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• Preschool - Paula Johnson
• As I write this newsletter it is 20 degrees below zero with the wind chill today!!  Thankfully it is much warmer in our classroom.  December was a busy month with fun themes like reindeer, mittens, and Christmas.  We spent a lot of our time singing fun songs, acting out finger plays, and playing holiday games.  We were also busy making some special gifts for our parents.
• After a long Christmas break we have spent the first week of January getting back into the routine of things and reviewing what we have learned so far.  We just finished up "O" week by exploring in the ocean and all the creatures that live there.   This week we are moving on to the letter "P", which means we get to wear out pajamas and make pancakes!!!  As you can see, we continue to have a lot of fun in preschool while learning at the same time.
• Just a reminder that preschool screening will be held Monday February 25^th- Friday March 1^st.  If your child is 3 or will be eligible for Kindergarten next year, please call the office and set up a time to bring you child in that week.
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• Kindergarten - Ann Gibbs and Renee Swisher
• We are very excited in Kindergarten because we are learning to read!  We are working very hard at learning "word families", such as the "-ad" words like mad, sad, bad, had, pad and dad.  The children now have their own Reading books to practice at home!  "The more you practice, the better you get!" is our Kindergarten motto.  We appreciate the continued help from our family members who listen to us read.  Thank you!
•      In Math, we worked very hard at learning the various coins.  We know lots of information about pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters!  We can also recognize the coins and tell their value.  In our current chapter, we are learning the numbers 11-30.  These numbers are very tricky, so we have been doing many hands-on activities to reinforce our learning.  Keep counting everything you see!
•      Kindergartners love Science!  We are learning how animals live in the winter.  We studied about hibernation and how bears get ready for their long winter nap.  We also learned some facts about three different kinds of bears-brown bears, black bears and polar bears.  We are now learning about penguins in science class.  We learned there are many kinds and sizes of penguins.  Some of these include macaroni, rockhopper, little blue and Emperor penguins.  We discovered that most Kindergarten students are taller than the largest Emperor penguin.  We learned some wonderful new vocabulary and did a fun "blubber" experiment in science.  We learned that penguins have four layers of feathers, air, skin and blubber to stay warm.

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