PEP Newsletter
Greencastle Elementary
December 2013
Dear Families,
Welcome back from Thanksgiving break, we are about to start the final three weeks
before our winter break. During these few weeks we will be studying some favorite
children’s tales such as The Gingerbread Man, Corduroy, and Brown Bear, Brown Bear.
You’ll notice most of the tales revolve around bears! This is an especially fun theme as
we get to share some wonderful stories and authors with the children. We hope that you
will check out some of these books from your local library and share them with your
family at home.
Theme:
Books we will be reading in class:
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle
The Gingerbread Man by Eric Kimmel
Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst
Songs & Rhymes we will be reciting:
Brown Bear, Brown Bear
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
Five Little Gingerbread Men
Some skills we will be working on in addition to individual IEP Goals:
*Please note these skills will be ongoing throughout the year and activities are
differentiated for individual student level.
Make and confirm predictions about events in a book.
Sorting/Matching by one attribute.
Dictate ideas about a topic of interest.
Suggestions for home:
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Sequence and act out stories using stuffed animals or props such as flannel
board characters, character masks, or puppets.
As always we will be focusing on developing understanding of Concepts of Print.
Remember these are easily reinforced at home by talking about the cover of the
book, including the author and cover illustration before you begin to read. Draw
attention to illustrations as you or your child turns the pages and run your finger
beneath the text as you read to your children. Simple statements using
vocabulary such as “this is the front cover of the book,… these are the
pictures,… here are the words,… here is where we begin to read,”…can reinforce
these concepts while still making story time fun. To foster your child’s language
development, you might include sequencing concepts and make predictions – “Let’s
see what happens next,” or “”What do you think might happen next?” Be sure to
talk about what you and your child see in the pictures. If your child knows the
story very well and is verbal, you might let them fill in part of the sentence so
they can “help” read.
REMINDERS/HEADS-UP
December 9th-No School for PEP
December 23th –January 1st Winter Break
Please remember to label your child’s outerwear (hat, gloves, coat, etc)!
Please remember to keep your child at home if he or she is not feeling well. We have
many bugs making the rounds!
Please feel free to email us with questions, concerns, good news, etc.
Thank you!
PEP Team