FRIDAY NEWSLETTER
Friday, May 20, 2011
Only a few weeks left of school! Can you believe it?! This week we all worked hard as a team, to finger paint our ocean for Ocean Night! There is nothing like the feel of paint squishing between your fingers. We continue to create beautiful sea creature in different textures. Our sea horses are adorned with gold sand and boy did we have fun making them! We did a fantastic job on our sea weed too! This special board is off to a great start. The finished product will be something to be very proud of!
We continued to work on counting this week and practiced cutting. We also enjoyed learning about the Ocean by watching Disneynature’s, Ocean! There were so many ooohs and ahhwwwwss! It was a great way to support and bring to life what we have read about different sea creatures. All of our centers have been stocked up with MARE themed activities such as the Rainbow Fish matching game, in the math center.
Please remember that next week, on Wednesday, our class will be visiting the PTA sponsored book fair. If you would like your child to purchase books, please send money in a labeled envelope. Have a great weekend.

Mrs. Gilberti

Friday Newsletter
FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2011

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Mother’s Day and got some much deserved time to relax. We have started our unit on the ocean and sea creatures and are preparing our board for Ocean Night! I can’t believe I’m saying that already. Where has time gone?! The children will be working hard using cutting, gluing, painting, pinching and many other fine motor skills, to help turn our bulletin board into a beach and shore. This is when we stress team work and we all do our best to come together to create the most beautiful board that we can and feel a huge sense of pride.

We started our week off with discussions of ocean creatures and the ocean floor. We worked so hard on our touch and feel beach and ocean scenes. Please visit my blog to view a picture of our work. We also continued to work on number recognition and counting by using numbered fish to create fish bowls which are hanging on display in our room. We even worked on classifying and to my delight, everyone did a fantastic job! We continued to work on tracing words and worked on opposites, such as wet and dry. Since it’s been so beautiful out, we have even been making good use of the playground!
Saturday is the PTA sponsored Kids Tricky Tray, here at OCS at 3pm! I hope to see some of you there. Also on Wednesday, May 25th, at 9:25, the preschoolers will be visiting the library to purchase books at the PTA Book Fair! If purchasing books, please send in money with your child in a labeled envelope. Enjoy your weekend!

Mrs. Gilberti

Nothing can warm the heart like a hug from Mom. This week we closed up our unit on butterflies and their life cycle and focused on some pretty wonderful women. The children have all worked so hard on surprise gifts for their own Mommy. In order to keep it a secret until Sunday, I won’t mention any more about it! I will say that we did continue practicing our names remembering to use a capital letter to start, followed by lower case letters. We made great use of our white board when practicing matching capital letters to lower case letters. We focused on letters A/B/C/D. We also practiced writing and tracing numbers 1-10. In our Math center, the children practiced number recognition by using number boards, magnetic colored chips and a magnet to help sweep up the chips once their board was full. Judging by the amount of time each child spent in this center, it’s safe to say this was a pretty popular game. We also got to go to the gym this week and played basketball, squeezed in a yoga session and used our imaginations to go on a bear hunt!
Today, the whole school is kicking off MARE! Yes, it’s that time of year again. For the next couple of weeks, we will be focused on the ocean and its amazing creatures. Getting ready for ocean night is always so exciting for the children!
I hope everyone enjoys their weekend! Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Mrs. Gilberti

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