Toddler

Thanksgiving

We are celebrating family, friends and Thanksgiving over the next two weeks. It will be so much fun to hear about our families from the children's perspective. While I do have a picture of each child with one of their family members, it would be wonderful if every family could provide a picture of their entire nuclear family. I would love it if each child recognizes each member in their family. I will return these before Thanksgiving. We are going to be making a Thankful Tree and these pictures will be used for decorating the tree with our blessings.

 

If your family has a special way of celebrating family, please let me know. I would love to incorporate this if you are the helper parent or if you want to take a little extra time during your day to stop in & help out.

 

Also, a huge thank you to our families for making the pancake supper & silent auction such a success! It was great to see everyone there!

 

 

 

October

October has been a fun and busy month for the 2's class. We've had a few new friends join us and they have just blended into our room beautifully.

 

We have wrapped up our fire safety theme and did several fun activities. The children were able to crawl under "smoke", paint fire and make a paper smoke detector. It was delightful to see the transfer of information from a real smoke detector to the craft one. I can't wait to get the pictures printed to make a fire fighter/fire safety book for the room.

 

For the last week of October, we'll be talking all about Halloween & pumpkins. We'll sing lots of songs, read books and make some "spooky" art.

 

Don't forget to sign up for the parent teacher conferences next week.

 

Mary Michaud, BS, M.Ed, CD(DONA)

We Made it!!

Parents, cue the Rocky theme here...

We have had a great first two weeks of school. I couldn't be happier! The children are learning, playing and most importantly having fun with their new friends. My parent helpers, need a huge pat on the back too. I wouldn't be able to do my job without you.

 

This week we are discussing friends & friendship. We'll be making a friendship salad on Thursday & Friday of this week to celebrate sharing & caring. Please have your child bring one piece of their favorite type of fruit to school (one apple, one banana, a small bunch of grapes). The parent helper & I will help the child wash & prepare their special ingredient for our salad. We did this last year & it was a huge hit with the kids! We'll serve the friendship salad along with regular snack.

 

As always, any questions or concerns, please feel free to email or call me!

 

Hello Families!

We are off to an exciting beginning. It was wonderful to meet you today during our open house/registration event at Cornerstone. I am looking forward to our first week together.  I can almost guarantee that it will be a bit hectic the first few days. We will all have a lot of fun playing together though~

 

I had several questions about snacks today. I'll do a quick address here & then if you would like more details, please speak to me when you get a chance.

 

On M/W/F, the parent helper will be providing the snack & drink for the entire class. Please bring healthy snacks that will promote optimal nutrition for our little ones. We always save the sweets for birthdays and special events during the year. Please provide at least one gluten free option also. This could be fruit or another item that isn't made from wheat products. It is a fun idea to have your child help select the items for snack. They can be homemade or store bought.

 

On T/TH, each parent is providing their own snack & drink for their child. Again, the options brought from home need to promote optimal nutrition for our growing toddlers. Please make sure that your snack bag & drink are clearly labeled. These totes will be placed in the child's boxes in the hallway.

 

I am really looking forward to this special week. It marks a huge step in each family that is attending Cornerstone. For many, this will be the first time their child will be separated from them. I promise I will have extra boxes of tissues around the room.

 

Mary

Hello Summer

The time has come to say goodbye for the summer. This year has been amazing for me and I have learned so much from your children. I hope that they have enjoyed the year as much as I. 

 

I have been doing a lot of thinking these past few weeks and have narrowed down my two favorite aspects of Cornerstone...the attitudes of the parents and, of course, the kids. I don't think I could have asked for better families!! I love how involved you are with your children's lives. Some parents don't seem to have the time nor energy, but the families here are really something special.

 

For those families that are leaving Cornerstone and heading out to the big world of Kindergarten...enjoy! Kindergarten is a wonderful and exciting chapter in your children's lives. It is a great time to make new traditions and celebrations that are pertinent to your family. Oh, and it is totally okay to cry after you realize how grown up they have become.

 

I couldn't have been more blessed this year! Thank you again for sharing your child with me. It has been one year that won't be easily forgotten.

WELCOME to March!

It is hard to believe that spring break is next week. We will be discussing transportation over the next two weeks. My main objective will be to discuss the variety of transportation available to us and then explore "work" vehicles the following week. If anyone would be interested in coordinating a field trip (one for each section of classes), please let me know this week and I will fill you in on what I am looking for.  

 

I also want to say THANK YOU to the parents who made our classroom so sparkly clean during the cleaning day. It was very nice to come back to such a put together room. Now, I did learn a great lesson with our sensory table, too. Sensory table is great, bird seed, well...not so great. If you had the dirty job of cleaning up our mess -- an EXTRA HUGE thank you goes to you.

 

Again, if you have any questions, please let me know! You can speak to me during class or via email/telephone.

It's February!!

We'll be discussing mail/post office and St. Valentines's Day for the first two weeks & the last two weeks we will focus on animals & how to care for them. I will set up a field trip to a local pet store for each class towards the end of the month also.

 

For St. Valentine's Day, we are asking each parent to bring in an empty, round, oatmeal container with the lid by the 9th. We'll decorate & design our mailboxes so they are ready for our valentines. An updated class list will go out via email on the 9th.

 

We are keeping our holiday very low key and I am asking parents to come early on the 12th & 13th to help their child open up their valentines. 11:40 will be perfect - it gives us some time outdoors and then we can come in to open.

 

As always, feel free to call or email me with questions, concerns or compliments. : )

 

Mary

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.