Welcome back to school!

Room 113 is all ready for us to begin the 2013-14 school year! Mrs. Aldrich is returning as one of our para-educators, and Mrs. Couveau will join us as our other para-educator. We will continue to have Mrs. Schnieders as our social worker and Mrs. Williamson as our speech teacher - we think we have a pretty great team, and we are all anxious to work with you and your children this year!
Our Curriculum Night will be on September 11 at 6:30. I hope that many of you will be able to join us -there are some new things in our classroom this year that I will be showing/talking about that evening. We have also scheduled our first Parent Support Group meeting for Wednesday October 9 at 6:30. Our meetings are open to all parents, grandparents or caregivers and serve as a way for us to share ideas and support one another, so please consider joining us.
Just a few quick reminders...your child will bring home a folder each night containing his completed and checked work and his daily note. Please take the completed work out and look it over with your child, and sign and send back the daily note. If you have any questions or concerns or even positive comments, it is fine to add that to the daily note. This is a great way for us to have good home/school communication. It is important that you return the notes because I use them to help me track behavior and progress and to help determine strategies that may better help your child be successful.
I am excited to begin working with your child this fall, and thank you in advance for your help, support and trust! I know that your children are the most important thing in the world to each of you, and they will always be taught with love and patience here. I look forward to our partnership together!

Good-bye friends...Hello summer!

The end of the school year came quickly! We have so many special memories of our school year together, and the friendships we've made here. Last week we finished reading "Charlotte's Web" and spent a lot of time discussing our favorite characters and parts of the story. This week we worked together to clean our desks, take art work down and get the room ready for summer. We finished up our frog life cycle mini unit with some frog floats!

On Wednesday, we had a special celebration to honor our classmates who will be leaving our classroom and will be in Ms. Momeni's classroom next fall. We are proud of all the progress these students have made. We will miss them very much, but know that we will see them next door! We also said "good-bye" to Mrs. Kerrigan, who is retiring and will not be back to school in the fall. We appreciate all of the help and support she has given our class this year, and for many years before!

I wish you all a wonderful, happy summer vacation. I hope you enjoy the slower paced days and extra time to spend with your children. Thank you for sharing them with me this year - it has been wonderful to work with each and every one of them! Sometimes parents wonder what they might do to help support academic skills over the summer. Here are a few ideas:
    * read out loud to your child
    * have a quiet book time each day (we do this daily for about 20 minutes)
    * consider taking your child to the public library
    * help your child write and draw about his/her daily activities (maybe in a journal)
    * play board games with your child
    * ride bikes, go on walks etc. and talk about what you saw
    * have your child work on skills such as counting and naming coins, telling time, and tying shoes
    * work with your child on eating skills - we only are in the lunch room for 20 minutes, and students need to be able to stay seated the whole time,  open the things in their lunch, eat their food in that time frame, and clean up their area.
    * most of all - have fun!

Our Friendship Celebration

On Wednesday we held our special Friendship Celebration Program - we were so glad that so many of you were able to come! Here are some pictures of our special day. It was a lot of work and practice, but we felt very proud of our efforts! Thank you for coming to share it with us!

Such an exciting week!

Four butterflies were out on Monday. We watched them land on flowers and an orange slice for several days. We had learned that butterflies are only able to move their wing muscles in warmer weather, so Wednesday was a perfect day to release them on the playground. One butterfly created a little excitement when it escaped in the classroom - luckily we caught it with a net and took it outside too!

Our field trip to the outdoor center was really exciting, and we had a perfect day for it! We played some games that helped us learn about insects and spiders and we learned about bats and owls and other nighttime creatures. The children loved the long nature walk we took -we walked through the woods, across a bridge and near the river. Many children said that their favorite part was seeing a water snake swimming near us! We ate our lunches at tables near the water and then hiked back through the woods. Mrs. Lacey was our instructor, and told us all about the animals and plants we saw. We were tired by the end of the field trip, but everyone loved it! I think these photos show how many things we did and how much fun we all had!

Butterflies and gifts!

We arrived at school today to see that one of our butterflies had emerged from a chrysalis! We watched for a long time, very quietly, and saw this butterfly pump up her wings. Soon, she began to fly around the cage. We added an orange slice and some lilacs for our butterflies. They will sip the nectar and juice with their proboscis (the curled up, straw like tongue that butterflies have). Maybe our other butterflies will be out by Monday.

We had a great time mixing up our special Mother's Day gift for all of you! We hope you all have a wonderful day and enjoy this special gift and card!



We began reading "Charlotte's Web" this week. This is a wonderful read aloud chapter book - my favorite! We are learning to stretch our attention span as well as our imaginations by listening to this story. Today we read the chapter where Wilber meets his new friend, Charlotte.
Next Thursday is our Field Trip to the Outdoor Center. May 29 at 2:00 is our Friendship Celebration - you are all invited to join us!

Chrysalids!

On Friday all of our caterpillars became Chrysalids! One caterpillar crawled and changed into a chrysalid during our morning group time! We know that another word for caterpillar is larva, and the chrysalid stage is also called the pupa stage. We very carefully moved the five Chrysalids into a large net home. They will hang there from the top until they emerge as butterflies. We were able to see the skins our caterpillars shed while they were growing. One of our Chrysalids was not well attached to the lid, so after some discussion, we decided to help attach it with a little tape. While we wait for our butterflies, we will be reading, writing and learning about other insects.

Next Thursday, May 16, we will go on a school bus to the Walled Lake Outdoor Center for our field trip. Students need to bring a sack lunch and drink and wear long pants and closed toed shoes. We will be outside most of the time, and will be learning about spiders, insects and nocturnal animals. We will talking lot about field trip behavior this week in preparation for our trip. I would also ask that each family have a discussion about field trip behavior as well - the children will need to listen to staff at the Outdoor Center, follow directions and be respectful of the environment and each other.
On Friday we will be finishing up a Mother's Day gift and your child will bring it home to you. I would like to wish a "Happy Mother's Day" to all of you who care for children in a mother's  role. I hope you have a beautiful day and enjoy the gift your child has made!

Our Caterpillars

Our 5 little caterpillars arrived on Thursday and were 1 cm. long. On Friday they measured 1 1/2 cm. and were already eating the green, mushed up leaves in the bottom of their container.

We predicted that they would eat and grow all weekend, and on Monday we observed and measured them again. Wow - they were much bigger! Today our caterpillars were 2 1/2 cm. long and were thicker.

 

*Our Field Trip permission slips are coming home. Please fill them out and send them back. The cost is $5.00 to help cover the cost of the school bus. Even if you are not able to send in the money, just return the permission slip - that is the most important thing. I incorrectly wrote that our trip was on May 15, but the CORRECT FIELD TRIP DATE is MAY 16.  We are all looking forward to this exciting day!

 

Although we are getting nearer to the end of the school year, we could still use some donations of kleenex boxes and canisters of disinfecting wipes. We have a lot of colds and allergies this time of year, and children need kleenex. We try to wipe down all table surfaces with the disinfecting wipes each day.