The Ridge Hill School of Norwell will have an Open House week during January 19-22 from 9:30 am - 11:30 am. Parents and children may come tour the classrooms and see our students engaged in a variety of educational experiences. Any family interested in enrollment is encouraged to submit an application via our website. We will be enrolling for our preschool, pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs. All information for these programs is on our website. Parents may inquire by calling us at 781-871-0018 for further information. Please ask to speak with Vicki DeFreitas our school director and owner. We look forward to seeing you!

Enroll Now for Kindergarten Enrichment starting January 4th. This program is being offered for children currently seeking enrichment to their educational development for ages 5-7. Our kindergarten teacher Ms. Stacey will be reinforcing the fundamentals of reading, writing, math, language and creative thinking. To read about the kindergaten afternoon schedule please view it from the front page of the website. If you are interested please enroll via our registration form located on the website. Parents may enroll for a minimum of 2-5 days per week. The kindergarten class will run from January - June. All new students will be part of the Ridge Hill School class and be able to participate in our end of the year performance at the Norwell Company Theater.
For further information and questions please contact Vicki DeFreitas or Stacey Driscoll via the website or by calling the school : 781-871-0018.
We look forward to a making your child’s educational learning experience a positive one.

December News - Upstairs Class

            The Upstairs Class successfully navigated the Atlantic Ocean and arrived at Plymouth Rock many, many times throughout the month of November as we learned about the voyage of the pilgrims while singing “The Oceans Song.”  We learned all about how the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians lived back in 1620 and we created canoes, cornucopias, pilgrim hats, Mayflower replicas, placemats, telescopes, maps of the New World and even a compass rose.  We sang “The 50 States” song so often that many children are able to sing it independently!  Autumn leaves were created with paint, dot markers, crayon resist, tissue paper and many other art mediums this month.  The colorful “thankful” leaves have fallen and mittens have blown onto our class tree.

            November concluded with a celebration of author Marc Brown’s birthday and we read many Arthur books; including Arthur’s Eyes and Arthur’s Thanksgiving.  Be sure to ask your child to search through his/her Arthur books at home for the names of Marc Brown’s children, Tolon, Tucker and Eliza – they are hidden in each and every story!  December commenced with a birthday celebration for author, Jan Brett, and a class dramatization of The Mitten.  Throughout the year we will continue to celebrate a wide variety of author’s birthdays.  If your child has a favorite author please be sure to let us know so that we can celebrate his/her birthday too!

            Our Pre-K groups focused on capital letters; I, T, C, O, Q, and U in our HWT journals.  We continue to work on automatic recognition as well as letter sound.  Read alouds, chart poetry and alliteration are methods we use to familiarize the children with letters as symbols that make specific sounds.  Other pre-reading activities that will continue include syllabication, rhyme, word families, phoneme counting and inventive spelling.  Our groups also worked on number recognition, sequencing and writing to 20 (both in order and out of order) and we used dice to play a variety of math games.  Playing games with dice, counting and turn-taking is a great way to support your child’s budding math skills.

            The Kindergarten class continued to work on recognition of sight words while reading sentences and reviewing flash cards during class.  It is very helpful to read the monthly words at home with your child so they can feel confident to join in on our daily kindergarten lessons.  The children are working very hard with their number writing skills – our goal by January is to have no backwards numbers, we are almost there the children are able to self-correct their own reversals.  We will continue to use numbers each day through sequencing, more than/less than, before/after as well as simple math equations.  I am very pleased to see many of the kindergarten children taking an interest in reading out loud to the class – keep up the great reading!!!

            December will bring a study of holidays around the world into the Upstairs Class and we invite each of you to choose a special holiday book or tradition to share with our class.  Celebrating each child’s unique traditions and his/her family at this time of year is fun for all of us.  A simple homework assignment will be coming home soon for you to complete with your child as we create a class book about our families.  We look forward to a wonderful winter season at Ridge Hill School.

            Several parents have inquired about the many manipulatives we use each day in our classroom as possible gift ideas for their own child during this holiday season.  We highly recommend Keva planks and Magnitiles as open-ended building manipulatives as well as the more traditional Lincoln Logs.  We also recommend the use of small Magnadoodles for on-the-go writing practice in the car.  Crayola has recently introduced flip-flop markers that have a different color at each end which resemble the flip crayons we use at RHS.  Manipulating the instrument is fun and is a great way to strengthen fine motor skills.  If your home is without a globe or a world map these also make great gifts for your child.  At school the friends enjoy spinning the globe and then trying to find Massachusetts.  A floor map makes a great ‘road’ for Matchbox cars and toy boats.  The list of learning toys and manipulatives that have educational potential is endless.  Engaging, open-ended toys that encourage exploration and innovation tend to have the longest shelf-life.  Please let us know if you are in need of more suggestions specific to your child.

            Please do not hesitate to contact any one of us with any concerns or questions about your child’s school experience.  If drop-off or pick-up is a hectic time for you we will happily meet with you at a more convenient time.  Communication between home and school is crucial for school success.

Reminder:

·         Hats and mittens are essential for our playground.  Please help your child each day at drop-off by reminding him/her to put the “mittens in the hat and the hat in the sleeve.”  Please do not put these items into the backpack.  Please assist your child but do not do it for him/her.  Developing good self-help skills is an essential part of our Pre-K and K curriculum.  Thanks for your support!    

December Preschool Newsletter

We had a really fun and informative month talking about the First Thanksgiving. We read stories about what daily life was like for the Pilgrims, and the Native Americans back hundreds of years ago. We made our own play dough and the children used their creativity to form it into plates, spoons or anything else they wanted to make, we saw some very special sculptures! We made Native American headbands that we used as a fun way to teach patterning. We made our own music shakers and we used a real quill and made our own ink to write with. We also made different kinds of turkeys, we found out that pinecones, styrofoam balls, and our hands all can be turned into turkeys using our imagination!

For the month of December our theme is the Festival of lights, a very exciting month! We have so much going on, from parents coming in to share all their traditions to transforming our room into a winter wonderland! Let us know if you have anything to add to our classroom this month, as a class we love to learn about new traditions!
During the month of December we have designated Thursday the 17th as the day our class will welcome parents to come in and share any holiday traditions that you celebrate with your family. Please see one of the teachers to schedule a time to come in. We will be celebrating on the morning of December 9th Hanukah with several parents from Ridge Hill.

VIP’s in December:
-Week of NOV 30th Devin K
-Week of DEC 7th Connor and Devon P
-Week of DEC 14th Elizabeth

Letters of the week: 11/30th S 12/7 J 12/14 D

Reminders:
-Your special recipe! Mmmm delicious
-Winter coats, mittens, gloves! Please help your child develop self skills by showing them to put their hat, mittens and other winter accessories in their coat sleeve.
-We will be closed December 23,24,25,30,31,1

Happy Holidays!
Preschool Teachers