March 2010 PRE-K AND K NEWSLETTER

          March comes in like a lion in the Upstairs Classroom!  March is Ridge Hill School’s Art Month.  We spend the month of March studying several artists and then replicating the work of each artist and we culminate the intensive study with an evening Art Show is April.  Your child will learn about each artist’s history, style and influences and how to view and converse about a piece of art.  Using authentic materials and art techniques your child will participate in projects that allow him/her to create pieces similar to that of the studied artist.  We employ different teaching methods during art this month because your child is guided to recreate another’s rendering rather than art projects being open-ended and child-centered.  We feel that this short-term, teacher-directed type of art experience enhances the overall artistic experience for your child at this stage of development.  Please ask your child who we are studying each week and what he/she created.  There is a wonderful book entitled, I Am An Artist by Pat Lowery Collins that we will read with the class that would make a lovely addition to any family library and also makes a lovely gift for your child following the Art Show experience in April….just an idea.

          February was full of teeth, groundhogs, hearts, friendship, the 100th Day and finally we were treated to a visit by Dr. Pizzi and Ms. Kim who taught the children about proper dental hygiene and the importance of brushing one’s teeth before school and at bedtime.  Author, Russell Hoban, celebrated a February birthday and we read many Frances books and listened to several fun audiobooks of his works.  A Birthday for Frances and the familiar, Bread and Jam for Frances were big hits!  In March we look forward to shamrocks, rainbows, pots of gold, lions, lambs, springtime and a celebration of Dr. Seuss’s birthday on March 2nd!  Dr. Seuss books are great first readers and A Wocket in My Pocket is a great vehicle for teaching rhyming words and manipulating sounds in words.  If you are not familiar with this story please check it out with your child!  As a literature connection in Art Month we will be reading many Caldecott Award winning books and we will recognize Randolph Caldecott’s birthday on March 22nd.  The 2010 Caldecott Award winner is Jerry Pinkney’s The Lion and the Mouse, a beautiful rendition of an old Aesop fable.   If your child has a favorite Caldecott winner please send it in to school for your child to share.

          In small group the Pre-K children continue to blossom and their Kindergarten readiness skills continue to emerge.  We focused on writing numbers the HWT way through 10 as well as letters M, N and V in February.  In March we will complete the alphabet with W, X, Y and Z.  Journal writing continues to be a favorite small group activity and the children take great pride in writing their numbers and letters correctly and neatly in their special books.  Recognizing and reading numbers through 20 (and beyond), counting by 1’s, 10’s and 2’s and ordering numbers in the teens will be reinforced this month and a study of coins and their values will begin.  Rhyming, syllabication and initial consonant sounds are constantly being reinforced as well as identifying and matching the lower case letters with their upper case partners is taking place in our small groups.  Knowledge of one’s last name, phone number, street address and town are vitally important skills for this age group and reinforcement of this skill at home is always helpful for retention and confidence.  Learning all 10 digits of the phone number in order is a daunting task - some children can rattle off Mom’s cell phone number but not the home number - certainly a sign of the times!

In Kindergarten, the children have been working very hard in their HWT journals!!  We have just about finished them – it is really nice to see how much their handwriting has progressed since September.  I am thrilled to see the confidence in writing lowercase letters in their journals as well in everyday writing.  We have been doing a lot of counting by 5’s which helped us in our introduction to time unit and will come in handy when we learn about money.  It will be helpful if you practice counting by 5’s with your child, it may be a fun game to play in the car.  Time is a tricky concept for many children to understand mainly because most clocks they see are now digital and the time is much easier for them to read.  I am very happy with the continued reading success of the children – the interest and confidence continue to grow each day, WAY TO GO FRIENDS!  It is nice to see how few words are tricky for them each week, while the list of words they were able to read is getting longer!!  March will continue with time and then will move into money, as well as more independent journal writing.  As a class we will chose a Caldecott book to read and then will write about and illustrate our favorite part of the story.

If you would like to read to the class in March, we ask that it either be at drop-off or near the end of the day.  We are very busy working on our special art projects for the show and want all of the masterpieces to be a surprise!  Thank you to all the families for sending in the delicious fruit for our Friendship Day celebrations, the children really enjoyed the delicious healthy snack!

Looking forward to a fun-filled, creative colorful month!

Ms. Stacey, Ms. Jill, Ms. Dianne, Ms. Karen, Miss Jenny & Miss Maura