The first day of school is almost here and our classroom is ready! We have a wonderful group of students to begin the school year - I am excited to see each and every one of you on September 4! Our first day of school will be a full day, so children will either need to bring lunch or buy a hot lunch. They will also want to bring a snack -we have a snack break each morning. Your child will not need a lot of school supplies, but a pencil box, some pencils and crayons and some glue sticks are needed. A sturdy backpack is a good idea, and it is helpful for everyone to have a change of clothes in a plastic bag that can be left at school.  Your child will bring home a daily note and his/her completed work each evening. Please sign the note, and return it the next day in the folder we will give your child.
Curriculum Night for the parents in our classroom will be on Thursday, September 13 from  6:45-7:30. I hope that you will be able to come!
I hope you all enjoy the last days of summer! I look forward to seeing your children soon, and working with all of you this year. It is a great honor to teach your children - I know that you are trusting me with your most precious possessions. I promise that your child will always be taught with love and respect.

Summer begins...

We had a wonderful last day of school together today, but many of us also felt a little sad to be saying good-bye to each other. We honored each of the children who are leaving our classroom -it was nice to celebrate their progress and to talk about their achievements with them! I hope your children will have a wonderful summertime, filled with fun, relaxation, books and family time. I hope they will enjoy their photo memory books and will remember many of our special classroom times this year. I hope that all of them will know how much we loved them -they were all special to us this year! Thank you to all of you as well for your help and support this year. I look forward to working with many of you again next year. Please know that I will always be interested in your child's future progress and successes, so if your child is moving forward, please keep in touch.

We Loved Field Day!

A Wonderful Performance for our Families!

We practiced fair ways to play with a friend in our Skills for Learning lesson this week. We learned that sometimes friends have trouble agreeing on a toy or game to play. We can talk with our friend and see if we can be a problem solver. Some fair ways to solve a problem include sharing and taking turns.
We finished reading "Charlotte's Web" - we really loved that book! We all had a favorite character, and we were able to find traits in them that were both good and bad - just like in people!  For example, Templeton was a scheming, grumpy rat...but he also brought Charlotte words for her web and he agreed to get her egg sac down for Wilber. I hope that you will enjoy reading with and to your child this summer - it is a wonderful way to develop attention span as well as many literacy skills.
After a great deal of hard work, we were really excited to present our Coping Skills Celebration to our families! It was wonderful to see so many of you there to support your child - we appreciate that important home-school connection! I hope you enjoyed the program, and I hope you felt proud of your child and his or her progress this year. I know I was!

Our trip to the Outdoor Center...

We had such a wonderful day at the Outdoor Center today! This is all of us hugging a big tree named George.

We learned about spiders and insects from Mrs. Lacey.

We tried on special glasses to see what it would be like to have insect compound eyes.

We took a really long hike through the woods. We listened and looked for animals. We did a lot of climbing!

After our picnic lunch, we sat on the dock and watched little fish swimming in the river.

We loved the stuffed animals! We worked with partners to build potato creatures and then took them outside to hide after learning how animals blend in to their environments.

We were tired, but it was a wonderful experience for us!

Our Moth

Our moth came out of the cocoon it had made this week. It was a huge moth, and we were able to really see it close up. We know that moths fly at night and have feathery antennae. We were able to see the opening in the cocoon where the moth came out, and when we opened up the old cocoon, we were amazed to see the empty skin from the caterpillar. We have continued to work on many insect activities - we have learned so much!

This time of year can be especially challenging for our students. In additon to more daylight hours and changes in bedtime schedules and routines, this is also a period of transition for many children as we approach summertime. We often see some behavioral regression or other problems that have not appeared for a long time. You can help your child with this by making sure he/she gets enough sleep, eats a good breakfast, and has some family time. There are many fun activities ahead, and we want children to maintain safe behavior so that they are able to participate in these things. At school, we are not emphasizing summer or vacation time yet - we are focusing on having calm and happy days full of learning!

We Let our Butterflies Go!

 Today we let our five butterflies go free near a lilac bush. The were so beautiful and so much fun to watch! Many of us were very sad to say goodbye to them, but we know that they were happy to be out in the big world!  Maybe our butterflies will lay some eggs and we'll see some new caterpillars.