Dear Parents,
We will continue to explore fairy tales this week. We will be reading Little Red Riding Hood by various authors and The 3 Little Pigs by Marie –Louise Gay. We will be playing fairy tale bingo, completing a hoola-hoop counting and data collection activity as well as making a chart about the cause and effect of the house of the pigs. The letter of the week is A. Please bring in your pictures by Wednesday. Don’t forget! No school April 7th and spring break begins April 10-16th. Please be sure to read 3 books a day with your child over break. We have a sheet next to the sign in sheets for Parent Teacher Conferences. Please find a time to sign up. If none of the times work for you, I can meet with you before or after school. Have a wonderful weekend! Mandi Heiser [email protected]
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Hello, We will continue reading about the 3 Little Pigs. We will be re-reading the version by Bonnie Dobkin and analyzing the character traits. We will also be discussing new vocab words such as mortar, skulking, annoyed, strolled, kettle and chimney. We will be reading The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and making arguments if the children believe the wolf was innocent or guilty of eating the pigs. In small groups, students will be working on initial letter sounds in words and working on a math talk on identifying triangles and what makes something a triangle or not and why. The letter of the week is K. please send in your k pictures no later than Thursday. Have a wonderful weekend! Mandi Heiser [email protected] Hello, First of all, thank you so much for your understanding with my absence over the last few weeks. I am glad to be out of the hospital and am getting better every day. I missed the students and am glad to be back. I apologize for not posting a blog last week, but I was not up to it. We will be starting a unit on fairy tales. For the next few weeks, we will be reading different versions of the Three Little Pigs. We will be comparing and contrasting the stories and creating alternative endings. We will be working on patterning and sequencing in small groups. Our letter of the week is R. Please bring in your pictures by Thursday. We will have a friend of mine visiting the PM class on Monday as a special guest reader! We know he will do a great job introducing the students to the Three Little Pigs! This week we discussed St Patrick’s Day and leprechauns. The students decided they wanted to trap a leprechaun. They used boxes and classroom materials to create a trap. They formulated their ideas, made and plan, created their trap. While they we in the bike room the leprechaun came to the room and brought stickers and left little green foot prints. Unfortunately, the leprechaun evaded the students once again. Regardless, the children had a wonderful time. This week all CPS teachers will be strictly adhering to our "working hours"-8:45-3:45. Please be sure to be on time for pick up. Students who are not picked up by 3:45 will be brought to the office. Have a wonderful weekend! Mandi Heiser [email protected] Dear Parents,
We are completing our Jazz unit this week. We are still trying to find a Jazz musician to perform for us! If you know someone, please encourage them to offer their services (Am 10:30 and 3:00 Pm) to our class. We will be reading Duke Ellington by Andrea Davis Pinkey, Violet’s Music by Angela Johnson and Little Melba and Her Big Trombone by Katheryn Russell-Brown. We will be creating a Wonderful World craft in honor of the student’s favorite musician Louis Armstrong at small groups. We will listen to the story/song and then we will write about what makes each of our worlds wonderful. We will learn about the trombone, piano and the standup bass. We will also be creating our number museum for the number 6 and reviewing our math talk. Our letter of the week is D! Send in your pictures no later than Thursday. We are in need of some supplies. If you could donate any of these supplies we would greatly appreciate it! We need:
Mandi Heiser [email protected] Dear Parents,
We are well into our Jazz unit now and the students really seem to love it! We have learned a lot about Louis Armstrong and listened to his music. Check out the awesome artwork students created on the board in the hall! We learned about trumpets and created jazz paintings. Students listened to the songs of Louis Armstrong and painted how the music made them feel with water colors. Then they added a trumpet on top. Students were introduced to scat through the book Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler. Next week we will dive deeper into Charlie Parker (Charlie Parker Played Be-Bop), Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. Students will be introduced to melody, percussion, bass, piano and sax through the visual deconstruction of one of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane's most beloved compositions “Giant Steps”. We will listen to the song while we read the book. Our letter of the week is J. Please send in pictures by Thursday. We will be doing a math talk on the number 6 and comparing it the numbers we have already completed. Please remember to keep your child home is he or she is sick. Many students have been coming to school coughing constantly, with fevers or with stomach ailments. If your child is dealing with on of these issues please give them time to rest and recuperate. Students should not return to school unless they have been fever free, vomit free or diarrhea free for 24 hours! When they come to school sick, teaching is interrupted when we have to nurse them and also it is quickly spread to the other students (and teachers) and they become sick as well. Thanks for your understanding! Mandi Heiser [email protected] Dear Parents,
First of all, thank-you for all of your support to me and my family over the last week. I appreciate your understanding over the days I was absent. I am absolutely thrilled to work at a school with such supportive parents! I’m glad to be back with my students! For the next few weeks, we will be studying Jazz. This was a beautiful unit started by Ms. Jane a pre-k teacher that taught in room 413 for many years at Ray. She passed away last year, and we thought it would be a great way to honor her memory and celebrate Black History Month. We will be reading some great text that highlight the great musicians that have influenced this genre. We will be reading Charlie Parker played be bop, Jazz Baby, Mysterious Thelonious, and Ben’s Trumpet. We will be listening to John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Thelonious Monk, this week. We are hoping that we will have a jazz musician come and preform for us at the end of the unit. If you play an instrument we would love for you to come in a share your talent with us! In small groups, we will be working on letter/letter sound identification and then graphing the letters we roll. We will also be working on recognizing numbers, numerals, number words, tallies, dice and other representations of numbers 1-5. Every week in small groups we differentiate instruction based on students’ abilities to ensure the lessons are encouraging growth but not frustration. Our letter of the week is S. Bring in pictures no later than Thursday :) Remember NO SCHOOL February 20th for Presidents’ Day! Have a wonderful week! Mandi Heiser [email protected] Parents,
I will be out a few days this week due to the death of my grandfather. There will be a sub for me. If you have any questions I will be checking e-mails periodically. Thank-you, Mandi January 31, 2017
Parents, This week we will continue discussing what animals do in the winter. We will be exploring this through the books of Jan Brett including The Mitten, The Hat, The 3 Polar Bears, and Hedgie. We will creating mittens out of paper and then lacing them. This a great activity to work on fine motor skills. We will also be sequencing the story using the characters. We will be sending home the mitten and characters on Friday. You and your child can work on retelling the story together! Our Letter of the week is Q. Please send in your Q pictures no later than Thursday. Remember, no school on February 20 due to President’s Day! Have a great weekend! Mandi Heiser Hello Parents!
This week we will be revisiting our winter unit, now with a stronger emphasis on animals. We will be learning about migration (the seasonal movement of animals from one region to a warmer one), hibernation (when animals go into a dormant state), and adaptation (changing to survive in their changing environment). We will read books like When it Snows, Over and Under, Animals in Winter and Winter Lullaby. We will be sorting animals into the 3 previously mentioned categories, creating a classroom book about winter as well as doing some practice with one-to-one correspondence and shape characteristic recognition (does the shape have big curves, little curves, big lines or big lines). Our study on Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year was a lot of fun! The morning class was able to experience a “Lion Dance” as part of the Ray Lunar New Year celebration. We are so grateful for our parent volunteers who offered to read and be our classroom “Experts”! Have a wonderful week! Mandi Heiser [email protected] |
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May 2017
AuthorMandi Heiser is a Preschool teacher at William H. Ray Elementary in Hyde Park. Categories |