The following policies will be instituted immediately as of Monday October 26th.

1. Any child who has a fever CANNOT return to RHS for 48 hours FEVER FREE. This means that your child is fever free without any motrin, tylenol, advil.

2. Any child exhibiting the following symptoms will be brought into the Directors Office:
body aches, body chills, fever, sneezing, coughing, runny nose.. dramatic change in behavior not interacting with classmates… Once we determine the illness we will call the parents immediately and give your child a mask to wear if necessary.

3. Constant disinfecting is ongoing daily at RHS
4. Children and Parents must disinfect their hands before entering the classrooms.
5. Keeping Families updated is our top priority during the flu season
6. Any parent with small children, we will do pick up and drop off at your car so you do not have to enter the building with your infant or small child. Just give us a call when you are in the parking lot.

Happy Fall, Happy Halloween to All!

The first month of school has come and gone so quickly. It is hard to believe we are entering our first week of October. During the month we will be closed on Monday October 12th for Columbus Day. We will be having a Halloween Open House Craft/Costume celebration on Saturday October 24th from 10-1pm.

During our first team meeting a few topics were covered that the teachers shared with me to help with overall communication and self help needs for the children at RHS during school time.
Extra Clothes are very important to have for all children in the school. Please have your child’s backpack filled with 2 sets of spare clothes. This should include pants (cooler weather now), socks, long sleeved shirts, 2 pairs of underwear. A plastic grocery bag for any spoiled clothing would be helpful for us as well.
During lunch time, many children need extra spoons or forks for their lunch. If you could provide your child with the appropriate utensils (plastic of course) we would appreciate it as well. Most heat ups should only take a quick heat up. Ice packs in lunches really work to keep drinks cold. We do not have refrigerators in each classroom.

We are looking for scrap paper for each classroom. If anyone has any scrap paper for our classrooms we would greatly appreciate it. You can leave any donations with Miss Vicki.

The teachers as well as myself completed our CPR training on Monday September 28th. We will be having our First Aid Training on Monday October 26th.

Miss Jill and Miss Alissa will be taking a course on Friday afternoon October 23rd. They will be participating in a workshop on Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum. We look forward to hearing all about it.

Our Ridge Hill Networking Board will be put up within the next week. If you or a friend has a job or company that would be great to share with RHS, please leave any information with Miss Vicki.

I am proud to announce the begining of our NAEYC re-accredidation process which we have begun. This school wide accredidation will take the year to complete. Most of the work is done through classroom portfolios, documentation and record keeping on our curriculum, lesson plans and school wide community communication. The teachers will be instructed by myself through this process. This is a huge undertaking with incredible personal accomplishments for all teachers, parents and myself.
The 10 Early Childhood Program Standards are based on research as well as professional experience. They are Relationships, Curriculum, Teaching, Assessment of Child Progress,Health,Teachers,Families,Community Relationships,Physical Environment,Leadership and Management.

My goal for all children and families at Ridge Hill School is to have positive relationships between children and adults that are fundamental to a harmonious environment that promotes learning and growth.

Enjoy the fun and festive season of autumn and all the wonderful colors of Fall with your children and families.

Happiness and Gratitude,

Miss Vicki

Join Ridge Hill School teachers for a fun filled day on October 24th from 10-1pm. We will be making fun halloween themed crafts and much more. All Children are welcome to come in their costumes for a spooky time. All friends and families are welcome to join us. All activities are inside so there is no raindate.
Hope to see you all on the 24th.

Pre-K / Kindergarten October 2009 Newsletter

            Learning is in full swing in the upstairs classes at Ridge Hill!  We spent September getting to know one another and the routines specific to being an “upstairs friend.”  The teachers spent a considerable amount of time working with students on their self-help skills and the students have become much more independent with classroom clean-up and our lunchtime procedures.  Your child should be packing his/her own backpack and checking his/her own yellow folder for notices and completed work each day.  Please encourage your child to take personal responsibility for the items that are brought to school each day.

In the Pre-K class our small groups; Alligators, Bumblebees and Caterpillars, have been working on name spelling and writing, letter writing using the HWT methods, creating shapes, identifying shapes, counting and comparing sets of 10 and beyond, reading color words, sorting items by shape and color and correct pencil/crayon grip.  The groups are well balanced and the teachers rotate teaching each group on a weekly basis.  It is the objective of the teachers to differentiate the instruction during each small group to meet the diverse learning needs of the students in the Pre-K class.  In October the students will continue their work on greater and less than in math, more HWT capital letter writing as well as syllabication and rhyme.  Be sure to ask your child what group he/she is in this year.

In the K class the children have been working really hard on their writing skills – they are doing a wonderful job writing with lowercase letters.  We have been talking about the importance of spacing when writing – please be sure to ask your child about our new Sentence Song, it is a catchy tune to help them to remember spaces between words.  The K class did math with cuisenaire rods – the relay race with the rods was quite a hit!  I am very pleased to see how well each child knows their sight words from September.  I will be sending home new sight words for the month of October.  We have been working on beginning reading with some phonemic awareness – the children are working on breaking words down by sounds and then blending them together to form words.  I am very pleased with the growth of each child in the past 3 weeks – it is certainly going to be a wonderful year filled with lots of learning and laughter!

At choice time all of the students have been enjoying a wide range of manipulatives, games, and art mediums.  We have done self-portraits, made apple prints, painted fall trees, created fall leaves, and experienced wax resist at the art table.  At the writing table the students have read, traced, and written sentences with correct spacing.  At the math table the students have explored patterns, shapes and sets of numbers to 10 and beyond. On the big rug favorite choices have included marble runs, trains, planks and magna-tiles.  Be sure to ask your child about the pumpkin seeds that we have planted!  The month of October will be filled with fire safety activities, a celebration of Columbus, more autumn activities and discovering pumpkins!

Star Student and Letter of the Week bags have begun.  Each child will have the chance to participate in these home-school connection activities throughout the year.  Each day a story is read aloud to the class to support the curriculum or monthly theme.  Please ask your child specific questions about his/her day if you would like to gain better information from him/her.  Often when asked, “What did you do today?” little information is gathered from a young child.  Try asking, “What choices did you make at choice today”, “Tell me about what your small group did today?”, “Who sat at your lunch/snack table?”, “Tell me about the Star Student and what was on his/her poster this week,”  “Tell me what happened in the story that you heard today.”  So much is happening in the classroom and your child might need specific prompts to decide what to tell you about!

We look forward to seeing you all at the Open House next week to discuss the goals for the year and our curriculum.  Any questions?  Please don’t hesitate to speak with one of the teachers at drop off/pick up.  Many thanks for your support!

Reminders:

·         One snack & drink (am/pm) is sufficient for snack time

·         Please pack proper utensils if lunch requires them

·         For our morning only students – heat-up lunches only one day per week please

October update for the Pre-School Class

What a great beginning to the school year! Everyone is adjusting well, learning the rules and routine of the class. September we had fun learning “All About ME” and in October we will learn “Health and Safety” – it should be very fun!
We would just like to remind parents that morning pre-school pick up is 12:15. Thank you!

The teachers have split up the children into four small groups. This is the time of day that your child will be with a teacher in a group of 4 or 5 to learn concepts based upon our curriculum goals which are: fine motor, letter and number recognition, Handwriting Without Tears curriculum, basic math skills such as patterns, sequencing, graphing and sorting, one to one correspondence, social skills and most important fostering and building self esteem in your child.
Your child will be in this group for the remainder of the year. Please feel free to ask a teacher whose group your child is in at anytime.

Here is an update on the small groups:

Miss Alissa – During the month of September we worked on name recognition and name tracing and Mat Man. During the month of October in my small group we are continuing on name recognition and tracing, letter of the week and also shape tracing and recognition. The children are all doing so well during small group. Happy October!

Miss Nicole – In the month of September we worked on letter, color and shape recognition. After a week of letter, color and shape flash cards they traced shapes and then they drew their own shapes free hand. They also traced some words that began with the letter F and drew a person.
For the month of October we will be concentrating on name recognition and having them use their fine motor skills by tracing and writing letters.

Miss Shealene – In September I began my small group with a brief assessment of the children’s skills in regards to letter, number and color recognition. I also had each child in my group draw a person to show their knowledge on body parts and where they belong. Building a person requires many straight lines and shapes so it will be interesting to see how much each child has improved by the middle and end of the year. We always review the letter of the week; every week we have a new letter. In October, my small group will be working on tracing and writing straight lines and curves to prepare them for writing letters and shapes. It’s been a great month and I am looking forward to a wonderful year!

Miss Heather – Each week I will be changing the theme for small group, using the last week of every month for letter of the week review. In September we had fun learning about colors one week, where we hoped on colors, sorted colors and named colors. One week we focused on shapes, we had fun using the shape magnets, cutting and coloring different shapes and finding shapes in the classroom. And this last week we are focusing on the letters we have learned so far: L, F, and E. In October my group will have a week of fine motor practice, a week of patterns, a week of science experiments and the last week will be the letter of the week review. Every day we practice writing our names and we will practice Mat Man at times also I look forward to a great year, if your child does any practice work at home I would love for them to bring it in so I can see it and give them a stamp

One more reminder: please do not forget to check your child’s cubby located in the classroom. This is where we put all the important papers and artwork your child has done along with important papers for parents. Thank you!