Reminder:  PreK kids will have NO SCHOOL (ma-fee med-ra-say  can I type in English, Arabic words?) from Thurs, May 3 until Thurs, May 10th. Kids will come back to school on Mon, May 14th.

Home visits will be scheduled on May 3rd, May 8th and May 9th.  Ms. Aldafaii and I will be in your home for 45 minutes to an hour for our visit.  We schedule home visits in groups depending on where your home is located.

If you have a preference of date or time, please “comment” below.  I will be putting the schedule together tomorrow during rest time.

Second home visits are for going over Young 5/Kindergarten recommendations for next year, sharing ideas for summer growth and creating fun projects!  Your child and I will be talking about your home visit and will be planning things to do together.  If you have any projects or activities you would like Ms. Aldafaii and I to participate in at your home, let us know!  We would love to be involved in any project you would like to share with us.

-Did I tell you how smart your kids are????  I am almost done with letter tests – and I am so excited!  Next week we will test for counting quantities 1-10 and recognizing numbers 1-20.  They have learned so much….much more then just letters and sounds-

Weekly Reminders:

-Wed, Apr25 and Thurs, Apr26 – Letters/letter sounds final test.  I will be sitting with your child, one last time to complete their final scores.   PLEASE, PLEASE review letters/sounds with your child so that your child can score high on their final test.   Wouldn’t it be AWESOME if all 16 of my kids were able to recognize all 26 capital letters and 26 lowercase letters?! Hehe, I am sure we can do it with a little help from our parents. The letters that are often confused are q,g,j,b,d.  The scores from this testing will be submitted to kindergarten/Young 5 teachers.

-Wednesday, April 25th is secretaries day!  Please thank Mrs. Debbie, Mrs. Sandi and Haifa in the office for all they do for our program.  They help us with our program, even though PreK isn’t really part of their job!  They are so good to us here at River Oaks!!
-Thursday, May 3rd-No School for PreK (teachers on Home Visits)
-Monday, May 7-10- No School for PreK (teachers on Home Visits and doing Applications for next years PreK families)
-Thursday, May 17- Parent Meeting 8:35-9:35am
-Monday, May 28-No School for all Dearborn kids

-Thursday, June 7th- Last day of PreK

Small Group:

-Children will make some flowers for Mrs. Debbie to thank her for her kindness!
-Children will read the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears and practice sorting bears by size.
-Children will work on a rhyming project.

-Children will be working on using the correct pronouns he/she/him/her with a technology lesson and book.

Planning:

-Children will problem solving how to put a big piece of paper into a tiny envelope.
-Children will sing a song.

-Children will practice keeping a steady beat.

Recall:

-Children will create journal entries and copy words and sentences.

Whole Group:

-Dearborn schools are participating in a shared “Care to the Core” project.  All teachers/students will be participating in an anti-bullying lesson during “Care to the Core” day, Monday, April 23rd.  PreK and Young Fives will team up and use our social skills lessons to establish fair ways to join play.  Students will see a video of 2 kids playing and a 3rd child sitting alone, wanting to join the other 2 kids playing.  Teachers and students will have a discussion of what could happen to encourage fair play for all children.  We will be inviting community members and administrative personnel to our classroom for this lesson.

To see other lessons and the districts collaborative efforts to support  this special day, Click on the link, http://https://iblog.dearbornschools.org/responsetobullying/care-to-the-core-day/care-to-the-core-master-schedule/

Parents,

As some of you already know, Basem’s family has left our PreK program.  We wish Basem well in his new home and school.  He will be missed by teachers and by his friends.

We will welcome a new PreK child to our classroom on Monday morning.  His name is Ali, and he is VERY excited to join us.  Please help his family feel welcome in the morning, and help them learn our routines.  Ali came to visit us on Thursday and was so excited to find his name labeled on his cubby, mailbox and classroom materials!  Ali is a very sweet boy who loves playing hide and seek with his mom and sister, and playing games on the computer.    Ali will be working on learning classmates names, our classroom routine and adjusting to school.

Please remind your child to be kind, and patient with our new friend as he will be at school for the very first time on Monday.  Encourage your child to invite Ali to play during work time or to sit by him during lunch or snack.  What a big day for Ali, and his new classmates!

What a fun day at the Michigan Science Center!  Children all seemed to having fun looking, touching and exploring the museum.  Did you see how many children loved the water exhibit…I have a feeling they will love the water play happening in our classroom once the weather warms up a bit.   I just wanted to thank you all for coming and enjoying it with us.  Hopefully your child’s first field trip will be memories of fun times riding the bus and spending time with their mom!

Tomorrow will be a busy day of learning for PreK students.  Please remember to bring your recycling items in (one of each: plastic, can and paper/cardboard).  We will be looking at our junk, using it to pattern and learn about recycling!  Mrs. Backstroms’ class will be joining us in the afternoon for a social skills and writing lesson about recycling.

See you in the morning!

Since school is open, Ms. Sana in the kitchen is packing our students lunches.  If you have not yet made a sack lunch for your child-don’t worry about it, we will have a lunch for them.

Hopefully your power is back, it seems River Oaks’ is as well.  The big kids will have school and the PreK kids will enjoy their fieldtrip!

See you in the morning!

Due to the lack of power, all River Oaks students will NOT have school today-students can sleep in!  I am working out a plan for tomorrow (incase power is not restored) and will email you later today regarding the field trip.  See below for the district notice about school closings for today:

School Closings

At this time River Oaks, Bryant and the Berry Center have no power.  The district will be making a decision in the morning about our school.  Let’s hope for power restoration sometime tonight!

Keep an eye out in the morning for news regarding their decision.

Hello, happy rain/sleet/ice day….what happened to the sunshine?

• Does anyone have any plastic Meijer/Kroger/WaLMart bags that could be donated to our classroom-the plastic ones you get from the store to bring groceries home in.

They come in handy on days students bring home blankets and pillows and other things that do not fit into backpacks.   Please “comment” below if you have some you can give us.

+Remember to bring in one plastic, one cardboard/paper, and one can on Monday for our recycling project.+

Weekly Reminders:

• Tuesday, April 17th is our fieldtrip.  We will begin our day at 8:35am, just like normal.  Parents are welcome to join us for breakfast and our morning messages before we load the bus for our all day trip.
• Thursday, April 19th…No School for PreK
• Thursday, May 3rd-No School for PreK (teachers on Home Visits)
• Monday, May 7-10- No School for PreK (teachers on Home Visits and doing Applications for next years PreK families)
• Thursday, May 17- Parent Meeting
• Monday, May 28-No School for all kids

Our topic this week is RECYCLING!

Please send your child to school with 3 recyclables.   A plastic, a paper (or cardboard) and a can!  Children will be using these items to sort, graph and make patterns with.

Small Group:

• Children will look at a recycle truck and talk about it’s parts.  Children will help create a recycle truck from a cardboard box.
• Children will sort recyclables.
• Children will create a recycling pattern using items brought from home.  PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU BRING IN SOME RECYCLABLES!

Planning:

• Children will practice counting recyclable items
• Children will create a graph of recyclable items

Recall:

• Children will create journal entries and copy words and sentences.

Whole Group:

• Children will read a story about recycling and create posters using skills learned from our Second Steps lessons (turn taking, trading, using materials together) with another child.