NURSERY RHYMES - APRIL 2010

UPK PM's

Becoming Independent

Welcome Spring!

We hope you all had a very lovely vacation and enjoyed your respective holidays. After the winter we have had, it’s nice to see Mother Nature beginning to wake up and show us some warm weather.
No one enjoyed the snow as much as our children. In the last newsletter I was hoping that we had more snow for the class to enjoy. I guess you have to be careful what you wish for! As difficult as the snow was on us adults, the children enjoyed it tremendously, and that’s what’s most important. Sometimes it takes a good afternoon of playing in the snow to bring out the child in all of us.
Our paleontology unit was very enjoyable, and we learned a lot about dinosaurs and how they may have lived. Our class had a great time becoming scientists and digging up bones, reading dinosaur books, and doing dinosaur-oriented art projects. We felt just like real paleontologists!
We have been working hard in our classroom and we are growing every day. Watching the students in our class becoming so independent is very gratifying to see. When we started the school year there were so many things that we had to do as teachers. Now, the students set up the tables for snack all by themselves and sign their own artwork. These are just a few of the things our students have mastered. Independence is so vitally important at this time in a child’s life. The more they can do for themselves, the more autonomous they feel.
It’s hard to believe that the long winter is finally over and that spring has finally arrived! Spring is a time of renewal and rebirth, when gray days are replaced by the beautiful colors of spring. Mother Nature will be putting on quite a show for us in the next few weeks, as everything begins to bloom. This is a time to marvel at what Mother Nature can do, and to that end, we we’ll be setting our sights on the environment. Earth Day is April 22 and our next unit will find us considering the fragility of our planet and steps we can take to preserve it. After all, this is the only planet we have that sustains life. If we don’t take care of it, how can it take care of us?
Stay tuned. We will take the phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle” to new heights!
More to come!

Andrea, Alma, & Nicole