Ms. Christy's Class

Welcome to 2009!

What a wonderful way to start off our year with the topics of winter and the Chinese new year. Discussing winter in Texas is pretty interesting especially since many books about winter all have snow in them.

 

The Chinese new year will be celebrated next Monday & Tuesday with oranges, noodles, chopsticks & fortune cookies...okay, well the fortune cookies are just fun. We have been busy making our red envelopes (for good fortune), banners (for decoration) and a dragon puppet for each student (to ward off evil spirits). They seem really into the Chinese zodiac and we will make a chart to see which animal guides them.

 

I also want to take a moment to let you all know how thankful I am for your wonderful and generous Christmas gift. It was amazing and so nice to have a little extra to splurge...I ended up purchasing a book light,  a pink blow dryer and a cd. I am saving the rest for later in the year.

 

Thank you again for sharing your child with me!

December News

Welcome back from a great Thanksgiving holiday & vacation. I was able to spend my time with family and friends and it was delightful.

 

With the Christmas season in full swing now, we have started our holiday themes. This week we are discussing reindeer (the real kind), next week our theme is "Good Tidings We Bring" and the following week will be "Santa's Little Helpers".  One of the centers in the room will be a gift wrapping station. If you have odds & ends of wrapping paper or want to donate a roll of holiday paper, we would love it! Just let me know.

 

I will mainly be discussing the non-secular meaning of Christmas, but if a little one brings up the Christian meaning, they won't be dismissed. If your family has a special tradition or activity which would work well in the classroom, please let me know. I love to incorporate our families into our classroom as much as I can.

 

I happened to notice that my 2009 parent helper sheet is a little bare. Essentially, the MWF class needs you to sign up once a month and the TTH class once every other month. If your child attends 5 days a week, you should volunteering approximately twice a month.  (It does get a bit confusing, so if you need help, please let me know:)

 

Our class parties are next week (11th & 12th) and we'll get more information to you about our class book exchange. There is a sign up sheet on the door for the festivities.

 

Enjoy your month of December! I am sure it will be a busy and exciting one for all of us~

Mary

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is almost here and I have much to be thankful for. Working at Cornerstone is delightful and I hope that your children are enjoying school as much as I am.

 

We don't have a formal feast planned, but I would love to have everyone bring one piece or type of fruit for a friendship salad. We will be making it in both classes and we would need a variety of fruit to make it very unique (bananas, strawberries, blueberries, apples, oranges, dried cranberries, kiwi, grapes, etc). This will be served along with our regular snack too. I'll put a sign up list by the check in boards.

 

We are discussing Native Americans and turkeys until the end of November. We do have our sensory table up and it is filled with popcorn. Don't be surprised when they tell you it was tasty. 

 

We will only have school on Monday & Tuesday next week.

November News

We have been reading some of our favorite nursery rhymes/repetitive stories over the past two weeks. This week we are focusing in on The Doorbell Rang. If you haven't had a chance to read it lately, it is about sharing cookies and how they are divided among friends who keep ringing the doorbell.

 

On Friday, we are going to have a mini lesson with Ms. Laura (Olivia's mom) on seeds and planting. Each child will have a mini planter to take home with a seed planted. Please help your little one nurture the seed & hopefully it will sprout.

 

I am looking forward to the pancake supper and silent auction. We have some fabulous auction items and from what I hear, infamous pancakes! See you there.

An Update

Over the past two weeks, we have talked a lot about Autumn, leaves and apples. Thank you very much for bringing an apple to class! We weighed, painted and taste tested all the different varieties. The general consensus was that they were "really good".

This week we are focusing on fire safety. We will be practicing the stop, drop & roll technique, crawling under "smoke" (a big comforter), having a fire drill and (best of all) seeing a real fire truck!

The Denton FD has agreed to visit Cornerstone this Thursday & Friday around 9:30am. We will have a chance to meet firefighters, see their equipment & sit in the truck. All the classes will be invited to participate! Parents, you are more than welcome to stay and join in the fun. 

Our fire department field trip will be held on October 29th and I will send more details to you as we get closer to the date. Both 3-5's MWF & TTH classes are invited. We do have a few things to tweak, so I will either post to the blog or update via the yahoo loop with all the current information.

Next week, pumpkins!! Please bring a SMALL pumpkin that can be easily held by your child to school. We'll be using these pumpkins for our pumpkin patch & for painting.

Mary

It's Officially Fall!

We'll be learning all about the season of fall over the next 2 weeks. I'll be sending home "homework" for you to do over the weekend. But don't worry, I just need you and your child to gather some leaves, pecans, acorns and/or pine cones, then place them in a bag for class next week. We'll use them for sorting, counting, science and an art project.

I do have a wish list for items I'd like to have donated for our class:

• cardboard egg cartons
• heavy plastic bottles with lids (8-20 oz. size)
• empty "healthy" food boxes for our kitchen

Also:

Oct. 3-10 will be Apple Week. Please have your child bring one fresh, whole apple. We are hoping to have a nice variety of colors and types.

Oct. 13-17 we will be talking about pumpkins. Please bring one small orange pumpkin for your child. The pumpkin may be mini or hand-sized.

I will be without a computer for a bit, as ours caught a virus and is in the shop. If you need to contact me, please call me at home.

Successful First Week

We did it!

The first week of preschool is completed and it was delightful. We only had a few tears & those were pretty much from our moms! Seriously, the children did great and seemed so eager to be experiencing something new.  I couldn't be more pleased.

The children seem to fit very well in the classes their parents have selected for them. While we do have some age differences, no one seems to be in the "wrong" place. Another reason to be pleased!

This week we are going to be exploring "all about me". We're going to make a graph of family members, pets and about ourselves (eye color, hair color, etc). The stories we read will focus on themselves also.

Later on this week, I will post the pictures I took over the first day of school to our yahoo group site. They will be secure since it is an invitation only site. I'm going to try to separate them by classes. When I get them completed, I'll send a note out on the yahoo site to let you know the photo album is updated!

Enjoy your week!
Mary

Welcome!

I am very excited to have your child in my class this year. I have a lot of wonderful learning activities planned for the room and am looking forward to your participation.

Let me take a moment to introduce myself to your family. I am married with two children, my oldest son is a second grader and my youngest is 19 months. I am a very lucky parent since both of my children have the honor of attending Cornerstone. We live in Denton and have four pets, 2 large dogs and 2 vocal cats.

This is the beginning of my 14th year in teaching. I have my Bachelor of Science degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders (Speech Pathology) and earned my Masters of Education in Early Childhood Special Education. I have taught speech therapy, Head Start, Kindergarten and in the Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities. Most of my teaching has been based in the preschool  classroom.

My goal is to update my blog weekly, but until I get the hang of it, please be patient with me. I will be posting the weekly newsletter, what we'll be working on in the room, songs we are singing, requests that I would love to have completed by parents and articles or insights that I find along the way. This will help your family plan for what we are doing in the room and be able to share memories with your child at home afterwards.

Getting to know the families is very important to me. Please feel free to email or speak to me before or after class if you have specific questions for me or about the classroom. My email is memom2boys@verizon.net 

Our first two weeks theme will be “Back to School/Getting to Know You”. We'll be working on simple art projects, reading lots of stories about school and basically getting to know each other a little bit better.

Sincerely,
Mary Michaud

February News

Valentine’s Day is THIS week already!! We will celebrate it on Wednesday and Thursday. Have your child bring a Valentine for each classmate. It would be nice for them to sign each card, but don’t feel compelled to make them write their classmates’ names unless they are truly interested.  We will be making fancy envelopes for them to each deliver/receive valentines in.

The Valentine Party will be pretty low-key. When you come to school at 9, help your child deliver his/her Valentines. Then, after snack and time outside, we will come inside (around 11:30 or so) and open our Valentines. If you parents would like to join us for this, that would be wonderful! We might also make a treat to share with you then – I will talk with my Helpers to coordinate efforts.

I will be out of the classroom on Friday, attending the Conference on Parent Education and presenting a lecture at UNT (Attachment and the Process of Separation and Individuation across the Lifespan). Dawn and Jennifer have graciously volunteered to take my place.

The last 2 weeks of February, we will be exploring “The Arts” – music, visual, movement, theatrical. If you have a special talent or interest in any of these or other Arts, please plan to share it with us!

As always, please call if you have any questions or concerns! Thanks for sharing your children with me, I enjoy them a lot!

January News

Happy New Year! We are off to a nice start with a slight change in class rosters: be prepared to see some familiar faces on different days!

SHOW & TELL: FIRST FULL WEEK OF JANUARY (1/7-11)

Themes and discoveries this month are:

1/3 - 1/11Winter
Snow, ice, crystals, properties of water, winter weather, Polar and Arctic animals (polar bears & penguins), hibernation, and feeding birds

1/14– 1/25Space
Light/shadows, the moon, planets/stars

1/28 – 2/8Dinosaurs
Archeology/fossils

Some Winter books we will read are:
The Mitten and The Hat by Jan Brett
Froggy Gets Dressed
Chicken Soup with Rice
Stranger in the Woods

We WILL have school on Friday, 1/18 (it is a DISD holiday)
we will NOT have school on Monday, 1/21 (ML King Day).

Next month we will celebrate Chinese New Year (2/7), Valentine’s Day, community services (Post Office, Police, etc), and health.

ALLERGY ALERT 5 days/week: strawberries and pineapple. If you want to serve these fruits, please bring an alternate snack for the child who has allergies.