Mrs. Mayer's Class News
Dear Parents,
Next week we will introduce the letter "Aa" and introduce two new sight words: "have" and "is". This will give us eight sight words and three letters. With the introduction of a vowel, we will be able to blend sounds together to make words. We will practice blending with the following words: at, am, mat, and Tam. When we blend, we make each individual letter sound and then we blend the sounds together. We continue blending the sounds together until we recognize the word. Children learn this skill at different rates. Some children can hear the words instantly and other children will have to work at the skill. It takes a lot of practice. In math, we will continue working with the numbers from 0 to 5, learning how to print and recognize them. Our next library day will be Wednesday, November 11.
On Thursday, a parent volunteer will visit our class and teach us how to wash our hands the correct way. The children will rub a special lotion on their hands and look at their hands under a black lamp. The lotion will glow and they will be able to see where the lotion is on their hands. They will wash their hands and then look at their hands under the black lamp again. We are always surprised by how hard it is to scrub our hands clean. The children get to see first hand why it is important to take the time to scrub our hands in order to get rid of the germs that may be on our hands. This is especially important with all the illnesses we have been experiencing.
Friday November 13, is spirit day at Peters Elementary. The children are to wear their pajamas and slippers to school and bring their favorite stuffed animal. We will change into our slippers when we are in the classroom. Please have your child bring his/her slippers in a bag labeled with his/her name. We will put our shoes in the bags so we do not mix up our shoes.
Attached to this newsletter are two papers with the poems we use to teach proper formation of the numbers from 1 to 5. They are not for homework and the children do not need to return them to school. You can use them to reinforce what we teach in school.
We are still looking for a parent and baby to visit our class once a month or every other month as part of the "Learn To Care". Every week a special teacher comes to our class. The purpose of the program is to teach the children about feelings and emotions and caring for other people. A special part of the program is the visits with a mother and her baby. The class observes the baby and watches the changes that take place from month to month. If you have a baby and would be interested or know of someone with a baby who would be interested, please give me a call at school (610 767-9827, ext 1416) and I will put you in touch with the director of the program.
We are going to read the story "Stone Soup" next week. In the story a poor hungry man wanders into a village with a bag full of stones and convinces the townspeople that he can make soup from stones. He puts the stones in a pot and asks all the people to contribute a vegetable to the pot. We thought it would be fun to make vegetable soup and bread with the class and have the children bring in vegetables to contribute to the soup. (We will use potatoes for the stones!!!!) (I will bring my bread machine! I am not domesticated enough or brave enough to make bread from scratch with 16 five year olds!) We would like to do this on Tuesday, November 10. If you would be willing to contribute a vegetable for our soup, please return the bottom of this page on Monday. If you have any questions you can contact me at school at 610 767-9827 ext. 1416
Thank you,
Mrs. Mayer
