Family Night, Thursday, February 12, 2015

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OH GOSH! It Happened Anyway....

Grrr... I had such plans, such dreams...I'd blog at least every two weeks, once a week if I could pull it off.  Pfffttt! (That is how you spell that sound of every dream going up in smoke, right?)  Here it is the 32nd day of school, the 8th week and I am just getting back to my blog.  Oh well, I might as well be honest and tell you that the start to the year was not nearly as smooth as I would have liked.  Bumps and false starts, warts and all, but it is getting better.  Everyday I'm reminded that I may have 25 years of experience, but 17 four-year-olds can teach me new tricks and I better get with it!

So, we are in to FALL and APPLES and FARMS and PUMPKINS.  Two weeks ago we spent a beautiful Friday at Carter Mountain Orchard.  We went to apple school, went on a hayride, ate apple donuts and drank apple cider and finally picked apples.  Then the next week we made applesauce and mini apple pies with our own little apples and apple pickin' hands!  If you don't own an APPLE PEELER, CORER, SLICER, make the investment!  Not only does it make your cooking projects easier, the kids love using the little machine, with supervision.

This Friday?  

The Farm!  

Look out animals, here we come!

I'm Ready For You!

It's that time of year again.  I dream of school on a nightly basis.  Will I be on time?  Will all of the neat, cool, exciting things I planned all summer work?  Will I remember them?  I shudder. 

I've been in the classroom now for a couple of weeks.  I'm trying some different things.  Opening the classroom up, no more nooks and crannies.  I'm purging.  I've been teaching for 25 years now and I'm actually thinking about retiring in 10 years, so I'm sharing stuff, even furniture, I've held on to for years.  Seeing the things I love get a new life in a new teacher's classroom has been really nice.  It feels good.  I like to feel good!  I'm no longer worried about table space or chairs for each of my 17 students, we have floors and many "fun" chairs.  Things are gonna change.  Fewer "rules" more figuring it out together.  More enjoyment of the moment and each other.    Criss-Cross-Applesauce hurts your legs?  Mine too!  Sit comfortably, wiggle if you need to, just respect your neighbor and your classmates.  

Oh yeah, I'm ready for you.  Are you ready for me?!

Einstein

The Gingerbread Man!

Wow!  No post since October!  Ridiculous!  My only excuse is my school to home computer has not been functioning at home, and it's hard to find the time to post at school.

Enough excuses! 

Today was make a gingerbread man day, and wouldn't you know that rascal jumped right out of that pan and ran all over school!  Everyone was trying to help us find him and finally Mrs. Gordon found him in Mrs. Rohm's office.  Mrs. Gordon had to wrestle him back into the pan, but she got him!  As we were leaving the office, Liam suggested we cut his legs off so he couldn't run anymore.  And that's what we did.  Problem solved!

September in Pictures

We have been so busy in preschool that posting has gotten away from me!  Here are our missed weeks, in pictures!

Conducting the Marine Corp Band

Dancing

Using our New Stamps and Stamp Pads

Serving Lemonade on The Day of Caring

Listening to Mr. Montoya Read

Doctoring Babies

Trying on Mrs. Stollings' Cast

Sleeping!

Karaoke with Veggies

Funnels with Rice and Black Beans

Apple School

Hayrides

Apple Picking

Making Applesauce!

I'll try to do better!  

Hope you enjoyed our pictures.

A Week In and We Have Our Routine Under Control!

News from August 30.2013

We made it through our first full week, and boy are we tired!  The children work so hard in the morning; most fall asleep during rest time!  The children are adapting well to our routines and they are making friends and learning to share and take turns. 

Next week we will continue to talk about making friends and being a friend, as well as sharing and turn taking.  We will finish up The Rainbow Fish stories and artwork.  We will begin talking about our families and what makes us special.  Our shape for the week will be the square and our color will be yellow.  Please dress your child in something yellow on Friday!  We will also work on counting and recognizing numbers to 10, as well as our ABCs.  Another busy week ahead!

This year we have many children with food allergies in our class.  We have allergies to peanuts, strawberries, seafood, eggs, and artificial banana flavoring.  For this reason, I am asking parents NOT to send birthday food treats.  We will make a classroom celebration book for each birthday and sing happy birthday over lunch!  Please be in touch if you have questions.

Mark Your Calendar!

Monday, September 2^nd, NO SCHOOL.  Labor Day Holiday

Tuesday, September 3^rd, Back to School Night 6:30-8:00

Friday, September 6^th, PTO Ice Cream Social

Friday, September 27^th, Carter Mountain Orchard Learning Trip. 

Monday, September 30^th, NO SCHOOL.  Teacher Professional Development Day

Tuesday, October 8^th, Picture Day

Friday, October 25^th, Layz S Farm Learning Trip. 

Friday, October 25^th, Fall Festival

Monday, October 28^th, NO SCHOOL. Teacher Work Day

Bright Stars Begin 2013-2014 School Year

Holy Moly Preschool!

News from August 23.2013

We are so pleased to tell you we have had a great start to our Bright Star year!  The children are making friends and learning classroom routines.  We are so proud of their listening and following directions.  It has been a good week!

Many of you are sending snacks.  Please don’t. Also, if you sent supplies in, including extra folders, please remove them from the backpack and keep them at home.  Extra things in backpacks are confusing for little angels.

If you have not sent a change of clothes for your child, please do so.  Also, if we send home soiled clothes, we have no more clothes here, so please send some back.

Remember to put "Letterlink" names where the children see them each day.  The refrigerator would be a great place!

Next week we will be talking about making friends and being a friend.  We will continue to explore work centers with an emphasis on sharing and turn taking.  Our shape for the week will be the circle and our color will be orange.  Please dress your child in something orange on Friday.

Thank you for sharing your child with us.  We are enjoying getting to know them and are looking forward to a fantastic year!

September 3^rd is Back to School Night from 6:30 – 8:00.  Please make plans to attend.

Open Gate Farm! My Favorite Place Ever!

This was the best learning trip I have ever been on!  We had so much fun at the farm!  It was a beautiful, sun shiny day with cool breezes through the Weeping Willows.  The children were happy and busy and enjoyed running with the pigs and collecting eggs from the hens.  Farmer Tom and Farmer Marisa were great with the children and the children were great with the animals.  
A good time was had by all!

I've Been Gone So Long!

I'm so sorry I've been away from this blog for so long!  My Mom had a bad fall the end of February and she has either been in the hospital or rehab since. I've had to let house keeping and my blog fall behind, but hopefully I will be able to finish strong.  Mom?  She's doing pretty well today and spending some time with my brother's family.  It's been an amazing and long journey.

Thanks for hanging in there!

Oh My Gosh We are Busy!

February 12th was the 100th Day of school and we were 100 days smarter!  We made beautiful 100th Day crowns supplied by Safe Schools Healthy Students and we made my famous 100th Day Trash (trail mix)!  Each student picked 10 items from their snack and glued them on construction paper to help make our 100 Snacks poster.

On Valentine's Day we each had a chance to be the mail carrier and deliver the Valentine's we had prepared for our friends.  I was so proud of everyone for how hard they worked at reading their friend's names and delivering the mail to the correct mailbox.

Here is one of our favorite songs, The Tooty-TA!  Enjoy!

Learning Trip to the Downtown Mall BRRRR!

Well, I haven't posted for a while, things have been a little crazy in the weather department as well as my home life.  On January 24th, I became a Grandma!  Who has time for anything when a new baby comes into your life?!

So, today I am back up and running.  The children took me on a learning trip last week.  Yes, it was very cold, yes we were outside a lot, but we bundled up and were totally prepared for the great outdoors as we visited some friends on the Downtown Mall.

First, we headed to The Virginia Discovery Museum.  We pretended to bake at Panera, perform at The Paramount and be a Bee Keeper!  We played the pipe organ and built and raced cars!  And we got hungry!

 

So we headed down the mall to Sal's pizza.  We were so lucky to be eating in a

fancy restaurant, and Mrs. Nancy made us delicious cheese pizza!  We almost made it out the door without any accidents...almost!

Our final stop was the Jefferson-Madison Central Library.  So we bundled up and continued up the mall and then up to East Market Street to the library.  We had a great time with our story teller.  

We listened,   

we danced,

and we listened some more!

We had a wonderful time!

We ended our jam-packed day with one last picture on the freezing cold steps of the library.  

Say Cheese!