A is for Apple

Parents, 
Our weekly theme this week is APPLES.  We will be doing several activities on with apples including making apple crisp and graphing the different colors of apples.  Please send ONE apple to school with your child by Wednesday. Sorry for the short notice.  If you are not able to send in an apple, please let me know and I will bring some extras.  Thank you!

Dinosour Galore!

Paul Stickland is a great author!  He has many free activities and coloring pages on his website.  He actually read our Preschool Blog all the way over in the UK and sent me a personal email....how exciting!

Check out Dinosaur Roar coloring pages here.

Paul Stickland's website here.

Sensory Storytime

Join for a sensory storytime, designed forchildren with different needs, including those with Autism, Down syndrome, sensory-processing disorder, speech/language delays, cognitive impairments, AD/HD, and other special needs or challenges. When offered, the 11:30 a.m. class is a repeat of the 10:30 a.m. class to accommodate additional families.

Saturdays, July 28th, August 11th, September 22nd / 10:30 & 11:30 a.m.

Maple Heights Branch

5225 Library Lane / 216.475.5000

Saturday, September 8th / 10:30 a.m.

Bay Village Branch

502 Cahoon Road / 440.871.6392

Saturday, September 15th / 10:30 a.m.

Independence Branch

6361 Selig Drive / 216.447.0160

Saturday, September 15th / 11:30 a.m.

Parma-South Branch

7335 Ridge Road / 440.885.5362

Important Notice: Please Read Carefully!

Due to safety and concerns, we are going to change the drop off and pick up locations.  I apologize for another change but we are trying to find a solution that works best.

This change will take effect on Monday, October 1st.  Please share it with relatives/sitters that maybe helping provide transportation for your child.

AM Class:  8:40-11:10

Drop Off:  Parents will drop off at the "back door" by the 4th grade/playground area. I will still greet each child at the car so you do not need to leave your car as long as you are "driving through".  Please follow the traffic pattern. 

Pick Up:  Parents will pick up in the front circle by the office.  I will still walk each child to their car so you do not need to leave your car.  

PM Class: 12:30-3:00

Drop Off:  Parents will drop off in the front circle by the office.  I will still greet each child at their car so you do not need to leave your car as long as you are "driving through".  Please follow the traffic pattern. 

Pick Up:  Parents who have been picking up "down the hill" will pick up at the "back door" by the 4th grade/playground area.  I will still walk each child to their car so you do not need to leave your car as long as you are "driving through".  Please follow the traffic pattern.  Parents who are picking up older siblings we will continue with the foyer/office routine.  

REMINDERS

*  Miss G or Miss Barb will still greet each child at the drop off areas so please do not let them walk into school alone. If you are late, you will need to walk your child into school when dropping off.  If you are late picking up, you will need to park and enter the school and check in at the office.

*  You may drop off 10 minutes prior to class start time.  Supervision will not be available prior to that time.

*  If you are leaving your car, it MUST be parked in a designated/marked parking space.

* Please follow traffic patterns and drive slowly to help ensure everyone's safety...there are lots of children around!  Please see the map that was sent home for traffic patterns (always drive counter-clockwise).

Thank you for your cooperation!

Dinosaur Roar

Our class theme this week is dinosaurs.  Along with learning interesting facts about dinos, we also began our letter of the week...letter Dd.  Each week will will have a new letter that is connected to our weekly theme.  Be sure to get some extra practice at home writing our letter of the week or searching for the letter in books, magazines, or even at the grocery store!  There is lots of learning everywhere if you just look for it.

This week we read the stories, Dinosaur Dudes, Dinosaur Roar, Ten Terrible Dinosaurs, Dancin Dinos at the Beach, and Dinosaur Pet.  We quickly learned a dinosaur would be too big to have as a pet!  Our learning centers included finger painting a dino, patterning for the PM class, writing letter Dd, and a dino number card game.

Check out Dinosaur Train on PBS and visit the website/games here.  We played it in computer class and have the app on our iPad.   

Addison and Maverick are the Preschool Stars this week!

Happy Birthday to Maverick!

Happy Birthday Clifford

Today is Clifford's 50th Birthday.  There is a live party being broadcast online at 10:00 am and 2:00 pm.  Check it out along with lots of other fun and exciting Clifford activities at Scholastic.com

Birthday Link here.

Birthday Fun activities including sending Clifford a card.

Play and Learn with Clifford here.

Clifford the Big Red Dog:  Watch him grow (story)

Another COLORful week!

We explored more colors this week: yellow, blue, orange, pink, and purple.

For our science lesson, we made magic playdough.  It started white but we added a color and then a second color and the more we squeezed, the more magic we saw.  If you want to try it at home, check out the post below for magic playdough.  Here are some pictures from our centers.  We worked on making the "circle back" stroke for writing, colored a rainbow with Mrs. Hall, and played color Bingo!  In the PM class, Victor shared his orange cat Rusty with is.  Our AM class had Katie as the star of the week.

Some of the stories we enjoyed this week were One Blue Fish, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, A Color of His Own, and everyone's favorite Pete the Cat I Love my White Shoes.  Pete the Cat has several other books out to check for them at the library.

Have a great weekend!

Magic Playdough

To make Magic Playdough, you'll need:

*1 cup flour

*1 cup water

*1/4 cup salt

*2 tsp. cream of tartar

*1 Tbls. vegetable oil

*food coloring

Then, just follow these steps:

1. Put all of your ingredients {EXCEPT the food coloring} into a pot and turn the stove on medium heat.

2. Stir, stir, stir!  It's going to take a few minutes to form.

3. Once your mixture forms a ball, remove from heat {I put it on a paper plate}.

4. Give it a second to cool, then separate the playdoh and form balls.

5. Poke a hole in each ball and put 3-4 drops of food coloring in them.  Carefully close the ball without squeezing it, so the food coloring stays in the middle.

Meet Fin and Sebastian!

Votes are in......which pet did we get? Last week we learned about fish, crabs, turtles, and frogs. At the end of the week, everyone voted to see which pet we should get. Fish and crab each had ten votes so it looks like we will have two class pets.

Fin is our beta fish. Sebastian is an aquatic crab but he won't be in our classroom until Thursday. We had to get our fish tank ready and give Fin some time to explore his new home before we could put Sebastian into the tank.

We have to remember the rules of our fish tank. We look with our eyes and we have to keep body to self. Fish and crabs do not like when people knock on their tanks. We have to feed them everyday and change their water on Thursdays. Wow...having a pet is hard work!

Color Weeks

Colors Colors Everywhere! Our preschoolers will be exploring colors for the next two weeks.

.........................................................................

Please have your child wear something with our "color of the day".

Week of September 10th:

Monday: RED

Tuesday: BROWN

Wednesday: ORANGE

Thrusday: GREEN/WHITE

Week of September 17th:

Monday: YELLOW

Tuesday: BLUE

Wednesday: ORANGE

Thrusday: PINK/PURPLE

* Please note every WEDNESDAY is Character Counts Day at the Primary School. Our class color is ORANGE. Please have your child wear their Character Counts shirt or an ORANGE shirt every Wednesday.

Our stories this week include Elmer's Colors, Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You Hear, The Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear, and The Little White Owl. We have been learning some new fun songs to sing at home....Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree and Five Little Fish. We had lots of fun singing and dancing to Going on a Bear Hunt. Too bad we found a bunny not a bear!

A few reminders:

* Entertainment Books are overdue. Please return the books or the money if you are purchasing one.

* Scholastic Book Orders are due by Sept. 14th. You can access the Scholastic Website here or go to the RESOURCES tab above. Our class code is: HHZ7D

Happy Belated Birthday to Allison!

Allison is also our Star Student this week.