Week of 9/24

Dear Blue Room Parents,
The children in the Blue Room have sailed into September ready and excited for the year ahead! We’ve been making new friends, learning new routines, and realizing what it means to be the oldest children at Montclare!
 
Important Dates to remember:
 

• Thursday, October 4th- Curriculum Night 
• Monday, October 8th- School closed for Columbus Day
• Tuesday, October 9th- Staff Development (no classes for students)
• Wednesday, October 10th- Walking Trip to the local Fire Station on 100th Street (this is a walking trip no chaperones are necessary for this trip)
• Wednesday, October 24th- Field Trip to Botanical Gardens 9am-1pm (chaperone request to follow)
• November 12-13th – Parent Teacher Conferences (no classes for students)
• Wed November 14th & Thursday, November 15th - Photo Day (schedule to follow)
• Tuesday, November 20th -Native American Festival (1:30pm in Gym 2-one adult per child)
• Tuesday, December 11th- ABT trip at USQ (one adult must be present) 
• Thursday December 20st- Holiday Sing Along and class breakfast (one adult must be present- details to follow)

 
Books we read:

• When Autumn Falls, by Kelli Nidley
• Leaf Man, by Lois Elhert
• Fletcher and The Falling Leaves,by Julia Rawlinson
• September Weekly Reader, “School Feelings"

 
Places we went:

• Played up on the roof
• Played in Gym 3
• Enjoyed Music with Noel
• Visited the Art Studio with Julia and Janae
• Visited Lindsay in the Library

 
Classroom Activities:

• We spent the first two weeks of school getting to learn all about our new blue room friends and teachers. We also learned about school tools and even went on a partner scavenger hunt to find our where to find these tools. We found the writing, math, science, art and building centers! 
• This week we began our letter of the week study.
• We began making our alphabet books by creating a colorful cover. We also practiced writing our upper and lowercase c’s and reinforced it’s sound by collaging the letter using cotton balls.(see photos)
• This week brought our introduction of our study of Autumn.
• We talked about the many seasonal changes.
• In Math we practiced our counting using fall colors. .
• We also began our study of patterns by creating Autumn collage patterns. Patterning  is a skill that helps children learn sequencing and to make predictions. It is a pre-mathematical skill.
• In Science we learned the reason leaves change color in Autumn, We learned that Chloropyl is a pigment responsible for turning leaves and many vegetables and plants green. During fall the trees get ready for winter and they stop making colorful and therefore loose their green color revealing a beautiful color underneath that was there all along. The children even got to “erase” chlorophyl from classroom leaves and see what colors were underneath. The children where amazed by this new Science word and even were excited to identify some foods in their lunch which contained this pigment.
• In writing we wrote about what our “leaf rubbings” looked like and even got to add details to them using markers.

Themes in September:

• Back to School
• All About Me
• Autumn

 
Thank you for all the support you have shown us; we are looking forward to sharing a great year with you and your child.

Bari, Stasia and Kimberly