of Mat Man as we read Apples Up on Top. This will incorporate 1:1 correspondence as well as fine motor and sequencing to the activity. In small groups this week, students will be doing their own Apple up on Top activity. They will create a self-portrait and will count out how many years old they are with paper apples. They will add those apples to their heads and write their age. This will work on 1:1 correspondence, numeral identification as well as fine motor skills. Please send in your green pictures for our green collage activity. Please be sure you are dropping off and picking up on time. When students are late for drop off they miss some of the most important instructional time of the day. In the morning, student write their name and journal. While journaling we work on inventive spelling and phonemic awareness skills. If students miss this on a daily basis they will not be prepared for the rigors of kindergarten. Also we ask you to please be on time for pick up. Each week, Miss Maggie and I often spend an additional 2 hours waiting for parents to pick up their students after school. We often miss lunch, meetings or personal engagements due to this. There are days a teacher cannot stay and wait with a student for pick up.In this case they will be brought to emergency aftercare where paid staff member watches students after school hours. Here is the Ray late pick-up policy: If a student is picked up late once the guardian will receive a warning, twice they will have to speak with an administrator and three times they will need to pay $25 and will receive written correspondence outlining legal requirements. Thanks for understanding! Mandi Heiser Dear Parents,
I am thrilled to report that our Donor’s Choose was fully funded! Our beautiful new books should be arriving shortly. Thanks to all who contributed! This week we will be wrapping up our community building and “All About Me” unit. We will be reading a great series by Free Spirit Publishing. We will read the books Join In Play, Talk and Work It Out, Share and Take Turns and When I Feel Afraid. We will be talking about how to solve problems in the classroom and finishing up learning about our Wheel of Choices. In small groups, we will be discussing and graphing how each student got to school (car, bus, bike, walk). Please point this out to your child as you come to school in the morning. We will graph our responses, discuss which is the most, the least and look if we have a tie. Through this we will also investigate the written numeral. Please send in a small orange picture for our orange collage no later than Thursday of this week! Have a great weekend! Mandi Heiser [email protected] Please consider donating to our classroom. Exposing young learners to books is essential in their development. We REALLY need these books. Please post on social media and encourage friends and family to donate!
www.donorschoose.org/project/bright-tomorrow-book-barrow/2103613/?rf=page-siteshare-2016-09-proposal-teacher_1978434&challengeid=356552 Thank-you! Mandi Heiser Happy Week 3!
This week, we will be continuing our All About Me Unit. We will discuss our families further and we will read the story 5 Creatures. We will be drawing our families during small group activities. We will also be reading It’s Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr and we will discuss the things that make us special. Please be sure bring in your family picture and the Hopes and Dreams paper as soon as possible! Our color of the week is Red. Please send in your red picture (with your child’s name on the back) no later than Thursday. We glue on the small color pictures to create a classroom color collage. We use these collages to create a classroom color book that the kids always love to look through during book time. Heard your child talk about “Bugs and Wishes” or a “Balloon Breath”? Come learn what it is all about on September 22! Our open house from 5-6pm here in room 411 at Ray school. We will be discussing curriculum and how we create a classroom community. Hope to see you there! Have a great week! Mandi Heiser
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May 2017
AuthorMandi Heiser is a Preschool teacher at William H. Ray Elementary in Hyde Park. Categories |