West Chester
December 2O15
Sunday
Monday
3O
Tuesday
1
Happy Birthday
Nicolette!
Wednesday
2
Martin Martial
Arts
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
3
4
5
Happy Birthday
Jermaine and
Emma!
Happy Birthday
Ms. Jeanine!
Happy Birthday
Andrew and
Ms. Diana!
Webby Dance
Spanish
Stretch N Grow
Spanish
Private Piano
Lessons
6
7
PuterBugs
Hanukkah begins
8
Happy Birthday
Josie!
**Holiday
Show 7p**
9
1O
11
Happy Birthday
Danielle!
Webby Dance
Spanish
Spanish
16
17
Happy Birthday
Cade!
18
12
Martin Martial
Arts
Stretch N Grow
Private Piano
Lessons
13
14
15
Martin Martial
Arts
Stretch N Grow
Happy Birthday
Nikita!
Private Piano
Lessons
2O
21
22
19
Spanish
Webby Dance
Spanish
23
24
25
Christmas Eve
NO SCHOOL
Christmas Day
NO SCHOOL
31
Happy Birthday
Ms. Heather!
1
26
Martin Martial
Arts
Happy Birthday
Elias!
PuterBugs
Stretch N Grow
Private Piano
Lessons
27
28
29
3O
NO SCHOOL
2
Happy New Year!
NO SCHOOL
Racial Nondiscriminatory Policy: The Kinder Garden School recruits and admits students of any race, color or ethnic origin to all its rights, privileges, programs and
activities. In addition, the school will not discriminate on the basis of race, color or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational programs and
athletics/extracurricular activities. Furthermore, the school is not intended to be an alternative to court or administrative agency ordered, or public school district initiated
desegregation.
Infants:
November was full of excitement! Kyler and Hendrik moved on to the Toddler room. Gavin will soon be following
his friends to the toddler room as well. Jillian returned after a month away with mom, having grown a ton and
rolling all around the room. We welcomed the Chester family with their two newest additions, Katie and Norah.
Cecilia turned one! Cecilia, Gavin, Nate and Riley are mastering their walking skills. Isabelle is getting closer to
crawling each day and Jillian is learning to sit up. It’s hard to do when you tip to the side and can roll to the toy
you want though! We love spending time with your children each day and enjoy exchanging tales about their
newest adventures and discoveries. We are sure you and your family will be happy to spend extra time together
with the holiday season upon us. A couple of reminders and requests during this time. KGS will be closed
Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day. With all of these holidays, if there is time to
take any pictures we would greatly appreciate some for our room. Lastly, we will be doing more arts and crafts
during the winter. We will prepare to spend our time indoors with the impending cold weather and hopefully
play in the Large Muscle Room. Other things to look forward to are the Spaulding family joining our room. We
are excited to welcome Eryk to our class. Nico will also be turning one! We are all looking forward to the winter
festivities to come.
Toddlers
December 2O15
Yes, we are thankful tots! If you are very quiet, every now and then, you may even hear a “please” or “thank
you” from our tiny mouths. Although we have very few words to express how thankful we are, we show it every
day. When we tear up as mom or dad is leaving, we show we are thankful for our family. When we reach for a
caregiver for comfort, we show we are thankful for the emotional support of our relationships. When we fight
for a toy in the middle of the morning, we show we are thankful for our opportunity to learn. When we comfort
our friend after he’s been hurt, which happens more than moms and dads would think, we show we are thankful
for our friends. So look past the missing words and lack of language and remember the gestures. After all,
Thanksgiving is about more than just saying “thank you” but rather living “thank you”. Our toddlers remind us
of this every day! Remember that your toddler is a direct reflection of your examples, so pat yourselves on the
back. You are all doing an AMAZING job! November also brought with it CHANGE! We not only felt a change in
the weather, in the time, and how many more minutes it takes us to dress for outside, but also a change in our
group. We have watched as Alana, Karrington, and Wesley reached personal developmental goals that enabled
them to take their first steps as preschoolers. Contrary to popular belief, potty training is not the only
requirement to transition to our older classrooms. These three worked diligently on their listening skills, self help
skills, and their ability to problem solve throughout the day. In other words…they embraced their upcoming
“Threeness” and ran with it! We are so very proud of their accomplishments and look forward to hearing great
things about their work in our preschool rooms! The loss of three friends allowed us to welcome more new
friends to our class. Kyler and Hendrik joined us from the infant room, while Effie began her very “first day of
school” with us. Terrence, who is definitely no rookie to the routine of school, also decided to join us and has
brought a new love of dance to the room. They have embraced the opportunity to explore this new space, work
with new materials, and begin developing endearing relationships with new teachers and friends. We are so
THANKFUL to share our lives with new faces, and add to our family. WELCOME! Looking ahead to the month of
December we are preparing ourselves for a whirlwind of activity. First, we will be welcoming Gavin from the
infant room, and Elias for his first experience at school! We are so excited to have new faces to help us
celebrate the upcoming holidays, and ring in the New Year. Meeting new friends is always a reason to sing, but
during this month, we will be singing more than usual. We are so excited about our upcoming Christmas
Program on Tuesday December 8th. So, if you hear your toddler singing about a snowman, who gets socks, to
the tune of Wheels On the Bus…well, he’s just trying to work it out! We may not always remember all of the
words and gestures to the songs, but you just never know what performances the stage will inspire! Please come
celebrate our cuteness with us! On Friday December 18th we will celebrate with a class holiday party and book
exchange. Please bring a toddler friendly board book wrapped for our exchange. Reading is EVERYONE’S
favorite activity throughout the day, so the gift of a new story will be a wonderful present to share. Please
remember that the weather outside can be frightful, but…we will go outside every day. Providing the proper
clothing is essential for your children to make the most of their experience outside. We recognize that even
though it may take us twenty minutes to get everyone properly dressed to go out, the ten minutes in the fresh,
crisp air will go a long way to help keep everyone healthy this winter! Please always remember that TINY
HUMANS ARE UNDER CONSTRUCTION in our class, and although we may be loud, emotional, and often very
messy…we are always learning about ourselves, others, and the world around us! Warm and Wonderful Holiday
Wishes from our family to yours!
Racial Nondiscriminatory Policy: The Kinder Garden School recruits and admits students of any race, color or ethnic origin to all its rights, privileges, programs and
activities. In addition, the school will not discriminate on the basis of race, color or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational programs and
athletics/extracurricular activities. Furthermore, the school is not intended to be an alternative to court or administrative agency ordered, or public school district initiated
desegregation.
Traditional Preschool
Greetings Parents! I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving! We had a great month of November, thank
you to all the parents who signed up for Parent-Teacher conferences. It is a joy having the opportunity to sit
down with you one-on-one and talk about your children. If you have not signed up for a conference, please do so.
I am always available to talk, either in person or via email, at any point in time. However, conferences are
helpful for all of us, to make sure that we are on the same page. I have done academic and social/emotional
assessments on each child, and will complete another one at the end of the school year. Watching your children
grow and develop is a joy! I want to make sure that we are doing everything possible in the classroom to ensure
your child’s health, happiness and growth. We look forward to the month of December, and have already started
rehearsing for our Holiday program. We are still missing several set of Christmas Socks. Please make sure to
send those in with your child ASAP, so that they can use them for a prop in our program. We look forward to
seeing you all there! As the school year progresses, so does the depth of our academics. Your children have
enjoyed diving deeper into the Alphabet, and are able to (not only) find their name in print among other names,
but also pick out specific letters in words and categorize them. We have a “letter of the week,” and have begun
allowing each child to hold a “letter” flashcard during circle time and teach one another the letter, it’s sound and
some words that start with that letter. They seem to be enjoying it . Fine motor skills, tracing and printing skills
have improved across the board. We will begin the “Sounds Great!” workbook number two this month, and will
introduce more complex math concepts such as addition, subtraction and fractions.
Montessori 1
In November, the children were busy working on letter sounds and upper and lower case recognition. Many were
writing or tracing their names as they completed Thanksgiving themed booklets. The class learned about North
America, Native Americans and Pilgrims. Healthy foods were discussed as we prepared for feast time. We
counted various fall plants and animals and created art projects that matched topics of interest. In December,
we will be singing many holiday songs and making crafts that reflect the joy of the season. Number words will be
introduced as we count the days in the month and create our holiday countdown links. Color names and color
mixing will be included in our curriculum as well as color shading (light/dark). We will be making tasty treats to
eat as part of a sensory experience. We will be busy!
Montessori 2
We celebrated Thanksgiving and what that means to us. The children are thankful for their parents! Some also
mentioned being thankful for their grandparents, their houses, toys and family. We made Thanksgiving cards as
well as turkey art and parts of a turkey book. We have learned about Pilgrims and Native Americans and how our
country was settled. In the science area we have been learning about the amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and
reptiles of North America. We do this with animal matching cards. Some of the students can match the word
labels to the pictures and read the sentence cards. We have learned how some animals are nocturnal and awake
at night. Others are diurnal and awake during the day. We have talked about our country the United States of
America and its first people, the Native Americans. In the month of December we will soon say goodbye to our
North American work and move on the the continent of Europe. We will study the animals that live there and
make flags for some of the countries. We have put out holiday work in the art area. Students are busy working
on greeting cards, cutting out Christmas trees and decorating them and making trees with the triangle form the
metal insets. They continue to practice their writing work with the writing sheets. We continue to work on correct
formation reminding them how to hold the pencil with a correct prehensile grip and trace the letters and
numbers from the top to the bottom. Students continue to move through the reading series. The first reading
series, the A series, is really picture reading. Some students key into the words but many do not. Its purpose is to
teach them how to use the charts and get familiar with how to get out their reader. Once they move on to the B
series they are sounding out words. We emphasize the sound the letters make, not their name. For example an A
makes the sound “a” as in apple. When we read the word cat we don not read CAT-the letter names but read c
as in cat, a as in apple and t as in turtle. A fun game for home or driving in the car is the I Spy sound game. It
goes like this:
Kindergarten
This month in language arts the kindergarten class has continued with letter recognition. We have also been
focusing on writing more in class. They have been going over the beginning, middle, and end of a story. The
kindergarten class has even come up with their own story and wrote what happened in the beginning, middle,
and end. We have also continued looking at fantasy versus realism. They have explored different make-believe
stories and compared them with what really happens. In December we will continue to do daily handwriting and
letter recognition. We will also work on popcorn reading and strengthening their reading skills. In math, the
kindergarten class has moved on from addition. They are currently learning to recognize subtraction problems
and solve them. With that, they are still writing and recognizing their numbers one to ten. In December, we will
work on word problems, finding the missing part, and writing and recognizing numbers ten through twenty. This
month in science we have been learning the four seasons and the difference between them all. They have also
Racial Nondiscriminatory Policy: The Kinder Garden School recruits and admits students of any race, color or ethnic origin to all its rights, privileges, programs and
activities. In addition, the school will not discriminate on the basis of race, color or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational programs and
athletics/extracurricular activities. Furthermore, the school is not intended to be an alternative to court or administrative agency ordered, or public school district initiated
desegregation.
looked at the differences in night and day. Most recently, the kindergarteners have learned what their five
senses are and how they use them. In December, we will continue to talk about objects, our five senses, and
sound. In social studies, they have been learning about the natural resources that our Earth provides us. In
December, we will focus on the similarities and differences in people and the differences and similarities in
families. Later we will discuss culture, celebrations in different cultures, and national holidays.
First and Second Grades
The first and second grade flew through many challenges throughout the month of November. The students
worked with their peers in the other classrooms to prepare and perform a play based on the first Thanksgiving
feast. All of the students did an awesome job and I am proud of all of the participants. We continued to work
with missing addends and subtraction problems in math and basic maps and directions in social studies! In
science, the students wrapped up their living things unit and are ready to move forward. In December, we will
begin working with nonliving things and the basic states of matter. In social studies, the students will work with
different cultures and religions to discover holidays and traditions celebrated around the world. Both classes will
be working with different types of graphs and using holiday topics to demonstrate the class
choices/preferences. We will continue to expand our reading skills and use holiday materials to do so. We will be
reading poetry, comics, play scripts, and narratives throughout class. Students will use different response and
writing styles to reflect and communicate their comprehension skills. The last day of the second quarter will
beFriday, December 18, 2O15. Report cards will be sent home after winter break.
Third Grade
Hard to believe it is already time for December! Our Third Grade class is ready to jump into another month of
learning! This past month we have covered many topics in English including friendly letters, the structure of
writing, and grammar. In math, we have begun to use multiplication and division to find surface area. Science
has introduced us to the life cycles of plants and animals and students were able to create their own life cycle
poster! In Social Studies we have covered all of our historical early explorers and were able to connect this
information to our Thanksgiving Play! For December we will continue improving our writing structure and
grammar in English. Students will also begin “at home” reading and recording their progress. Comprehension
and fluency are our new goals for the month! In math, we will continue with the topic of Area, but we will also be
using morning warmups to strengthen our times tables. This month, we will continue exploring animals in
Science. We will discuss ecosystems and where animals live. In Social Studies, we will begin talking about the
history of our government and touching topics on democracy and freedom. We anticipate a very productive and
successful December. Happy Holidays!
Racial Nondiscriminatory Policy: The Kinder Garden School recruits and admits students of any race, color or ethnic origin to all its rights, privileges, programs and
activities. In addition, the school will not discriminate on the basis of race, color or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational programs and
athletics/extracurricular activities. Furthermore, the school is not intended to be an alternative to court or administrative agency ordered, or public school district initiated
desegregation.