FRIDAY NEWSLETTER
FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

Welcome back everyone! I hope everyone enjoyed the break! I know I certainly did but was very happy to come back to smiling faces! On our first day back we all enjoyed share and tell, and focused on what we each did over the break. We even entered a drawing into our journal to show what we did over the break.
This week we focused on the butterfly life cycle. We worked on color recognition, fine motor skills, rhyming, counting and one to one correspondence. On Wednesday, we used brown cut outs of butterflies and dotted one side with paint then folded it over to create symmetry. Yes, we learned about symmetry! On Thursday, we used a lentil, pasta and paper cut outs to create our own diagram of the butterfly life cycle! Today, we used coffee filters, washable makers and a spray bottle to create beautiful butterflies but the most fun was on Tuesday! It was so warm and we got to visit the playground!
Overall, it was a great week and the children did a fantastic job transitioning back to school mode! Please do not forget that the PTA sponsored Tricky Tray is this Saturday! I hope to see many of you there! Enjoy your weekend.

Mrs. Gilberti

FRIDAY NEWSLETTER
FRIDAY, April 15, 2011

It’s finally beginning to feel like spring! This week we enjoyed decorating our room with our Easter and springtime crafts. We continued to practice fine motor skills. We used chalk and pulled cotton to make our bunnies. We snipped paper for our chicks. I think everyone enjoyed dying eggs on Wednesday. We tie-dyed them with food coloring. Decorating our foam spring time cut outs with sequence beads was fun too. Some of our friends even used a pattern with foam stickers when decorating their own cut out. Mrs. Ruskan is in a spring time mood and helped us all with our spring time basket. The pompom chicks are adorable. Thank you Mrs. Ruskan! To end our week with a bang, we all had fun seeking hidden eggs!
It’s been a really great week. Congratulations to all our friends who went to the kindergarten round-up! You guys did great and we are all so proud of you! You are growing up fast! I hope everyone enjoys their spring break and that it continues to feel like spring out there! I’m sending home the sunflowers that we each planted and did a great job taking care of. When planting the sunflower, you do not need to remove it from the pot. Simply place the pot and all into the ground. Be sure to have you child help take care of it! We spent some time talking about how a seed grows, the seed coat and seedlings! Let’s all hope that this spring break week brings with it a lot of sunshine! Enjoy your break!


Mrs. Gilberti

FRIDAY NEWSLETTER
Friday, April 8, 2011

Spring has sprung! Well, maybe not really, but with all our spring crafts on display in our room, it sure feels like it! This week we focused on flowers. We started the week off by planting sunflower seeds. We talked about how a seed grows into a seedling and what our seed needs to help it grow. We counted how many scoops of soil we scooped into the pot and used our pinching fingers to pick up the seeds and place one in each hole. Every day, 1 friend is chosen to water the pots down with a spray bottle. It’s a big responsibility to take care of a growing thing!
We also used our pinching fingers to help scrunch up tissue paper to help make our tulips look lovely. We matched Fruit Loops to petals to make our daisies look colorful too. We each got the opportunity to graph Fruit Loops by color to find out which color had more and which color had the least, in each of our pile. We worked on classifying and group during morning table work and because April showers bring May flowers, we learned that umbrella begins with the letter U.
Next week, we will be painting eggs for our baskets. If you could, please send in 2 hard boiled eggs with each child. We have a fun week ahead of us!
This weekend, on April 9th, is the All Together for Autism 5k run/walk, at Meadow Breeze Park. You can register the morning of the event if you would like. More information is available on our school website. I hope to see you there!!!!


Mrs. Gilberti

FRIDAY NEWSLETTER
FRIDAY, April 1, 2011

Well who would have thought we would be getting snow on the 1st of April? Looks like Mother Nature really has a sense of humor and the joke is on us. Happy April Fools ’ Day!! I tried to trick the kids with dog bones for a morning snack but it didn’t work. I guess Scoobie Snacks are a very popular snack.
This week we continued to discuss insects. We practiced writing letter B/b for bug and bumble bee. Speaking of bees, our little preschoolers where busy as bees when practicing writing their names on the top of their papers, and they continued to practice their fine motor skills when working on our crafts. There was a lot of cutting, gluing, using our pinching fingers to pick up, and coloring going on in our preschool room. We buzzed around like bees with our bumble bee puppets while using our position words. We practiced grouping and counting dots as we put together our lady bugs. Our room is looking like spring has sprung regardless of the snow falling outside our window. Even though we haven’t been able to play outside we still got our wiggles and giggles out this week, in the gym playing basketball.
April is also the start of Autism awareness month. On April 1st and 2nd, 2011, Autism Speaks will be kicking off their "Light it up Blue Campaign" to bring awareness of Autism into our communities. Prominent buildings across North America and the world, including the Empire State Building, will be lit up blue for this campaign. Staff and students both started the month off by wearing blue. Please join us on April 9, 2011 for our All Together for Autism Walk/Run, which will be held at Meadow Breeze Park in Washington, NJ. Registration forms and information can be found on our school website. I hope to see many of you there!

Mrs. Gilberti

FRIDAY NEWSLETTER
Friday, March 25, 2011

Mother Nature must not be in a good mood because we were on a roll with charting lamb days then, “poof!!!” she gave us some lion days! Who would have thought we would get snow days in the middle of March! Well, at least the snow days didn’t fall on our assembly day. Everyone had so much fun at the Piccarillo Science assembly! We learned so much and giggles could be heard everywhere. We continued to talk about insects this week and practiced our coloring, painting, cutting and gluing skills. Because we had a 2 hour delay on Thursday, some of our friends missed art class so Mrs. Nemeth was so kind, that she brought art to all of us in our own classroom! We finished our insect books and everyone did a great job reading the color words! We really are all enjoying books and reading! Thank you to everyone who has donated to our Tricky Tray basket. It is coming along. Tickets are on sale now. It’s such a fun night out! Please enjoy your weekend and let’s hope for some sunshine and warm weather soon.

Mrs. Gilberti

FRIDAY NEWLSETTER
Friday, March 18, 2011

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!!! Our little leprechaun came and left us green donuts yesterday to enjoy! It was a great way to start our day. This week we continued to practice snipping skills! We used our snipping skills to snip colored paper and glue it in rainbow order. Our room looks so colorful. Speaking of colors, this week we learned about primary and secondary colors. We were scientists again and wanted to find out if it was true that if we mixed primary colors we could get secondary colors. We used our finger paints and found out that yes, it is true! We continued to practice our tracing skills and started to trace number words.

We had a really nice visit this week. Elvira Woodruff came to talk to us about being an author and an illustrator. It was really nice to see our preschoolers so interested in what she had to say and enjoy the assembly. Some of our preschoolers were so inspired that they came back to the room and wrote their own story. Being that we journal almost once a week, when asked by Elvira if anyone kept a journal, 10 little hands with great big smiles went up into the air! It was a proud moment for all of us!

Being that the sun has finally come out, we have been enjoying the “lamb” days by spending some time outside on the black top. Hopefully the playground will dry up and we will get to play on it soon. We are still charting lion and lamb days and it’s been very exciting for us to start seeing more yellow boxes than green. On our lion days, we have been playing Limbo and making our bodies shorter and longer as the Limbo bar moves. In art class this week, Mrs. Nemeth helped us make clowns. As usual, it has been a busy yet fun week. Next week, we all get to enjoy another assembly. It will be the Picarello Science, “Bugs of Blackwood.” It should be a lot of fun!

I wanted to thank Mrs. Sandorff for making us the St. Patrick’s Day BINGO! We used in a center and enjoyed playing it together as a whole group activity. Thank you to all who continue to send in items for our Tricky Tray basket! The weekend weather is supposed to be really nice so please get out and enjoy the “lamb” days!!

Mrs. Gilberti

FRIDAY NEWSLETTER
Friday, March 11, 2011

The old saying says, “If March comes in like a lion, it will go out as a lamb.” Here in preschool we have been charting the weather every morning, just to see if this old saying is true. We all can’t wait for spring to get here. We continued to work on fine motor, cutting, coloring and gluing skills. Our fingerprint lambs are hanging in our classroom and look adorable. We also continued to work on counting, numbers and of course rhyming. We practiced writing our names and some of us can do this without using a name card to copy from.
This week, we learned the different parts of a plant and how flowers and plants grow. We performed an experiment with white carnations, which we placed in either red water or blue water, to answer the question, “Does the stem of a flower work as a straw?” We collected data and drew pictures to enter in our journal of what we thought would happen and what did actually happen. We always love being Scientists and I always stress to the children to ask why and to check if it’s true!
We got to be outside just one day this week because of the weather but we still had some good fun indoors. Everyone enjoyed playing Limbo and London Bridge. We did a bit of dancing and singing too! Thank you for the Tricky Tray donations. Our basket is coming along and we will continue accepting donations. I hope you all enjoy your weekend.


Mrs. Gilberti