ECE Connection
September 16, 2022
What's Inside?
Inside this edition you will find:
- Supervisor's Message
- Upcoming Events
- Sitely News
- ECE Team Shares
Dear Early Childhood Families,
We officially have one full week of school under our belts! This week was filled with laughter, excitement, and learning. I am thankful that the rain stayed away so our students could go outside to explore and play together. I am enjoying walking around and seeing the different sites and what makes each space unique. It is so nice to be back inside the Preschool classrooms again. Thank you to everyone who has stopped me on my travels to say hello. It makes my day when you stop to say hi and talk. I have enjoyed meeting new smiling faces this week!
I wanted to share a few important dates with you to put on your radar:
Monday, September 26th, 2022 the Hoboken Public School District will be closed for Rosh Hashanah.
Tuesday, October 11th, 2022 will be our Preschool Back to School Night. You will be receiving more information on that soon.
There are so many wonderful things happening in the classrooms! Please continue reading below to see updates from each site.
Kind regards,
Kimberly Mara
Director of Early Childhood Education
What's Happening in Early Childhood?
Wallace Preschool Wildcats
770
Students in Miss Zoe & Miss Jocelyn’s Prek3 class love participating in Opening
Group each morning! There are musical helpers who play the ukulele, weather
helpers who look out the window to see outside and calendar helpers who assist
us in marking off each day. We love to see such enthusiasm here in Room 107!
Keep up the good work!
Brandt
Brandt classroom 108 has been working on one of the TOTM activities. Graphics Practice is one of my favorite activities. It helps children with self-regulation, increasing memory and drawing specific graphical marks and shapes that help with writing and literacy skills. This week we made grass. Using the speech “down, down” helps with numbers 1, 4, and 7 and letters with straight lines in them. Ask them about making these fun figures on the whiteboard.
Calabro
Connors
Jubilee
Rue HOPES
Rue Mile Square
In Ms. Katrina & Ms. Violeta's classroom it was All About Me! This week we were able to work on and bring in our "All About Me" projects. We read the book ”What I Like About Me” by Allia Zobel- Nolan. Students were able to share some of their favorite things. After reading, the students took turns looking in the mirror at the back of the book. They told one thing that they liked about themselves. This activity helped the students to learn about their friends and have self-awareness of what they like about themselves.
St. Francis
As the school year begins, Ms. Maria and Ms. Gladys’ Pre-K 3 Superstars, at the St. Francis site, Mile Square Early Learning Center, talked about our first day feelings. We first began by reading the book, The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. After reading the book, we discussed as a class different types of feelings and emotions. In addition, we discussed what our facial expressions look like when feeling those emotions. For example, “happy- a smile, sad- frown or crying face, mad- eyebrows downward/ tight body, etc.” Ms. Maria then explained to the students that our feelings can change throughout the day like how Chester’s feelings changed from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. To conclude our lesson, we created a First Day Feelings chart. Room 401’s Superstars expressed how they were feeling on the First Day of School. Our results turned out that 9 of our students were happy, 1 student was feeling sad, and 2 students were feeling excited!
Wallace
For our first time our friends did a good job!
The PIRT Corner
Food Allergies
The Hoboken Public School District is not a peanut/nut free district. However we do address all allergies and the ECE program will work with the program nurse and Family Advocates regarding food allergies and other medical needs. We are working closely with our food service provider Chartwells regarding food sensitivity matters.
If your child has a food sensitivity, please communicate that to your child's family advocate.
Nurse's Nook
My name is Renee Banks and I am the new nurse for Early Childhood! I have been a nurse for 3 years. I spent my first 2 years as a nurse working in a post-acute pediatric hospital in Boston, MA. Last year I moved to New Jersey and became the nurse at Brandt Elementary. I am looking forward to spending my second year as a district nurse in the Early Childhood program!
Physicals and Immunizations
Preschool students need a new physical every year. Physicals will expire one year from the date on the Universal Health Record (Ex. If your child’s Universal Health Record is dated 10/15/2021, it will expire on 10/15/2022). Please be prompt in scheduling yearly physicals and give all updated physical/immunization forms to family advocates.
*Reminder that a flu shot is required before December 31st, 2022!!!
Action Plans
If your child has a food allergy, asthma, or other condition requiring an action plan, please be sure to give all necessary documentation to the family advocates. If your child requires medication at school, a medication form is needed and should be given to the family advocate along with the medication in its original container.
Below are some helpful links that may be useful for you throughout the school year.
Home Language Questionnaire *click below to fill out*
Communication
Change is HARD, you go first
If your child is experiencing challenges as they transition into a new school year, our ECE team has created a doc for you.