Wow!  What a busy week we've had.  We started off on Monday with a pretty nice day with lots of new to share about our vacations and remembering classroom routines, schedules, and rules.  We also reviewed "tricky teens" our letters and letter sounds, those vowels and the sounds they make and took note of the growth our Narcissus bulbs had made over the holiday.


On Tuesday, I think the reality of our school routine and the length of the day hit hard for all of us.  We were tired and weepy.  A few even requested naps (I'm going to have to bring some blankets back in).  After a brief discussion and some sharing, it was decided that we all needed to get into bed early that night.


Wednesday's morning bulletin asked the children if they had gone to bed early the night before and to check "yes" or "no".  I'm happy to report that the majority of them did (myself included).  Needless to say, the day went much smoother.  We started the morning with an introduction to Picasso and his Cubist phase.  We looked at a number of paintings, with a focus on his portraits and how they represent two different views of a face.  We then took what we learned up to our Third Grade Book Buddies and created portraits with them.  The third grade buddy created a profile, while the Kinders created a front portrait.  They far exceeded my expectations...

  

AREN'T THEY GORGEOUS??  Wait until you see the rest...

Many of the children came back to the classroom wanting to practice making more portraits is this style- a study, if you will...  Next week we'll be working on creating a Cubist style background for the portraits with our Buddies.We also have been working on "Trick Words" (words that don't follow phonological rules and/or are regularly repeated and seen in texts.  Some of the words we've been working on are:

• see
• we    
• me 
• can                                          
• and                                                 
• the
• like                        
• here
• was

In conjunction with this, they're learning how to spell "CVC" words (consonant/vowel/consonant).  What they've shown me is that they know their letter sounds and they're learning how to put them together to create words.

Oh and lastly, NAP was cancelled for this week by the director.  With such short notice I wasn't able to pull an outdoor adventure together.  Luckily, all but two of you remembered (sorry Angela).  Please know that I always send reminders home in hardcopy and on line when it's approaching.  If those notices aren't going home, assume it's been cancelled.

Secondly, we have grown and learned so much since those last few weeks of summer.  We spent so much time establishing routines and learning independence.  A large part of that includes being timely: getting to specials on time, getting ourselves dressed to get outside in time, and getting to school on time.  This is especially important as your child is able to start the day together with his/her friends and also eliminates disruptions as we start our morning meeting.  I get that life can throw up curveballs (dead batteries, hitting the snooze too many times, any number of lost clothing items...) I understand... However, it would be helpful for our kids to get a relaxed start, establish routine, diminish classroom interruptions, and help others stay focused (while at morning meeting) if their classmates arrived on time.  I appreciate your efforts.


I'll be posting the birthday pictures over the weekend; oh, and I found the Paul Markowitz photos.  Those will also follow.


Enjoy the weekend,


Paulette