Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We have been having such a fun week before Christmas. Our favorite thing has been the Santa hat and beard or the Reindeer Antlers. We have spent a lot of time loading "presents" (box blocks) into our sleigh and flying through the sky. Teacher Diana is out with the flu :( she should be back Monday- send lots of positive (and healthy) vibes her way. We will have substitute teachers in our classroom on Tuesday and Wednesday next week while Diana takes a few days off. I will be gone all of next week. I am taking time off to spend time with my family. All will be back to normal by January 3rd.
On that day we will send all the kids that are five years old onto the 5's class. It is so hard to let them grow up and move on! We will also be getting about 15 new friends that day coming down from the 3's class. We are excited to welcome a new group of kids and parents to our class.
In January we will spend the 1st 2 weeks reviewing letters and class rules then we will start back on the alphabet.

Tomorrow Dec.23 will be a fun "Night Before Christmas Party" It will be PAJAMA DAY! So remember to wear jammies tomorrow.
Have a fun safe holiday and see you all in the new year.
Teacher Trina

Sorry about the delay...

So obviously we did not do the Candy Houses Friday- mostly because I was home with sick kiddos. YUCKY stuff is going around! My girls were sick for like 4 days. Please make sure you are taking your blankets home to wash, washing hands when you get to school and before you leave or as soon as you get home. Make sure your child has been puke and fever free for 24 hours before they come back to school. So candy houses will be done on Monday.

Monday is also our school wide Christmas Party. It will start at 3:00. Kids will rotate from classroom to classroom. The party will include a craft, drink & movie, cookie frosting, and Santa. It will probably finish up before 4:15 if past years are any indication. If you want to bring your child back for it or leave them longer that day- it is perfectly fine. Parents are not required to attend this party.

We will finish up the alphabet this week with Y & Z. We will continue talking about Christmas, especially doing activities with gingerbread.

Have a great week (hopefully sick kid free)
Trina

December 6-10

Hope everyone has had a great weekend. We are getting close to the end of the Alphabet. This week we will learn W & X. We will also talk about some of the different things people do to celebrate Christmas.
Friday we will be making candy houses. Please have all candy donations to us by Wednesday so I have a day to sort and bag them up for each child. We appreciate all the support and help you are to us!
Make sure you have turned in your December Schedule. We need a basic idea of how many kids will be here the week of Christmas and the week after so we know how many teachers we will need. Make sure to let us know if your plans change. We don't want anyone charged extra money!!

Have a Fantastic week!
Trina

Nov. 22-24

We have a short week ahead of us. Remember that our school is closed Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving.
Tuesday is our school Thanksgiving feast. Kids are welcome to dress up a little on Tuesday to make the meal feel extra special. It will happen at 12 noon. If your child usually comes a different day or leaves before noon they are welcome to come Tuesday, and stay for lunch.
There is no letter of the week or food project this week. Our curriculum will be an alphabet review and more Thanksgiving.
When we get back from break we will start in on our winter themes. Thursday December 2nd is the start of Hanukkah. We will talk about menorahs, gelt, latkes and more. We will also make latkes.
Friday the 3rd we will kick off the Christmas season with our 5th annual Polar Express Day Party. We have been learning "When Christmas Comes to Town" and watched the Movie already in preparation for this fun day. On Friday all children should wear their pajamas to school. We will make train ornaments, have hot chocolate, sing songs, go on a "train ride" to the North Pole and just have lots of fun!! We love this activity!! If Friday is not your childs regular day and they would like to come we are more than happy to have them there. We would hate for them to miss out.

Also coming up on Friday the 10th we will be making graham cracker and candy houses. We will provide the houses (Diana is getting really fast at making them after all these years:) but we ask the parents to donate candy. Any kind of candy will work. Whatever you can donate will be fantastic. The kids always have a lot of fun and the house all end up unique and delicious!
As I said already it is fine to switch around days if you don't want your child to miss this. We are really flexible for these activities because we don't want anyone to feel sad.

Look for December attendance calendars in the next few weeks.

Thanks for Thanksgiving

We are truly thankful for all of you who took the time to come visit us this last week! It is so great to learn more about your families. Thanks for all the cute pictures, fun pets, yummy treats and great games and stories. Your kids felt so special and loved being the boss!!

If you did not get a chance last week you can still get with the teachers to set up a time to come. Or you can make a poster about your family and we will spotlight your child.

This week we are focusing on more the first thanksgiving, and modern traditions. Our letters are S&T. So remember something that starts with one of those letters for sharing circle on Friday.
Friday we will make some yummy candy turkeys.

Have a fabulous week!
Teacher Trina

Family Week

This week is family week Nov. 8-12. Make sure you sign up for a time to visit our class. We also need family pictures from EVERYONE!!. If you can not swing a class visit this week we are flexible and welcome you to set up a time this month that will work for you. Or you can bring a poster that tells about your family. We don't want any kids to feel left out!!

We are learning Q and R this week. Our monthly theme centers around all things thanksgiving.

Thanks to everyone who has already signed up! We love family week and look forward to getting to know each of you a little better.

Have a great week
Trina.

Back from the dead??

I apologize for neglecting this blog last month. Between work, sick kids and the holiday I had very little extra time. So thank you for bearing with me. I know most of you are working parets so I know you understand the crazyness. I hope this month will go a little more smoothly at my house....

Watch for a parent letter in the next few days. Here are a few things you need to know.

Next week is Family Week. Diana will be posting a sign up tomorrow. Sign up for a time to come and spend time telling us about your family. You and your child will be in charge of a 15-20 minute block of time. You can do anything you want really but here are some ideas. You could bring a family pet, bring pictures, play a game you like as a family. You can bring a favorite treat to share. You can read a favorite book. Lots of options. Mostly we just want to see what makes your family special. We also ask each child to bring a family picture by Friday for a special family related bulletin board.

Last month was so much fun. I especially loved all the fall arwork we did. I took pictues but I am not sure when I am gonna get them up. I will try to this week.

This week our letters are O and P. I am excited for Friday. We are going to have a pie tasting day and then decide wich one we like the best.

I hope everyone had a great October. We look forward to an exciting busy month.

Love

Teacher Trina.

Sept. 20-25

This week we are learning letters C& D. Makes sure to bring something that starts with one of those letters for sharing circle on Friday.

Thanks to all those who have brought a box of tissues to share!!!

School pictures are back so make sure to remind us if we forget to give them to you.....

Hope you have a great week!!
Love,
Teacher Trina.

A & B Week!

A and B week has been a lot of fun!!

We got to be Acrobats.
We played with ants.
We pretended to be Astronauts
We made Bubble paintings
We talked about Big, medium and small and sorted things into order
We played 3 Bears

Built with Blocks
More Bear Play...
Look at this team work. I love to see this kind of cooperation. She did one letter he did the next and they made each word a pattern!
We even used our big blocks. We are getting better at making Really Tall tower!

We played with Animals.
We practice writing A LOT.
Played with Peg boards working on those pincer skills....
More Cooperation! I Love It!!!

Thanks to everyone who remembered their sharing today!!
Have a great Weekend!
Love
Teacher Trina

P.S. Did you notice there were some rather large kids in some of the pictures?????
They are our buddies from Mt. Logan Middle School. They come in once a week for an hour and play with us. It is a really fun program we love having big kids to read and play with us!

Sept 13-17

This week we are starting our letters of the week. We will start with A&B this week and follow each week with two more letters finishing up just before Christmas. A few weeks will be review weeks.

So this week A&B We will learn about what the letter looks like on Monday and what kind of things start with it and the sound it makes. Tuesday we will review A, Wednesday we will review B. Thursday is our Magic Tree House adventure and Friday our food project. This Friday is popcorn and Lemonade.

Remember to take time this week to find things around your house that start with A and B. Choose one to bring to school on Friday to share with our class at circle time.

Also we are in need of Kleenex. Please could each child bring a box to share with the class!!

Let's have a Great Week!!
Love,
Teacher Trina

Pictures!!

I know I promised pictures last weekend but I left the camera at school.... so you get a double dose today!

Last Friday we read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and did a few projects to go with it. The tastiest being our Fruit Chicka Boom Boom trees. Graham crackers, green apples, grapes and Alphabits cereal to climb the trunk.
We stamped our own trees to take home!
We also decorated the first letter of our names to go on the class tree.

and did magnets on our metal trees

"Look teacher my tree is tipping over"





On to this last week...

Here we are reading our very first Weekly reader. These are awesome mini magazines we get from Scholastic. The pictures and topics are so amazing and easy to follow!
Here we are reading Magic Treehouse books in our very own Magic Tree house. These adventures are quickly becoming a favorite!
These are our fun new blocks Teacher Diana is making us out of duct tape and Capri Sun boxes. If you have boxes don't forget to bring them in!


We worked on patterns on Tuesday.
and finished up our letters-such concentration! I can't believe he covered the entire thing in tiny dots!
This is the back of the weekly reader- coloring our own patterns!
Skip right to Friday and our Teddy Bear Picnic! Thank you to everyone who remembered to bring their bears for Sharing Circle Time on Friday!
Here we are cutting out and making our own bear faces!
Here is our Pillow Bear Snack. We had to count out 10 cookie crisp cereal, 5 cinnamon Teddy Grahams, 5 honey bears, 5 chocolate bears, and 10 marshmallows. What good counting practice it was. And it was also fun to eat for our picnic with our bears. Look at how patiently they waited in line!! Way to go kiddos: )




Here we are sorting our bear stick puppets by color.
and doing another weekly reader...
and reading to our bears in the Tree House.
What A FUN Week!

Love,
Teacher Trina