January 21st, 2018

Dear Pre-K families,
Last week we worked on our Alpha Friend Yetti yoyo Yy.  We have been having a lot of fun with our 'Seasons all Around' theme.  We have been talking about each season and what we wear, what the weather is like, things we do as well as holidays in the different seasons throughout the year.  We have also been learning about the months of the year.  We also had fun with 'snowman math.'  We made snowmen out of our names and created a graph and discussed how many letters were in each of our names.  We were also able to talk about more, less, and equal to.  For literacy, we read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. He is a favorite author of our class and wrote many books we like to read.  We did a story extension by writing our own name and making our own 'Snowy Day' with Q-tip painting.  Both projects can be viewed on our classroom walls. 

This week we will be working on our Alpha Friend Willy Worm Ww.  With our first full week of the year, we will be able to start with small groups in the morning.  Small groups start after circle time.  It's a 10 minute activity where we will have two teacher directed tables and 3 other independent tables set up for the students to work at.  They will rotate each day so most will be able to do all the activities by the end of the week.  It is very important to please have your student at school on time so they do not miss the instructional time during morning group.  During morning group, I teach the alpha friend, and the theme components that lead into small group and center time.  The classroom opens at 7:45 for the students to sign in and class will start promptly at 8am so we will have time to add small groups into our morning. 

I will also continue to assess students in preparation for March Parent Teacher Conferences.  At that time we can discuss student progress and talk about kindergarten for next year. 

On Wednesday, we will celebrate our January birthdays.  This Saturday, is our school's biggest fundraiser.  We will celebrate Our Lady of Mercy's 90th year with a dinner and auction at St. Patrick's church hall. I hope you were all able to see our class project that was in our classroom last week.  Mr. Van Hagen worked to get the beautiful American flag made out of fire hoses.  Our class added to it by putting our handprints on the back side.  If you missed it, our class took a picture that was posted on our school Facebook page last week.  There is a donation bag in our classroom if you would like to contribute $5 towards the cost of having it made.

Sunday at 9:00am please join us at St. Patrick's for an all school Mass.  Please have your child wear their OLM t-shirt.  This will kick off 'National Catholic School's week'.  The school will have many fun activities throughout the week.  We appreciate that you have chosen to send your child to our school.

Please contact me if you have any questions.
Mrs. Veronica