Room 11 Newsletter
April 30- May 22, 2019
Dear Room 11 Parents,
Summer Journal
Children can draw daily/weekly on activities they have done, trips they have taken or anything they choose! For our rising Kindergartners they can label their illustrations with words or even sentences using inventive spelling. Journaling has been a favorite activity this year in room 11!
Play, Play, Play!
Play is really important at this age! Play dates or meeting a friend at the park encourage independence, sharing, how to work together and imagination.
Fine Motor Skills
Drawing, cutting, building and play dough are all great ways to strengthen their little fingers.
Reading to Your Child
Set a time each day to have some quiet time to read to your child. Reading to children while asking questions about the story and drawing elements in their dummer journal are great ways to help with comprehension. Many children love to to "read" books by looking at the pictures and making up their own story. This "reading" is a wonderful and important pre-reading skill.
Integrated Learning
In May, we begin preparing for the Farmer's Market. We will be learning about where food comes from, both plants and animals, and all about farm equipment. We will be collaborating with Mrs. McKee and be selling some of our crops at the farmer's market. We have been growing tomatillos in the hydroponic tower that we intend to make salsa with and we planted herbs that we plan to sell. The Farmer's Market is a favorite activity in pre-k and many of our students from last year are already so excited and planning their purchases! Some centers include:
- fruit and vegetable sorting
- broccoli puzzle
- tractor color code
- making bird feeders
- painting aprons
- decorating bags
- weighing fruits and vegetables on the balance scale
Literacy
- Tracing, cutting, and decorating a kite
- Kangaroo hopscotch
- Key addition
- Koala ordinals
- Ketchup copycat
- How many kisses will fit in the "K?"
- Kite color code with initial sounds
- Yellow collage
- Yummy and Yuck page
- Egg yolk matching with upper and lower case letters
- Yo-yo color code
- Yellow flip book
- Rhyming yak
- Weather graph
- Watercolor painting
- W Bingo
- Worm patterning
- OSMO with the letters Ww and Mm
- Wagon dot-to-do
- Bee-Bots – children draw a card, count the spaces to get to the corresponding picture, and get the Bee-Bot to that picture
Social Studies
In May, we will be preparing for our upcoming season of Summer. We will discuss the weather, foods, activities and traditions in summer. We will read Sweet, Sweet Summer by Jennifer Marino Walters and The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli. We look forward to learning all about the different summer family traditions!
Science
Pre-K students have loved exploring forces! We learned about gravity, magnetism and what happens when we push or pull different objects. Next, we are excited to start learning about simple machines. Students will have many opportunities to explore through play with inclined planes, pulleys, wedges, wheels and axels, screws, and levers. In addition to simple machines, our pre-kindergarteners have been hard at work growing herbs and vegetables in preparation for our Farmers Market! If you get a chance, try to go as a family to the Dallas Farmers Market to give your child a real life experience of what we are doing in class!
Woodworking
Students have been learning the proper way to use many different tools. This year they have used tape measures, screwdrivers, sanding blocks, hammers, wrenches and pliers. They will begin their last project next class. It should be coming home in the upcoming weeks so keep an eye out.
P.E.
Spanish
Art
Drama
It has been a pleasure teaching your students in Drama this year. I hope they have enjoyed all of the fairy tales, Drama card games, Story Cubes activities, and everything else in-between. I’ve also enjoyed teaching all the students who participated in the VERY popular Theater G.A.M.E.S. classes every Friday. Keep providing your child with imaginative play opportunities, such as reading a story but having your child act out the pictures rather than looking at them. Have a great summer and start having your child think about active “ing” words such as walking, jumping, clapping, etc.
Music
Environmental Science
Growing a flower from seed has been our challenge this month. How could a tiny seed really have a plant inside? Marigold plants have started to emerge, so will be coming home soon.
Our alphabet hike to the creek area has our students searching for nature items that begin with a letter and/or sound – always a challenging activity.
Environmental Science Ideas for summer:
· Experiment by growing a plant from a seed or a purchased transplant. Or continue to nurture the marigold your child will bring home from Lamplighter soon.
· Try one of the youth Summer camps at the Dallas Arboretum
http://www.dallasarboretum.org/events-education/summer-camps
· Visit a North Texas State Park for locations and family activities /http://www.naturerocksnorthtexas.org/
· For Texas-wide activities and Texas State parks use this site! www.texaschildreninnature.org/nature-rocks-texas
Media Center
Five ways for parents to build excitement for summer reading.
1. Create reading corners at home with baskets of books by a reading chair or bedside table or encourage your child to develop their own favorite reading corner.
2. Read Poetry, Aloud. Discover Poets such as Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jacqueline Woodson, Douglas Florian, Mary Ann Hoberman, or Nicki Grimes. Poetry read aloud allows us to savor the rhythm of words.
3. Read aloud a chapter book that is above the reading level of your child, thereby building vocabulary and listening skills.
4. Encourage your child pack favorite books in the car. Many public libraries have audiobooks collections or try Amazon Audible for purchasing audiobooks. Informational books and graphic novels are good choices for books on the road.
5. Don’t forget to supply your child with great books from the Summer Reading Book Fair May 7, 8, 9 from 7:30-4:30 and Friday, May 10 from 7:30 to 12:30. Credit Cards only, please.
Association of Independent School libraries: J. Lange
https://www.chattooga.k12.ga.usAsk your child about...
- Their favorite country from the Bazaar.
- How much is a penny worth?
- What is their favorite season?
Important Dates
- Monday, May 6- Friday, May 10 - "Gently Used" Book Drive
- Tuesday, May 7 - Friday, May 10 - Media Center Book Fair
- Friday, May 10th - Pre-K Sing, 2:30
- Saturday, May 11 - Young Alumni Car Wash
- Wednesday, May 22 - Last day of school
- Thursday, May 23 and Friday, May 24 - Parent teacher conferences (Please sign up on the PTC wizard or contact us if you are not on the schedule)
- Monday, June 3 - First day of Fun Camp