Dear Families,
Welcome to the 2013-2014 blog.  My goal is to update with photos and news from our class.  We have two amazing classes and we enjoy showing off what we are learning and doing.  Please feel free to look through the photos with your child.  I think they will serve as great conversation starters.

Donnie Circle Painting

Dustin using the collage materials.

Hailey working hard at the art center.

James listening to a story at the listening center.

Isabella at the sensory table.

Zander at the listening center.

Yanni playing with shaving cream.

Happy Birthday, Alexis.



Donnie and Kevin with the blocks.

Daniel-apple printing.

At our fieldtrip to the fire station.

Making flubber!

Emily using salt to practice drawing and wrting.

Happy Birthday to James.

The corn at the sensory table was very popular.

Measuring the play dough snakes.

Bronosn and Hailey

Isabella the Cat!

Hammering golf tees into pumpkins.  Great for practicing hand/eye coordination and fine motor skills.

Colton at the math center.

Ready to go trick or treating around our building during our Halloween Party.

Trick or Treat

Ethan exploring the inside of a pumpkin.

We carved a pumpkin at school.  We voted on what shape to make the eyes, nose and mouth.

Trick or Treat!

Christopher the Mummy.

Isabella working hard on a file folder game. 

Tie Dye

Once again we have decided to make tie-dye tee-shirts to wear on our last day of preschool for our celebration. It would be greatly appreciated if you could send in a plain white tee-shirt for your child to tie-dye with your child’s name written on the tag or inside collar.   Once we tie-dye them I will launder them and send them home. Anyone who wants to donate any extra tee shirts is welcome to do so.

Dear Families,

I am so excited to be back at school.  I'm not going to lie and say it's easy to leave my new baby but coming back to all of your children makes it so much easier.  Henry is 8 weeks old and is doing very well.  I missed each student and look forward to the rest of the school year. 

We have many fun learning experiences planned for the remainder of the school year.  We have changed our class theme to Farm.  Following farm we will end our school year with a beach/ice cream theme.

Currently we have 6 caterpillars in our class.  We are observing their metamorphism from small caterpillar to butterfly.  We have a class greenhouse and the students have planted seeds.  These opportunities for observation are priceless.  We will be recording our observations as it's never to early to be a scientist. 

I checked in many times during my maternity leave and heard all about the great learning that was occurring.  I'm excited to see the progress each student made.

As we wrap up the school year there are some important dates I'd like for you to have.

May 23rd-Walk-a-thon - schedule of events to come soon.  The Wed/Fri class is welcome to join for the festivities if accompanied by a parent/guardian.

May 24th- no school

June 5th- picnic celebration (Tues/Thur class)

June 6th- picnic celebration (Wed/Fri class)

More details about the picnic to come soon.

Some of you have asked about my husband.  He is recovering from his spinal surgery and is at home.  It's been an adventure these last few months but things are looking up.  He walks with the use of a walker and has a long road ahead of him but we remain positive and thankful.

We've welcomed Lyla to our Tues/Thurs class.

Remember never hesitate to call, email or write with any questions, concerns or comments,

Gretchen Bayer

Dear Families,

I hope you are doing well.  Things have been going very well in our classroom these last few weeks.  I am sorry I missed the Valentine party.  The students all told me they had a great time. 

These last two weeks we have been very busy learning about pets.  We have read the Pete the Cat books.  If you have not heard of these books please check them out.  You can even find the songs that go with the books online.  We made class books about rocking in our school shoes that go along with the book, Pete the Cat Rocking in his School Shoes. The pet projects have gone really well. The students seemed to really enjoy sharing their posters and learning about their friends pets.  We have them displayed throughout the classroom and hallway. 

As most of you know I’m expecting my second child very soon.  In fact, he is scheduled to arrive on March 11^th.  Some of you may have also heard that my husband had emergency spinal cord surgery on February 15^th.  He has been in inpatient rehab since his surgery.  We are hoping for a full recovery but currently he still doesn’t have feeling in part of his lower body and cannot walk unassisted. 

Ms. Holly Brock is scheduled to cover my maternity leave until May 6^th.  She is the same person that covered my first maternity leave and I am sure she is the right fit for our classroom.  Never hesitate to email me with concerns but feel free to call or write to Holly or Janie with any questions or concerns.  We will be in regular contact while I’m home with my new baby and husband.

The lesson plans are set for the next 8 weeks.  Here is a little overview of what the children will be learning;

March 12-March 28^th- Castle Theme focusing on the book, King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub by Don and Audrey Wood.  Our sensory table will be full of sand and jewels.  Our dramatic play center will be full of prince, princess, knight, king and queen costumes.  Our block area will have castle blocks to build with.  The students will participate in various activities such as making crowns, banners, learning new vocabulary and so on. We learn through play therefore everything has a purpose.  When the students are stringing beads on a necklace we are working on fine motor skills.  We choose books that focus on rhyming and alliteration which helps prepare students for Kindergarten literacy skills.  Our writing center introduces new vocabulary in a fun way which encourages writing skills. 

April 9-April 19^th- Zoo Theme focusing on the books Dear Zoo and Goodnight Gorrilla.  Our dramatic play center will have a zoo nursery with zoo animals, bottles, toys etc…  We have a fun song called Animal Action to move to that will help us work on our gross motor skills.  The students will participate in another take home project about their favorite zoo animal.

April 23^rd- May 3^rd- Insects, Garden Theme:  We will do an author study on Eric Carle focusing on his insects books including; The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Quiet Cricket, The Very Lonely Firefly, The Grouchy Ladybug and The Very Busy Spider.  The students will graph and vote on their favorite Eric Carle book.  Eric Carle uses collage to illustrate his books and the students will have an opportunity to engage in several types of collage projects.  We will also have a special arrival of caterpillars in our classroom which we will observe transform into butterflies.  We will have a greenhouse in our class, plant seeds and watch them grow.

Spring Break-March 29^th-April 4^th.

Have a great 8 weeks and remember never hesitate to call, email or write with any questions and concerns.

                                                                     Sincerely,

                                                                                                                                    Gretchen

Valentine's Day

Valentine Celebration

This week and next week we will be spending much of our learning on writing letters, the alphabet, the post office, mail carriers, delivering mail etc…  The theme correlates very well with Valentine’s Day.  On Tuesday February 12^th and Wednesday February 13^th we will celebrate Valentine’s Day by making a special craft, eating a special snack and exchanging Valentine cards. You are welcome to join us.  Our celebration will be from 1-2 p.m.  Your child is welcome to bring in Valentine cards for his/her peers.  Please encourage your child to sign his or her name on the Valentine cards.  If your child is able he or she is welcome to write the first names of his or her peers on the envelopes.  We will make card boxes or bags for the children to bring their cards home in. 

Photo Upload

Good Afternoon.  It has been a long time since I've had a chance to upload photos.  For some reason my computer was not cooperating and thank goodness now it is.  Here are a bunch of photos from the last couple of months.  They aren't all in chronological order but they give a snapshot of some of the amazing things we've been up to in preschool.



Happy Birthday,  Donnie!



Our dramatic play center has puppets to play with.

The puppets encourage and help build communication.

We take turns being the audience in our puppet theatre.

We have hand puppets and stick puppets.  The stick puppets are from the story we read the last couple weeks, The Mitten by Jan Brett.

Sophia and Maddie made matching structures out of wedgets.

Happy Birthday, Ethan!

More puppet show fun!

Happy Birthday, Maddie!

Happy Birthday, Sophia!

Reading books to our animals on our teddy bear picnic day!

Our stuffed animals hid from us while we were in the motor room.  We had to follow the clues to find them around the school.

Elmo was hiding on the gym steps.

Our hunt even took us to the school office.

We measured and recorded our animals length in inches.

We even had to go to Mr. Thacker's office to find an animal.

Ms. Sandy reading a story at our teddy bear picnic.



Some of our animals even enjoyed a snack.



Our picnic.

Riley found a clue to help her find her animal.

Some of our animals hid in high places.

Motor room parachute fun!

Playing with the dollhouse.

Listening to a story on tape.

Making play dough.

Happy Birthday, Aiden!

Welcome Ethan K. to our Tues/Thurs class.

We found a very LARGE worm on the sidewalk.  Of course we had to stop and investigate.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year.  I hope everyone had a happy and healthy winter break.  I know that I enjoyed the little bit of snow we had.  It was fun to take my 3 year old sledding and enjoy that experience with him.

We've finished up our bear and holiday themes and are currently learning all about snow, winter and reading stories from one of my all time favorite children's authors, Jan Brett.  We have begun to read The Mitten by Jan Brett last week.  I'm fortunate enough to have collected enough copies of the book throughout my years teaching that at group time each child has the opportunity to hold, turn pages and read along with their own copy.  This way of reading a book helps children follow directions and understand that print has meaning.  As I read aloud I point to the words as a I read and often the children do the same.  We are also able to pay more attention to the very detailed illustrations.  We will also act out the story using animal props and then eventually pretend to be the animals ourselves. 

Conferences are coming up on January 31st and February 6th.  Conferences are not mandatory but if you are interested keep a look out in your child's communication folder for a sign up.  Peggy Fangman our speech pathologist will be here on February 6th so if your child receives speech therapy please consider requesting February 6th. 

Scholastic flyers went home last week.  It's a great way to purchase books for your child at a reasonable cost and also help our class earn points to buy more books.

Remember never hesitate to call, email or write with any questions or concerns.