Opposites Week - Photos

We had a fun week learning about opposites! The kids have a better understanding of them then they did when we first started and they just loved getting a little certificate at the end of the week.

I hope you enjoy the photos!

New Album: Opposites Week - Nov 2007

www.apriln.shutterfly.com

Don't forget our Christmas program...this coming Monday. Please have your child in our classroom by 6:50 pm. Please e-mail if you have any questions. Here's a little preview.... :-)

Three Reminders: Upcoming Events

Don't forget...

Crazy Opposite Dress Up Days - This Thursday and Friday the kids should dress in crazy opposites. Backward shirts or hats, one side of hair up and one side down, mismatched socks, etc...

Breakfast with Santa - This Wed. is your last chance to buy tickets for the breakfast that will take place THIS Saturday at Applebees in Hazel Dell. (Just off I5 on 99th St.) Tickets are $5.00.

Holiday Party/Book Exchange - Every year we exchange books at our Holiday class parties. Please bring a book (wrapped) that can be for a boy or a girl to use for our exchange. The parties are Thursday and Friday, Dec. 20 and 21. The kids love getting a new book and getting to open a gift at the party! :-)

Questions, just drop me an e-mail. :-)

Opposites Week - Newsletter

A Note from the Teacher

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I enjoyed a quiet meal with my husband, Matt. I discovered that cooking a turkey in the slow cooker is very yummy and very easy! It will be a new holiday cooking tradition for me. :-) And now, I’m excited to move on to my favorite holiday season…Christmas!

Don’t forget, our Christmas program is coming up next Monday eve at 7:00 pm. Please let me know if you have any questions.

I hope you all got a copy of our postcard inviting you to send your children dressed in their best “opposites” on Thursday and Friday of this week. The picture of the postcard will give you some ideas. One example would be to wear pants forward and a shirt backward or perhaps one pant leg rolled up and the other down. We’ll be doing opposite type things all week so this will be a fun culmination of all we’ve learned.

If you haven’t gotten your tickets for the Applebees breakfast with Santa, see Maria early this week. Tickets are $5 per person.

Thanks!
Teacher April


This Week in the Sunshine Class

We’ll be filling our week this week with lots of opposites. Big and Little. Up and Down. Day and Night. Etc…

They’ll get a kick out of painting on paper on top of the table and paper attached to the bottom of the table to learn about top and bottom.

When the weather was nice the kids showed a lot of interest in using bubbles outside so I’m hoping to find some big and little “bubble-making” items to learn about big and little.

Last time we played charades it was with animal noises and actions and the kids just loved it. So this week we’re going to try and play opposite charades where the kids act out different opposites. I’ll take pictures of them and I’m thinking we’ll try and make an “opposites memory game” with the photos.

Our art this week will involve painting with big and little sponges, gluing items that are black and white (although I’m not sure black is truly the opposite of white...but it works) :-)!

Oh, we’ll be making a class book about opposites too. They have LOVED the books we’ve made together so far so this will be a great addition. Kids will get a chance to look through magazines for items that match the word. For example…”What’s big?” Then they’ll hunt for pictures of big things to glue to the pages.

Preschool Reading Website

A mom from the Sunshine class last year passed this website on to me. It is a site to help young children with early reading skills. She says that her son loves the site. Her son is 5 years old now I believe so you'll have to see if it is appropriate for your child but I know several of you have been interested in more academic opportunities for your kids. So here's the site...

www.starfall.com

The site is also under our links now as "Preschool Reading Site."

Thanksgiving Week - Photos

It was a short but good week. The kids were in a good mood and they really enjoyed making our mac-n-cheese. After eating it three times, I'm pretty much done with it! Lol... Some of you mentioned an interest in the recipe. It's a little vague but here's my best shot...

Oh, we've got a new photo album up called: Thanksgiving Week

www.apriln.shutterfly.com

Boil a pound of macarroni noodles. Drain and put into glass 9x13 pan.

Now, I think it can be good to put in half the macarroni then part of the cheese, then the rest of the noodles and then cheese, but you can just put all the noodles in and then all the cheese. I'm not sure it makes a huge difference.

Either way, the cheese you use is a small block of velvetta cheese - in small chunks -(or like 1/3 of the big block), 1/2 bag mozerrella and a bag of cheddar. You can really use what ever kinds and amount you choose, this is just what we did. Colby Jack is good too.

After you add the cheese, add a splash of milk. Again, it's kind of inexact but just enough to mix with the velvetta and make it creamy.

Cook it at 350-400 until well melted and bubbly. I like the cheese on top to be a little brown. I like to stir once during cooking but you can wait till it's done to stir it too.

Anyway, I know it's vague, but it is easy and yummy!

Thanksgiving Week - Newsletter

Letter From the Teacher

I just can’t believe it’s Thanksgiving week already! That means we only have two weeks until our Christmas program! And really, just 7 more days total to practice our songs! It seems to sneak up on us every year. I will say that our classes this year are doing a great job learning their songs! I know you’ll be very proud of them. :-) Our program is Monday night, December 3rd at 7:00 pm. In case you’re new to Little Acorn this year, the program takes place upstairs in the main auditorium. When you arrive, you’ll drop your child off in our classroom (around 6:50 pm) and then you will go and find your seat to enjoy the show. Many kids will dress in their Christmas best. There is no specific requirement regarding what to wear. After the show is over, we’ll dismiss kids from the stage, one class at a time. You’ll walk up to retrieve your children. It’s a quick program so you should be home in time to get your little ones a good night sleep! Let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks!
Teacher April


This Week in the Sunshine Class

With only two days this week, there’s not a whole lot to say in this section. We are going to cook this week. In the beginning of the year we talked about our favorite foods and macaroni and cheese was an overwhelming favorite. I let them know back then that we’d find a time to cook it and I figured this week was as good as any! :-) No, we won’t be making Kraft boxed mac and cheese. We’ll be using my grandmother’s recipe for some yummy homemade mac-and-cheese! It’s soooo tasty!

We’ll also be reading some fun Thanksgiving-related books. One of them mixes some Spanish words into the story. The kids will get a chance to listen for words that sound like they might be Spanish and maybe we’ll learn some new ones to share! We’ve been counting in Spanish all year so they’ve already been learning numbers 1-31. They seem to really like learning Spanish. They often remind me to do the calendar in Spanish if I try to skip it.

We’ve also got some cute art that you’ll see and some games where we can share things that we are thankful for. Thankfulness is key to a happy heart so this is a great week to remind your children to be grateful for all that they have and to share with others in need.

Helping Hands Week Photos

Wow, it was a busy day today! Between Vencore and Pictures, we were going, going, going. Teacher Denise did a great job writing our lesson plan this week. The kids really enjoyed writing their own story and illustrating it. And I just LOVE our new bulletin board!

Anyway, I uploaded a few photos from the week in the album: Helping Hands Week

www.apriln.shutterfly.com

In case you don't get the notice tomorrow, we do have one case of influenza in our afternoon class. Be watching for signs of it and make sure they are washing hands before and after class to try and keep germs from home coming in and germs from school going home. We do a lot of handwashing during class and we sanitize our toys and bathrooms every day to do our best to protect ourselves, but let's be honest, kids just spread germs. :-)

Helping Hands Week - Newsletter

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend! I got in some shopping, yardwork, reading, guitar playing, piano playing, and oh yeah, lots of rest! It was nice. :-)

Don't forget, we have pictures this week on Thursday and Friday. We'll stay inside on those days so you won't have to worry about getting any picture clothes dirty.

Check back on Friday for pictures of our week.

Here's the info from this week's newsletter...

A NOTE FROM THE TEACHER
Thank you to the many of you who have already completed our communication survey! Your responses have been overwhelmingly positive! One of you mentioned wanting the days of the week noted under points of interest along with the dates. I hope you notice that I’ve made the change. :-) If you didn’t get my e-mail regarding this, you can type this link into your web browser to reach the survey. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=OZjNk71mc0mc6iuRnIM6Og_3d_3d

The last day to complete it is Friday, Nov 23 and it is a short 9 question survey that should only take a couple of minutes. Your help is greatly appreciated! :-)

In connection with the loose change drive and our “helping hands” week, we’ll be counting pennies as a math game. Please bring your loose change in anytime this week so the kids can use it for a counting game and then it can be donated to the loose change drive.

Thanks!
-Teacher April


THIS WEEK IN THE SUNSHINE CLASS
This week we'll be talking about how we can have helping hands. It’s perfect timing with our visit to Vencore happening this week. Before we visit the grandmas and grandpas we always talk about how it makes them happy to hear our songs and see our smiles and even shake our hands.

To honor our “loose change drive” we’ll be counting pennies into groups of ten and bagging them to donate. We’d love your help. Please bring in your loose change to count and donate anytime this week.

We’ll be putting together a helping hands bulletin board that will help kids think about ways they can use their hands to help others and we’ll make up a class story and draw pictures about how we can help someone. The kids have LOVED the class books we’ve put together and kept on our shelves so we thought this would be a fun addition for them to enjoy.

The kids enjoyed reading “The Little Engine that Could” back in September so we’ll read another version this week.

Along with those fun things we’ll throw in a couple of Thanksgiving-related counting games and fine motor cutting practice.

Oh yeah, we’ll be practicing our Christmas songs a whole lot! :-)

My Community - Nov 5

Well today I learned that we don't need toys for the kids to be happy. :-) We put out all the grocery items you've been bringing us and some empty paper bags and the kids just went to town. They spent practically our entire free-time playing with the items. We also learned a new game: grocery dominoes. It's just like dominoes but the pictures are items you buy in a grocery store. The kids had fun learning to play. I took a couple pictures of the game. You can see them in the album: Our Community - Nov 5. www.apriln.shutterfly.com

In our survey one parent requested that I e-mail the newsletter on a weekly basis. I don't really want to add another thing to my to-do list but I'll copy and paste two of the most important sections into a blog each week. The information is below:


A Note From the Teacher

Well I just finished adding a ton of new information under our points of interest on our blog. I hope you take time to read through your monthly LAPSK newsletter because there are some wonderful ways that you can be involved in helping others.

Personally, it is a huge value of mine to find ways to help people in need and it is such a great thing to involve kids in these things so they can develop a compassionate heart early in their life.

So, check out the different ways you can be involved and then get creative with your kids about how they can help. If you want to donate food to help the Thanksgiving basket program, let your kids help you decide what to buy. You could work with your child to create a decorated jar that will collect your loose change to help send books to kids in Nicaragua. You could even help your little ones find small chores they do around the house in order to earn quarters to put in the jar.

All the details are in your November newsletter. They were in your buckets last week so let me know if you didn’t get one. :-)

-Teacher April

This Week in the Sunshine Class

This week we’ll be focusing on our community. We won’t necessarily be taking the traditional approach though. :-) We’re going to learn about pizza places and grocery stores, lakes to go fishing, the landscape of downtown and our own personal houses.

The kids have mentioned more than once how much they just love pizza. And well, I have to agree! So, we’ll be reading “Curious George and the Pizza” and we’ll make our own pizza magnets.

We’ll be talking about where we go grocery shopping and what we see there when we read “Tommy at the Grocery Store.” We’ll be practicing our sorting skills with all the grocery items that you donated to us over the last couple months.

What better way to learn about different kinds of homes then to read “The Three Little Pigs!” Plus as you bring in pictures of your homes, we’ll make a poster of them. That reminds me, I better get a picture of mine! :-)

Being that our school is pretty close to downtown Vancouver, and we live really close to a big city, we’ll be reading “Red Light, Green Light” which is all about what you see in the city. Plus we’ll make these cute city landscapes with oil pastels. That’ll be a new art medium for us, so we’ll see how it goes!

And with beautiful Vancouver Lake nearby, we'll have some fun with fish.

Communication Survey

I am doing a little research regarding class to parent communication. Please help me by following the link below and completing the short survey. There are only 9 questions.

Thanks for your help! The last day to take the survey will be Friday, November 23.

Click Here to take survey

Naydenov Gym Trip

We had a lot of fun at the gym on Friday! I posted a few pictures in the album: Naydenov Gym Photos. www.apriln.shutterfly.com

Here's a quick video...