Preschool News

January 6, 2008

Dear Parents,

Lisa and I enjoyed seeing your children last week!

I will be collecting money for our March 10th fieldtrip to the Flynn Theater.  The cost of each ticket is $8.50 (both children and chaperones need to purchase a ticket). Please send payment (either cash or check) to school by Monday, January 14th.  Please make checks payable to Pam Dow.

Our PTN (Parent, Teacher & Neighbor Group) has generously purchased both sleds and snowshoes for children at our school.  Preschoolers will be snowshoeing on Mondays at both 10:00 and 2:00 weather permitting.  I was hoping to begin tomorrow, however the forecast is calling for rain.  Be sure your child is dressed extra warm on Mondays for our snowshoeing expeditions and let me know if you’d like to join us!

          With an abundance of snow, we’ll be focusing on the white stuff for a few weeks.  Some of the activities we’ll be doing include making books about winter, building a “snow fort” with paper, making snowflakes, and conducting science experiments. We’ll spend time discussing water, ice and snow and the relationship between them.  In one lesson the children will be asked to change snow/ice into water.  After exploring snow and ice and discussing what happens when you bring it inside, each child will be given a small baby food jar with snow in it.  They will be asked ‘How can you make the snow in your jar melt?’  ‘How can you make it melt faster?’   They will each come up with their own strategies for melting their snow.  Holding the jar in their hands, breathing on it, and putting it on the heater are some of the ways we’ve seen in the past.  We’ll discuss the melting snow with these words-liquid, melt, cold, and heat.

          There are many great stories and poems about winter and snow.  We’ll enjoy reading many of these and spend time acting out The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  Throwing snowballs (white tissue paper) is always a highlight of this story!  Winter scenery makes for great art projects.  Some of the art materials we’ll use are glitter flakes, salt, white paint, chalk, and papier-mâché. 

Here is a song we’ll be singing this week-

                   There was a chubby snowman, who had a carrot nose

                   Along came a bunny, and what do you suppose?

                   That hungry little bunny, looking for his lunch,

                   Ate that chubby snowman’s nose…

                   Nibble, nibble, CRUNCH!

          We will be talking about the temperature, so if you have a thermometer, point out what it says and whether it is cool or cold outside.  Let your child help decide what clothing to wear for the weather.  If you are watching television, have your child watch the weather report with you. 

          Our housekeeping corner has been transformed into a grocery store and your children are having great fun writing their shopping lists, pushing a cart around our “store” and purchasing their choices with pretend money.

Reminders:

PTN meeting tomorrow night (Monday, Jan. 7^th) at 6:30 p.m. in the school library.  Please join us!

Please send your child’s library book to school on Tuesday.  Thanks!

Payment for Flynn Theater tickets due by Monday, January 14th-$8.50 per ticket.

Have a great week,

Pam