This month's newsletter topics
Happy New Year! – January 2019 – January and February Events – Valentine Party – Do you have any shoe boxes? – Summer Camps and Fall Preschool Registration
This month's newsletter topics
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Happy New Year!
We are looking forward to seeing all the students again and hearing about their holiday vacations. It seems like we have been out of school for so long. Last month was short but we packed so many fun things in to it. We enjoyed Tallulah’s Daddy and Azteca, Members of Huecha Omeyocan, as our musical guests. We also enjoyed a nature walk with Talk About Trees and some holiday ornament helpers!
This month our students will be learning about Alaska, polar animals and the story of Balto, the sled dog. We have some fun science experiments planned to help us learn how polar animals stay warm as well as many art projects. We will also learn about Martin Luther King JR. and be talking about kindness, dreams and peace. In circle time we will work on learning the names of our parents, our addresses and write some letters. Please bring in a stamped envelope, with your(parents) name and address on the envelope. Keep an eye out for something special delivered by mail in early February.
Afternoon Spanish and yoga classes start back this week. The dance class starts a new session on Jan. 7th. Please let us know if you are interested in enrolling your child in the winter session of any of these classes, or contact the programs directly.
January 2019
Themes this month
- Alaska
- Balto
- Polar Animals
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
January and February Events
Monday, Jan. 21 – NO SCHOOL – Martin Luther King JR.’s Birthday
Valentine’s Day Parties –
Wednesday and Thursday Feb. 13 & 14th. All the children will enjoy taking part in a party and celebration of friendships!
Friday, February 1st-Registration for current families
Current families and siblings may register for summer camps and fall 2019 preschool.
Monday, Feb. 18 – NO SCHOOL – President’s Day
Wednesday, Feb. 6th-Chinese New Year Lunch with Loann –
We are so excited that Loann will join us again this year to help us learn about Lunar New Year and to make us a beautiful lunch! Every year the kids help Loann in the kitchen and we serve up a New Year’s feast. Parents are welcome to come and have lunch with us at noon.
Look for dates and more information on these February events soon:
Saturday, February 9th- Open House 10 AM to noon.
Families interested in learning more about Hands On may attend our open house any time between 10 AM and noon. Registration for fall preschool and summer camps begins February 1st.
Parent/Teacher conferences –
Dates will be available if you would like to meet with the teachers. This is a great time to ask questions and celebrate your child’s accomplishments.
Valentine Party
Our students love to celebrate Valentine’s Day! The kids have so much fun opening big beautifully decorated box full of cards from their friends! We will be celebrating Valentine’s Day Feb.13 & 14.
Example:
To: My Friend
Please have your child bring in Valentine cards on, or before, Feb. 13th. Cards can be homemade or store bought. Cards should be signed from your child, but do not have to be addressed to specific children.
We have 44 children in our school. That is a lot of kids! We have 24 kids each morning and 10 children in the afternoon. You don’t have to bring one for everyone unless you want to, bring as many as you feel comfortable with and I am sure all the kids will have plenty! Look for sign up sheets on the classroom doors for our parties. Feel free to sign up to help!
Do you have any shoe boxes?
We are collecting shoe boxes, or any other boxes of similar size, to help with our Valentine parties.
Thanks!
Summer Camps and Fall Preschool Registration
Fall preschool and summer camp registration materials will be available in February online and at our open house (date TBA). Hands On will accept registrations from current students (and younger siblings) in February and will accept new students for fall and summer beginning mid- February. New students are accepted on a first come, first served basis.
Please feel free to call us at 503-239-8521 or email us with any questions you have, as always.
Circle Time News
During circle time each day students have the opportunity to do a job such as calendar, alphabet, weather or number pal. Both groups will work on learning their parents names and addresses. Our younger group works with Teachers Jillian, Lexi and Kathy. Here is some information from Jillian about the circle time.
Our group is continuing with our calendar portion of circle time and we are slowly introducing the students to the days of the week. We have been working on letter and color recognition in the form of felt board activities.
Towards the end of November we introduced a “felt monster letter eater” to go along with our letter of the week and to help with sound recognition. The children are challenged to find which picture makes the sound of our letter of the week. For example, for the letter M, we would have a few pictures that might be macaroni, a monkey, money, ice cream and a flower. We talk about what sound the letter M makes and then the kids will tell us which picture makes that sound. Once they determine which picture the monster must eat, one at a time they come up and “feed” the picture to the monster.
During December, we taped paper ornaments to our green tree on our wall and wrote the letter of the week on them, including some ornaments that were different letters. Taking turns, the children needed to find the ornament that had the correct letter on it.
Also during December, I made a felt Christmas tree and had the children one at a time come up and decorate it with colored felt ornaments. To make this activity more enjoyable, I centered it around imagination. I asked them what toy they would build if they were an elf. Cheers to a new year, I can’t wait to see what it has in store for your children!
Our older group’s circle time is with Teachers Jennifer and Julie. Last month we learned about coins and the names and values of the coins. The students loved learning about pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. We took turns counting them and doing simple math with pennies then we would introduce a nickel and talk about how it is worth 5 pennies. When the group had the concept of value we would increase our math skills by adding 2 pennies to a nickel and ask the children how much is it worth. They had so much fun learning and working towards “buying” a mini candy cane at the end of the month. This month, along with our usual calendar, weather, alphabet and number jobs we will be learning the story of Balto. Our students love this story and enjoy learning it, acting it out and sharing the story with our families. We will break up in to smaller groups to work on creating our own books about Balto.
