Dear Parents:
HAPPY NEW YEAR - 4707 – Year of the Ox! The Kindergarten Classes will be going on a walking tour of CHINATOWN SUNSET PARK on Friday, February 13, 2009 and will be having lunch at Pacificana Restaurant, located at 813 55th Street, Brooklyn, NY. We will be having an authentic Chinese lunch and will be seeing the Lion Dance and – hopefully - a Kung Fu Martial Arts show. We will be leaving the school at 9:30 a.m. and will walk around the Chinatown neighborhood – if the weather is appropriate - where we will see many live creatures – turtles, crabs, etc. Lunch is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. The cost of the trip is $9.50 per child. Parent volunteers will also cost $9.50. Please send in the permission slip and payment as soon as possible since we have to advise the restaurant of the number of people attending prior to the date. Permission slips will be going home on Monday. Of course, for any parent who is unable to pay, please speak to us privately and arrangements will be made. No child will ever be left behind for inability to pay. If any parent can contribute a little more to offset the fee for a child who cannot pay, it would be greatly appreciated.
Each class will be allowed to take 5 parent volunteers. We will take the first five parent volunteers from that list who submit their form to us. It is so great that we have so many parents who want to go on the class trips with the children and we are sorry that we cannot take each one of you. There will be many more trips and the parents who did not get a chance to go on the last bus trips will be on the top of the list for our next bus trip.
Thank you for all your support!
Ms. Graham
Friday, January 23, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
IT'S A NEW DAY!!!
Dear Families:
I hope that you all have enjoyed your day off and are looking forward tomorrow to the inauguration of our 44th President of the United States. As I was getting my coffee this morning, I came across a group of young teenagers who - in honor of Martin Luther King Day - made January 19th a national day of community service. Their motto was that Martin Luther King Day was a day ON, not a day OFF! On this cold day they were collecting books and school supplies for students at P.S. 41, the Francis White School in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where half the school's students live below the poverty line. The idea came last month when the Obama campaign organization invited people to organize house meetings to discuss the kind of change people want to see in the next four years and how to make it happen. Each group was asked to mark MLK Day (January 19), the day before Inauguration Day, by taking some kind of service project in their community. This group decided to help this Brooklyn public school. They asked for pencils, crayons, glue, glue sticks, notebooks, reams of copy paper, writable CDs or DVDs, sports equipment, puzzles, inexpensive calculators, inexpensive plastic individual CD plays. I personally was very touched by this - especially knowing how lucky all of us are at PS 154. It touched me in such a way that I felt that I too had to do something to help our community - that if one person helps another person who then helps another person - we can make a difference. Giving of ourselves is very contagious. Therefore, I am going to use this experience to think very carefully - hopefully with some help from our parents - about what we can do in Class K207 - as a community - to help some of our unfortunate friends. I don't know what this could be right now but I would love to open up a dialogue with the children about how fortunate and blessed we are and how others are less fortunate than we are and what should we do to help this situation. As a parent, I know that it is never too early to start children thinking about what they could do to help their fellow man. Any ideas, would be appreciated. YES WE CAN!
I am also writing to let you know that I will not be in class tomorrow. I would love to say that I will be in Washington but that is not the case. I am attending another workshop at Columbia Teachers College for a course entitled - Prediction, Prior Knowledge, Study of Pattern Books. These workshops are extemely helpful for the teachers and we come away learning so much. We bring back to our school the knowledge of what we have learned during the day and then are able to have staff meetings to discuss the children in each class and what we can do as teachers to help support each and every child in our classes. It is always good to have other viewpoints. I will be back in school on Wednesday.
To give you a heads up, a few trips are planned:
* January 27th - Walking trip to the Firehouse in Windsor Terrace. (Weather permitting)
* March 3 - Paper Bag Players - Staten Island.
* February - Chinatown Walking Trip - Bus to Sunset Park Chinatown, walking trip through the neighborhood - Lunch at a Chinese restaurant for Chinese New Year (More on this later)
We have a new student in our class. Her name is JiJei Ju. She is adorable and will be a wonderful asset to our classroom community. The kids have made her feel very welcome when she arrived on Friday - which is a wonderful compliment to you as parents.
Thank you for all your support.
Fondly,
Ms. Graham
I hope that you all have enjoyed your day off and are looking forward tomorrow to the inauguration of our 44th President of the United States. As I was getting my coffee this morning, I came across a group of young teenagers who - in honor of Martin Luther King Day - made January 19th a national day of community service. Their motto was that Martin Luther King Day was a day ON, not a day OFF! On this cold day they were collecting books and school supplies for students at P.S. 41, the Francis White School in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where half the school's students live below the poverty line. The idea came last month when the Obama campaign organization invited people to organize house meetings to discuss the kind of change people want to see in the next four years and how to make it happen. Each group was asked to mark MLK Day (January 19), the day before Inauguration Day, by taking some kind of service project in their community. This group decided to help this Brooklyn public school. They asked for pencils, crayons, glue, glue sticks, notebooks, reams of copy paper, writable CDs or DVDs, sports equipment, puzzles, inexpensive calculators, inexpensive plastic individual CD plays. I personally was very touched by this - especially knowing how lucky all of us are at PS 154. It touched me in such a way that I felt that I too had to do something to help our community - that if one person helps another person who then helps another person - we can make a difference. Giving of ourselves is very contagious. Therefore, I am going to use this experience to think very carefully - hopefully with some help from our parents - about what we can do in Class K207 - as a community - to help some of our unfortunate friends. I don't know what this could be right now but I would love to open up a dialogue with the children about how fortunate and blessed we are and how others are less fortunate than we are and what should we do to help this situation. As a parent, I know that it is never too early to start children thinking about what they could do to help their fellow man. Any ideas, would be appreciated. YES WE CAN!
I am also writing to let you know that I will not be in class tomorrow. I would love to say that I will be in Washington but that is not the case. I am attending another workshop at Columbia Teachers College for a course entitled - Prediction, Prior Knowledge, Study of Pattern Books. These workshops are extemely helpful for the teachers and we come away learning so much. We bring back to our school the knowledge of what we have learned during the day and then are able to have staff meetings to discuss the children in each class and what we can do as teachers to help support each and every child in our classes. It is always good to have other viewpoints. I will be back in school on Wednesday.
To give you a heads up, a few trips are planned:
* January 27th - Walking trip to the Firehouse in Windsor Terrace. (Weather permitting)
* March 3 - Paper Bag Players - Staten Island.
* February - Chinatown Walking Trip - Bus to Sunset Park Chinatown, walking trip through the neighborhood - Lunch at a Chinese restaurant for Chinese New Year (More on this later)
We have a new student in our class. Her name is JiJei Ju. She is adorable and will be a wonderful asset to our classroom community. The kids have made her feel very welcome when she arrived on Friday - which is a wonderful compliment to you as parents.
Thank you for all your support.
Fondly,
Ms. Graham
Thursday, January 8, 2009
WINNIE-THE-POOH and PARENT AS ENRICHMENT PARTNERS
Dear Families:
Please join Class K-207 in launching our new Winnie-the-Pooh study unit tomorrow morning - January 9th - during Parent as Enrichment Partners at 8:45 a.m. We will launch our study by reading Winnie-the-Pooh books with the children. I have many copies of various Winnie-the-Pooh books in the classroom. Yet, if you have a favorite one that you and your child would like to read, please bring it along. There's no formal presentation....just reading with the kids. The children are excited about this new unit - as all the Kindergarten teachers are. GRACIE is lucky number 1 to bring Winnie and our class journal home with her tomorrow. Hope to see all of you here!
Fondly,
Ms. Graham
Please join Class K-207 in launching our new Winnie-the-Pooh study unit tomorrow morning - January 9th - during Parent as Enrichment Partners at 8:45 a.m. We will launch our study by reading Winnie-the-Pooh books with the children. I have many copies of various Winnie-the-Pooh books in the classroom. Yet, if you have a favorite one that you and your child would like to read, please bring it along. There's no formal presentation....just reading with the kids. The children are excited about this new unit - as all the Kindergarten teachers are. GRACIE is lucky number 1 to bring Winnie and our class journal home with her tomorrow. Hope to see all of you here!
Fondly,
Ms. Graham
Monday, January 5, 2009
HAPPY NEW YEAR AND WINNIE-THE-POOH STUDY
Dear Families:
Happy New Year!!! I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for the WONDERFUL and GENEROUS class gifts that I received and for all the many many other gifts. You all were overly generous and I thank you so much. I opened the gifts on Christmas with my family and it seemed like the gifts were just endless. Thank you again. Teaching your wonderful children is a gift enough!!!!
I am excited to announce that Class K-207 will be beginning a new fun unit in our classroom. We are calling it "Winnie-the-Pooh's Journey." We all know Winnie-the-Pooh as a strong childhood image - a sort of iconic figure when we were younger. Children love Winnie and friends and they seem so excited to be incorporating Winnie-the-Pooh into our Kindergarten class.
For this study, we have a stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh and have made a Winnie Journal. The journal consists of: a map of Winnie's home, the Winnie-the-Pooh directions, the history of Winnie-the-Pooh, pictures of Winnie & friends, Winnie-the-Pooh recipes and more. More importantly, there are pages for the children to write about their Winnie-the-Pooh experience or "adventure." Each week, a different child will take home Winnie-the-Pooh. They will include Winnie in their activities and will treat Winnie with kindness and respect. During this week, your children will write in their journal about their time with Pooh. The culmination of this project will occur in the Spring - where we all go to Prospect Park to find Winnie's home in the Hundred Acre Woods and have a class picnic.
This segment will help children learn the concept of friendship and how important it is to share experiences with one another. This will be a way to teach them about responsibilities. With an adult's help, they will learn to be a little more responsible by caring for Winnie.
During our read-aloud in the classroom, we will be reading the classic children's story - Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. The world was introduced to this portly little bear in 1926. Along with his young friend, Christopher Robin, Pooh delighted readers from the very beginning. His often befuddled perceptions and adorable insights won the hearts of everyone around him, including his close group of friends. From the energetic Tigger to the dismal Eeyoor, A. A. Milne created a charming bunch both inspirational and entertaining. These simple creatures often reflected a small piece of all of us: humble, silly, wise, cautious, creative, and full of life. I know that your children will be delighted with Pooh's adventures as we were when we were children.
I am asking that the parents keep an eye on Winnie. The purpose of this assignment is really to have fun. I certainly do not want to add any extra burden on you. The children in past years just loved this assignment and really looked so forward to the day when they could take Winnie home. I pick the names of the children from a hat each week - so it is pretty random. Every child will have the opportunity to take Winnie for one week. Winnie will be given them on Friday and MUST be returned the following Friday! It is important that Winnie is returned on time because the next child really looks forward to his/her week. On the Friday that Winnie is returned, the children share their adventures at Morning Meeting - reading their journal entries and looking at the pictures you take of them and Winnie and Pooh.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to speak to me. Thank you again for all your support!
Fondly,
Ms. Graham
Happy New Year!!! I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for the WONDERFUL and GENEROUS class gifts that I received and for all the many many other gifts. You all were overly generous and I thank you so much. I opened the gifts on Christmas with my family and it seemed like the gifts were just endless. Thank you again. Teaching your wonderful children is a gift enough!!!!
I am excited to announce that Class K-207 will be beginning a new fun unit in our classroom. We are calling it "Winnie-the-Pooh's Journey." We all know Winnie-the-Pooh as a strong childhood image - a sort of iconic figure when we were younger. Children love Winnie and friends and they seem so excited to be incorporating Winnie-the-Pooh into our Kindergarten class.
For this study, we have a stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh and have made a Winnie Journal. The journal consists of: a map of Winnie's home, the Winnie-the-Pooh directions, the history of Winnie-the-Pooh, pictures of Winnie & friends, Winnie-the-Pooh recipes and more. More importantly, there are pages for the children to write about their Winnie-the-Pooh experience or "adventure." Each week, a different child will take home Winnie-the-Pooh. They will include Winnie in their activities and will treat Winnie with kindness and respect. During this week, your children will write in their journal about their time with Pooh. The culmination of this project will occur in the Spring - where we all go to Prospect Park to find Winnie's home in the Hundred Acre Woods and have a class picnic.
This segment will help children learn the concept of friendship and how important it is to share experiences with one another. This will be a way to teach them about responsibilities. With an adult's help, they will learn to be a little more responsible by caring for Winnie.
During our read-aloud in the classroom, we will be reading the classic children's story - Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. The world was introduced to this portly little bear in 1926. Along with his young friend, Christopher Robin, Pooh delighted readers from the very beginning. His often befuddled perceptions and adorable insights won the hearts of everyone around him, including his close group of friends. From the energetic Tigger to the dismal Eeyoor, A. A. Milne created a charming bunch both inspirational and entertaining. These simple creatures often reflected a small piece of all of us: humble, silly, wise, cautious, creative, and full of life. I know that your children will be delighted with Pooh's adventures as we were when we were children.
I am asking that the parents keep an eye on Winnie. The purpose of this assignment is really to have fun. I certainly do not want to add any extra burden on you. The children in past years just loved this assignment and really looked so forward to the day when they could take Winnie home. I pick the names of the children from a hat each week - so it is pretty random. Every child will have the opportunity to take Winnie for one week. Winnie will be given them on Friday and MUST be returned the following Friday! It is important that Winnie is returned on time because the next child really looks forward to his/her week. On the Friday that Winnie is returned, the children share their adventures at Morning Meeting - reading their journal entries and looking at the pictures you take of them and Winnie and Pooh.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to speak to me. Thank you again for all your support!
Fondly,
Ms. Graham
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