Room 9’s Monthly Newsletter
September 2010
Week of September 6-10
CCA is CLOSED for Labor Day on Monday, September 6!
This week’s theme will be all about our community and identifying those in the community that help us. We will start by using our blocks and pretend people to build a giant community in our classroom. We will name it and take pictures with each of our characters we play. We will identify each community helper and describe what they do in the community. We will play various games like Community Workers Matching game, Simon Says, and riddle games to continue learning what each helper does for us. We will also use our math skills and concepts daily by pretending to be various helpers. Our concepts for this month are recognizing and understanding 1-6. One day we will be postal workers in home living and match letters with a certain amount of stamps on it to their appropriate mailboxes or we might be pharmacist and place pretend pills (beads) into the correctly labeled bottles. We will also help bake cupcakes one day this week and try on aprons and chef hats. The Fire Department will also be visiting us this week in time to talk about why they are important community helpers. Please see the Lesson 1 Parent Note that was sent home to find out what your child learned from the fireman. We will be learning finger plays and making a cute fire truck art project in honor of the visit.
Our A Beka Curriculum will begin this week with the learning of the letter I. All of the vowels will be reviews before consonants are introduced. This allows the children to practice blending the vowel sounds with the consonants later in preparation for reading. It is my plan for each letter to have a particular puppet attached to it. For example, I will be introduced by Iggy the Iguana. Iggy will play games with the children to help them recognize both the upper and lower case version of I, and both long and short sounds for the letter. We will practice printing this letter during our literacy station on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We will also use the letter I to explore the science concept of solid,liquid, and gas using ICE. At the end of the week we will get an Iggy badge if we can successfully say the sound and write the letter!
SHOW AND TELL IS FRIDAY: BRING IN AN OBJECT OR PICTURE THAT STARTS WITH LETTER I. We discuss our show and tell during Morning Meeting on Fridays.
Wear new green CCA shirt Friday!
Week of September 13-17
Bryson is the Super Star this week!
This week we will exploring how our body works. We will start by singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and then add in Simon Says to make sure each of us can correctly identify certain body parts. We will also outline our bodies outside with chalk and talk about how we grow. We will learn about our skeletal system, and learn why bones are important to have in a cool experiment. We will also play bone riddle games, and make our very own Xray. We will learn about our hearts and why they are important. We will demonstrate how they beat using a balloon and red food coloring. We will also learn hands on about the lungs,and how they fill up with air using a straw and a balloon. We will listen to our hearts using a stethoscope just like the doctor uses at our check ups. We will also learn about our brain and play guessing games to exercise our brains. We will also have a mini lesson on healthy food choices and the importance of exercising. A Healthy Body Chart will be going home this week, please fill it out with your child at home and return on Friday of this week. This chart shows ways to keep your body healthy!
This weeks ABeka lesson is the letter O. We will meet Oliver Octopus as our letter puppet for the week. We will use cherrios to help us count this week, because they are in the shape of an O. We will also be talking about how o is for opposites. We will discuss and complete a handout about opposites. We will be printing this letter Monday, Wednesday and Friday during Literacy Station.
SHOW AND TELL IS ON FRIDAY: BRING IN AN OBJECT OR A PICTURE STARTING WITH THE LETTER O.
Come dressed as a Community Helper on Friday!
Week of September 20-24
Everett is the Super Star this week!
This week we will be falling in love with fall. You will already notice our classroom beginning to fill with art work to welcome this new season! We will start this week by naming all the seasons of the year, and what happens to the trees when each season occurs. We will be playing with a magnetic board to match clothes to each season. We will also go on a nature walk to observe the changes in the foliage. Please turn in your bag of leaves by Monday of this week. We will use the leaves you collect as math projects this week. We will sort them by color and size. We will make a bar graph of these findings. We will also learn about how animals use the fall to get ready for winter. We will learn which hibernate, migrate, and stay active in the winter. We will also perform an acorn experiment to see which float and sink. We will also count the ones we find with caps, and which have none. On Friday of this week, we will learn all about Johnny Appleseed in honor of his birthday on September 26th. We will be exploring apples and how they are harvested. We will even have a special apple snack!
This week our A Beka lesson is the letter A. We will meet Alex Alligator. We will use apples to learn the long and short sound that letter A makes. We will also practice printing upper and lower case A.
SHOW AND TELL IS ON FRIDAY: BRING IN AN OBJECT OR A PICTURE STARTING WITH A.
Come dressed in Yellow on Friday!
Week of September 27- October 1
Giuliana is the Super Star this week!
This week we are exploring our five senses. Each day will be devoted to a single sense. The first day, we will explore the sense of sight. We will learn what part of our bodies we use to see with, play games that use our sense of sight and memory, and gather colors we see around the room. This will be a day we review our colors from earlier in the year. The next day, we will use our sense of listening. We will discuss what part of our body we use, and listen to sounds on CD to guess what object or animal is making the sound. We will also experiment with tin cans to see if we can hear each other. The next day we will be using our hands and our sense of touch. We will feel a tactile board and describe each object we are feeling. We will also play guess that object by reaching into a box and trying to guess what is in the box without looking. Next, we will explore the sense of smell. We will guess smells from different spices, fruits, sprays, etc. We will color with scented markers. The last day we will explore our sense of taste. We will discuss different tastes that are salty, sweet, sour, hot, etc. We will also paint with pudding as an edible art experiment.
Our A Beka curriculum this week is the letter U. We will be meeting Uenice the Unicorn as we explore this letter. We will play fun games with umbrellas for u, and even color under the table as a part of learning words that begin with U. We will be printing the upper and lowercase version of U on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
SHOW AND TELL IS ON FRIDAY: BRING IN AN OBJECT OR PICTURE STARTING WITH U
No dress up day this week!
Monthly Announcements:
Weekly Super Stars- if your child is the super star for the week, there will be a black bucket hanging from your child’s hook the Friday before they are the Super Star. Please follow the directions on the bucket, and return by Monday. The items to be put in the bucket are favorite snack to share with class, toys that are your child’s favorite color, favorite book, and pictures of fun family memories to share with the class.
Monthly Author- This year the Four Year Old program is promoting early literacy. We chose various children’s authors each month to learn about, read their work, and complete art projects that go along with the book. Ms. Tonya, Ms. Katie, and I each will choose a book and project to teach each of the Four Year Old classes. We will read and complete the project each Thursday of the month. Our author for September is Tomie dePaola. We will celebrate his birthday with a small party on September 15. This will continue each month throughout the school year!
Chapel: This month we will be discussing the Creation Story and exploring each day that God created something new. Monday afternoons will be our chapel time where the Bible Story will be read and a small project will be done. The weekly Bible Verse will be discussed and read each day during Morning Meeting.”God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”
