March 10, 2023

Dear PreK Families, 

Last month we had a great Valentine's Day Party. All of the students showed kindness in making cards for their classmates. Everyone was also very patient and used good manners to pass out cards during our card exchange. Thank you to everyone who sent in items for our party. The students enjoyed it very much. 

After the February break we did an author study on Dr. Seuss. We read The Cat in the Hat, Bartholomew and the Oobleck, Fox in Socks, The Many Colored Days, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Lorax.  We made many projects about our readings, we made oobleck and flubber, we did color yoga, and we even ate green eggs and ham. It was a fun week of work. 

This week, we had our last visit of the year from Miss Laurie, our VINS educator. At the visit we studied earthworms. We are learning about worms this week, and our class will be setting up a worm box in the spring. 

Next week, we will do a unit about St. Patrick’s Day.  PreK will not be participating in the Spring Concert slated for 3/17, since we do not have PreK that day. 

In Math, this month we have been using teddy bear counters to compare sets, write numbers, add numbers together, sort, pattern, and graph. Next week, we will have a Teddy Bear Celebration on Wednesday, 3/15. Your child may bring in a teddy bear for the day. We will do several math activities with our bears and sleep with them during rest time. They will come home at the end of the day. Please help your child choose a small or medium sized bear from home that can be used at school. Please let me know if your child needs a bear, because we have some at school. 

Students who will be returning to PreK next year should have gotten re-enrollment forms. Please fill them out and send them back to school to register for PreK next year. Students who are moving up to Kindergarten are already registered for K because they have attended PreK here at WRS. Those students will get some paperwork from the office for Kindergarten. Mrs. Cooney will reach out to anyone who is missing any forms. You will also be receiving a Kindergarten registration form to give to any friends or neighbors who  may have a child who will be entering Kindergarten here at this school. 

Spring Parent Teacher Conferences are coming up at the end of the month. You will receive a link to a sign up sheet to choose your appointment times. 

Thank you, 

Amy 

IMPORTANT DATES

3/17 No PreK - ECP In Service

3/30 Early Release - PTC

3/31 No School - PTC

January News

 January 30, 2023

Dear PreK Families, 

We have been working hard on writing the numbers 1-10 and are finished with our number books. You should have seen them come home in your child’s backpack. We have begun writing uppercase letters this week. We will work on about 2-3 a week and we will finish by April. 

We began the month learning about the season of winter and snow. We did many hands-on activities, craft projects, open art time, and science experiments about snow. We read many books, including: The Little Snowflake by Steve Metzger, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, White Snow, Bright Snow by Alvin Tressalt, Ten on the Sled by Kim Norman, Snowman’s Big Job by Janet Kusmierski, and Snowflake Bently by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. Currently, we are studying animals in winter. Tomorrow, we will have another visit from our nature educator, Miss Laurie, from VINS to talk about deer and moose. 

Your child will have received a Passport to Winter Fun  booklet by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. If you would like to participate in the program, you can fill in the booklet with the winter activities that your child does and then return it to school.  

This week, we will be participating in the school wide special circus activities from Wunderle's Big Top Adventures. We will practice as a class during PE and Performing Arts classes and join in on the dress rehearsal. You are invited back to school with your child on Friday, February 3rd for the 6 pm performance. Please drop off your child to the classroom at 5:45 on Friday. PreK will perform first and then be dismissed to parents in the audience to watch the rest of the show. Your child will be picking one of four roles in the performance: acrobat, clown, dancer, or horse. You will get a message later this week about which role your child has picked. Please choose some clothes from your child’s closet to be the costume. Clowns will wear color mismatched clothing. Acrobats will wear black pants and a colorful bright top, horses will wear horse colors (black, brown, gray or white), and dancers will wear something fancy. 

Next month, we will celebrate Valentine’s Day in our class on February 14th. We will have a card exchange and a special snack. Please prepare cards at home for your child to pass out to classmates. There are 15 students and 3 teachers. You can just have your child sign their name if they know how to do so, or an adult can write for them. You do not need to label them with each person’s name. 

We will do another book order from Scholastic Book Clubs.  Orders will be due on February 6th. You can visit our class page https://orders.scholastic.com/K3677 or the digital flyers https://clubs.scholastic.com/prek. Remember our class code is: K3677.

As a class we have been practicing yoga on a regular basis. And on Fridays we do yoga from Cosmic Kids Yoga.Some students are familiar with Miss Jamie’s lessons, but they are a great resource for getting some movement into the day when we are having bad weather. There is also a smartphone app: https://app.cosmickids.com/.

Thank you, 

Amy 

IMPORTANT DATES

2/3 Circus Performance at 6pm

2/14 Valentine’s Day Party

2/17 No PreK - ECP In-Service

2/20-2/24 February Break

December News

 December 13, 2022

I hope that you had a fun and relaxing Thanksgiving break last week. It was a very special day to have the annual WRS School Feast on Tuesday, the 22nd. 

Last week, we started working on projects related to gingerbread. We have already read several versions of the gingerbread man and we will be making a graph about which story is our favorite this week. During the first week of December, we built a gingerbread house as a class and donated it to The Family Place for their annual fundraiser. Last week, we cooked a gingerbread man in class and he ran away. We had to go and find him in the office. We will make a class book to tell us about our adventure. 

This year in math, we are piloting the Bridges PreK Math Program. Bridges is the same math program that is used by the other grades in our school. Currently, we are finishing up our November work around shapes, and we are jsut beginning our December work about counting forwards and backwards, one to one corresponsdence and patterns. . 

We are almost finished with our introduction to uppercase letter names, keywords, and sounds. Next, we will begin writing uppercase letters, and writing numbers 1-10. 

On December 19th, we will have our class party and pajama day. Your child may wear their pajamas to school if they choose to do so. They can also wear regular clothes if they are more comfortable in that. Please make sure to dress in pajamas that will fit under snow gear, because we will still go outside for recess. The teachers will provide a special snack of hot chocolate and popcorn for the afternoon snack. 

You will receive your child’s TS Gold progress report before the holiday break.  

Thank you, 

Amy 

IMPORTANT DATES

12/16 No PreK - ECP In-Service

12/19 Class Holiday Party & Pajama Day

12/21-1/2 Holiday Break 

November News

 November 14, 2022

Hello PreK Families, 

It was so nice to see you all at the PTC earlier this month. In November, we did a science unit on balance, building and balls and ramps. In the classroom we built structures with different types of blocks. We used ramps and built ramps. We took pictures of what we made and drew pictures of our structures in our journals. Last week, we had a lesson from Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS), on the topic of Building Tall Towers. We will have 2 more visits this year. This week, we have just begun doing some work around Thanksgiving. 

It seems as though colder weather is here to stay. When we have snow, please send in your child with full snow gear: hat, mittens, jacket, snow pants, and boots. You may send in a pair of indoor shoes for your child to keep in their cubby in the classroom.  We will also begin our day with playground time, so you may send your child dressed in full snow gear in the morning. This will probably be our routine until spring.  If there is a delay of school or cancellation, you will get a phone call from the district. Or, you can check WCAX.

Next week, we will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday with a school wide Feast. The whole school will all eat a Thanksgiving lunch on Tuesday, November 22nd. Each child is welcome to eat the Feast lunch, but if your child would rather eat their home lunch, they can bring that with them as well. Each class is responsible for contributing to the Feast in some way. PreK brings in applesauce for the meal. Please send in a jar of applesauce with your child by Monday, November 21st. 

We will have one more book order before the holiday break. Please have orders in by November 22nd.  Go to Scholasitic Book Clubs.

• With a $25 order, you can pick a FREE $5 Book (use code: READS). 

• Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/K3677

• Shop Digital Flyers for Our Grade with Your Child: https://clubs.scholastic.com/prek

• Class Code: K3677

Thank you, 

Amy 

IMPORTANT DATES

11/18 No PreK - ECP In-Service

11/23-11/25 - No School - Thanksgiving Holiday

12/16 No PreK - ECP In-Service

12/20 Class Holiday Party

12/21-1/2 Holiday Break

October News #2

 October 27, 2022

Hello PreK Families, 

Earlier this month we learned about the fall season and leaves. The students enjoyed collecting leaves and other items from outside and examining them in the classroom. We sorted leaves by color and noticed the different leaf shapes.  We also read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and made nature collages with our collections. This week, your child brought home a story retell activity from the book, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro. You can have your child retell the story to you and use the articles from the bag to help them. Here is a link to a read aloud of the story if you do not know the book. 

We have been doing some projects about pumpkins and the Halloween holiday this week. We looked at real pumpkins and sorted them by their sizes. We also tapped a real pumpkin with pegs and hammers, then we cut it open and looked at the seeds. We even counted some of the seeds. We will make a class book about pumpkins. We read many books about pumpkins including Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington, The Littlest Pumpkin by R. A. Herman, and The Legend of Spookly the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano. We have learned the song The Five Little Pumpkins and we made a mini book about it too. This week, we have done some projects related to Halloween. We have also read stories including: Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat by Lucille Colandro, Five Little Bats Flying in the Night by Steve Metzger, and The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda WIlliams. 

Halloween is coming up next week. At our school, we do not dress up in costumes while at school. We will have a special snack and do some fun things related to Halloween. If you would like to send in any of the following items for our snack on Monday, please let me know. We have 15 students in our classroom. And we do not have any allergies in our group. 

• 3 packs of juice boxes. 

• 2 bags of popcorn or 2 pouches of microwave popcorn

• fruit for the class

• 1 class treat

• plates

This year, a team of teachers worked together to apply for a grant from the Children’s literacy Foundation (CLiF). Our school was the recipient of a CLiF Grant and we are eligible for an additional opportunity. If at least 80% of parents/caregivers and students agree to read together at least twice a week, CLiF will provide the school with a fun family night, complete with an author visit and treat!  Please sign one of the contracts and return it to school to help us achieve this goal. There will also be a copy in your child’s bag. 

Thank you, 

Amy 

IMPORTANT DATES

11/3 Early Release (at 12:30) - PTC

11/4 No School - PTC

11/11 No School - Veterans Day

11/18 No PreK - ECP In-Service

11/23-11/25 - No School - Thanksgiving Holiday

October News

 October 5, 20222

Hello PreK Families, 

The students are really enjoying their specials classes each day. The schedule is as follows: Monday- Spanish, Tuesday - PE & Library, Wednesday - Art, Thursday - Music, and Friday - PE. The students are getting to know these new teachers and trying out new activities. 

Each month we usually cover two units of study that are related to the season or holidays in that month. Sometimes we also study topics because we have a high interest in a topic.In September, we learned  about apples. During each unit we read many books, do projects, have discussions, sing songs, and participate in other learning activities to build connections on a topic. When we learned about apples, we read Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins, Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss, and My Apple by Kaye Davies and Wendy Oldfield. We made a graph comparing our favorite color apples, we played counting and sorting games about apples, and we made applesauce and wrote a class book about it. 

We a recurrently working on fall. Next we will learn about pumpkins and Halloween. If your child has a small pumpkin or gourd at home, he or she may bring it into class next week. 

We have started reviewing/learning the uppercase letters using the Fundations Literacy Program. We will review 3 letters per week and should finish the introduction of the uppercase letter by the holiday break. Then we will learn how to write the uppercase letters. We learn the letters in the order of how they are written. Some letters have straight lines, some have curves, and some have a start and a jump to them.  

In our class, we use direct instruction to teach students to make good choices about their behavior. Social development is an integral part of PreK and school and affects all areas of learning. One of our main goals for students is to be happy, confident learners who can solve problems and work collaboratively with others. Being able to make good choices when they are alone and interacting with others is a BIG part of that.  In our classroom we have started learning about good choices to support their social-emotional behavior. We review the expected behaviors in all settings (school, home, community) and across the day. Clear, consistent expectations are paired with visual supports, and expectations are almost always stated positively. We also teach lessons from Second Step. This is a social emotional learning program that teaches concepts with puppets, story cards, songs, and role playing activities. Each week, we cover a new idea. 

Our school picture day is Wednesday, October 19th. You should receive an order form from Lifetouch. You can read the order form and pay by check or order the pictures online from their website. 

Parent Teacher Conferences are coming up in early November, on 11/3 and 11/4. There will be an early release day on Thursday and no school on Friday. You will receive a sign-up to schedule a meeting time soon. All of the early childhood PreK Programs in our district use a program called Teaching Strategies Gold to rate individual student development and progress.  In the meeting we will review initial TS Gold social-emotional progress reports (for 3 and 4 year olds) for your child as well as, initial math and letter assessments (for students who are 4 or older). 

Our class also participates in Scholastic Book Clubs. Our first class order is due on October 14th. With a $25 order, you can pick a FREE $5 Book (use code: READS). You can Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/K3677 or Shop Digital Flyers for Our Grade with Your Child: https://clubs.scholastic.com/prek.  Please share the Class Page link to extended family and friends. All orders also earn FREE Books for our class.  Class Code: K3677

Thank you for your support!

 

Ms. ZAYAS

IMPORTANT DATES

10/10 NO SCHOOL - Indiginous Peoples’ Day

10/11 NO SCHOOL - Teacher In-Service 

10/19 Picture Day

10/21 No PreK - ECP In-Service

May News

 May 31, 2022

Dear PreK Families, 

We have had a busy time at the end of the school year. We only have a few more days of school before the summer break, so we will be starting to send home your child’s projects and belongings soon. 

After the April break, we did a unit on physical science. The students learned a lot and had fun exploring the properties of magnets and rocks. We did many of hands-on science experiments and made predictions about what we thought would happen. We read several books on the topic, including: Magnets: Pulling Together, Pushing Apart by Natalie Rosinsky, Learning About Rocks by Mari Schuh, Rocks: Hard, Soft, Smooth and Rough by Natalie Rosinsky. 

Most recently, we learned about the lifecycle of the butterfly. We had real Painted Lady caterpillars, and observed them change from tiny caterpillars, to big caterpillars, to cocoons and finally butterflies. We kept an observation journal, did art projects, read books, and watched science videos about butterflies. VINS came during May for their final visit of the year. Our topic was butterflies and insects. We also learned about plants in conjunction with this unit. We read several Eric Carle books during this study, including: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Grouchy Ladybug, The Very Quiet Cricket, The Very Lonely Dragonfly, and The Tiny Seed. 

Right now, we are completing memory books about our time in PreK. We will be reflecting on work and projects that we did over the course of the school year. 

Next week, we will be participating in Field Day and children who will move up to Kindergarten will go on a classroom visit. On Field Day (6/7) please put sunscreen on your child before school. Your child might also get wet during field day, so dress appropriately. 

Although his year has been challenging in many ways, we had a great experience in full day PreK here at WRS. Thank you for all of your support and have a fun and relaxing summer. We have really enjoyed getting to know your children and we will miss them next year if they are going up to Kindergarten. 

TSGold report cards will be sent home on the last day of school. 

Thank you,
Amy 

IMPORTANT DATES

6/7 Field Day

6/8 Last Day of School