November & December updates

Hi all,

November is over and December is here - how do the days go by so quickly? If anyone has the answer please let us know. We have been very busy in Room 107. Our natural alphabet is complete and we have used some of the letters within the classroom to write our names and those of our friends. The children have made letters out of a wide variety of materials from the art studio, recyclables and natural materials like leaves, seashells, sticks and pebbles. They are looking for letters everywhere we go, and you can often hear questions like: "who has an "S" in their name, raise your hand!". We hope they are sharing this interest with all of you. The documentation panels regarding the letter study are beginning to go up within the classroom; please stop in and check them out.

We are thrilled to say that we now have 4 digital cameras in the classroom for the children to use. One camera package was donated by a morning parent (thank you , thank you, thank you), two cameras were given to us by our parent coordinator Ms. Joan and the fourth is an older model that we had in the room. The children have each taken a mini camera class with Ms. Amy and are enthusiastically snapping photos of the classroom, the teachers and their friends. They are experimenting with capturing their friends while sitting and while in motion, specific parts of each other's faces and taking pictures of one another simultaneously. We are letting them explore the properties of the cameras a bit more before we start focusing in on incorporating their photographic perspective into our studies.

We wanted to thank everyone who participated in our two parent activity days. The first, November 5th was our parent-child activity day where everyone worked on family memory books. The children (and staff!) love looking at them. If you have not had a chance to look at the books please feel free to stop in. Anyone that has not sent in their finished book please know that it is not too late. Then on November 18th parents were invited to come in and share their favorite family memory. Some of the stories and artwork are up in the hallways in a temporary display and the rest will be shown in the weeks to come. Again, it's not too late to share your story - stop in the room or shoot us an email and we will let you know the specifics.

If your child has come home in the last few days asking for money it is for a wonderful cause. Our classroom has chosen two children from the sharing tree and we are hoping to gather enough money to purchase the requested gift for each. The children are very excited about this; though some may be a bit confused. One child told his Mom that he needed $17 for Ms. Amy! Another thinks we are buying someone a new house.

Finally, please remember that we go outside every day, and the children need to be prepared for Chicago's unpredictable weather. A set of gloves, hat and scarf in each bookbag would be a wonderful idea. As the snow begins to fall boots and snow pants are a welcome sight as well. Please feel free to keep an extra set of slippers/crocs/gym shoes in your child's mailbox or bookbag to change into when they wear boots to school.

Up-Coming Events:
Thursday, December 17th - Pajama & Pizza day at Vick (more info to come)
- Family Sing a Long at the Ag School 6:30pm
Friday, December 18th - last day of school (pm only)
Monday, January 4, 2010 - Welcome back to school.

Happy Holidays to all! Amy, Mary, Joanne & Pam