A New Year

A new year, new challenges. Hopefully, this year will be a little more organized in the way of putting up our newsletters. In the meantime, the real reason I’m back is because I need your help!

B’ezras Hashem, we are expecting at least ten girls on the first day of school this year. What an excitement! Doubling our class size over the summer can only mean that the last school year was marked with success.

Some of the things we accomplished last year include

• the purple group learned to read! At the end of the school year, they were able to read complete stories, and answer questions to show they understood.
• we learned to count, and we recognize numbers through eighteen!
• we learned to sit nicely when we eat, not to talk or walk while eating, and how to ask for the foods we want.

Now that summer is almost over, it’s time to start preparing for the new school year. Last year, in our class of five students, we fit nicely around a single table. The pretty new chairs though, were too low for the table! That’s because we got chairs to fit a child’s body, not an adult. Instead of using the new chairs when we were at the table, we sat on grown-up chairs. It was harder to sit nicely with our feet down, though, and sometimes we fell off. This year, We would like to have new tables, the right size for the chairs.

We need help though! In order to have new tables, we need to raise almost $300 in the next few days. Otherwise, the tables may not be delivered in time for the first day of school.

To donate, please visit our page on AdoptAClassroom!

Swagbucks=An Easy Way to Help!

LINKS ON THIS PAGE DO NOT WORK! EMAIL ME FOR THE EXACT LINK

 

Want an easy way to help Shalsheles Bais Yaakov Preschool, that won’t cost you a cent? Here it is!

Swagbucks is a program where you get points for doing online searches, among other things. You cash in these points for cool prizes, amongst them Amazon gift cards. How can this help our class? In two simple ways!

1. If you sign up using the referral link below, every time you win Swagbucks by searching, I’ll win the same amount as you! That means, that when you win ten, I win ten!

2. Should you be one of those rare individuals who has no use for an Amazon gift card, and you don’t want to use the swagbucks for yourself, you can email me the gift card codes when you order them. That gives me $5 to spend on my classroom, that you don’t have to pay for! How awesome is that?

If you want tips for using swagbucks, you can email me directly, and I can send you many, many ways to win fast!

Sign up here!

Flip Video…for US!

Shalsheles Bais Yaakov won a free flip video! We got it by being registered for My Coke Rewards for Schools. That’s right-we did nothing else! Sure, we had some points entered. But not enough to “purchase” this $130 product!

You can help us get more great products from coke, by sending me coke codes, or by signing up for coke rewards and donating your points to Shalsheles Bais Yaakov School.

November Newsletter

R. Y. makes a wikkistix picture next to her name

Dear Shalsheles Preschool Parent,

What a month it’s been! We learned so many new things, and are on our way to becoming real students!

In the Pink Group, we are finishing up our shapes unit this week. Can you believe it? Here are some of the things we did for different shapes. Do you remember when I brought these projects home? Some of them will  be coming home over the next few weeks, as we take them off the walls and replace them with other new and exciting projects for our next unit.

Square-We learned that a SQUARE has four straight sides that are all the same size. We had so much fun finding SQUARE all over the classroom and school building. Miss Ehrenfeld in the office on the first floor gave us each a SQUARE post-it note to take home and remind us what a SQUARE looks like. Some of the SQUARES we found included: floor tiles, windows, blocks, and lockers. We made a SQUARE gift box out of food and ate it for snack, then made another one to bring home. Mmmm….who can go wrong with graham crackers, marshmallow fluff, sprinkles, and licorice? It’s a good thing Morah doesn’t give this to us all the time!

Triangle-with collages, hunts, and ice cream cones, we sure had a lot of fun learning about TRIANGLES! Did you know that a slice of pizza is a TRIANGLE? I know that now! Morah gave us a Shabbos treat of candy corn in ice cream cones to take home. It was delicious. For this hunt, instead of putting our finds on the mat, we put them in the TRIANGLE on the floor. Then we used our bodies to make a TRIANGLE around the TRIANGLE full of TRIANGLES on the floor. Who knew our bodies can do such wonderful things?

Rectangle-So many things around us are shaped like RECTANGLES, that we couldn’t stop pointing them out on our hunt! When we stopped in the High School office to look for RECTANGLES, all the teachers were so impressed by how many we found. And then, Mrs. Wolpin gave us a special surprise-dollar bill erasers, because they are RECTANGLES! Even Morah didn’t know that we would get the erasers until we were there. We couldn’t believe our good luck. We also made RECTANGLE buildings, with RECTANGLE doors on them. We even put pictures of RECTANGLE objects behind the doors. We had to choose the objects all by ourselves off a page full of pictures, but since we know our shapes so well, it wasn’t too hard. As a treat, we got mini RECTANGLE wafers on Friday. Yum!

Ovals-are much harder to come by. When we went on our hunts, Morah Tammy hid pictures of OVAL objects all over school, and we found them. It was so much fun to pull them off the walls. Morah told us all about Humpty Dumpty, and how he fell off the wall. We wondered why the King’s horses and men couldn’t put him back together again, so Morah showed us. She cracked an egg into a bowl, because Humpty Dumpty was an egg. Then, we tried to put our egg back together again, but it didn’t work! Luckily, Morah had lots more eggs for us, and we helped her boil them. We went to the sink to put in water, but we made sure to stay far, far away from the burner, because we know it’s dangerous. When they were done boiling, we got to peel them-and what a surprise! Instead of liquid spilling out of the shell, we had a nice, white…OVAL!

Diamond-is our last shape! Morah introduced it by showing us a kite. We had so much fun painting our kites, and then telling Morah where our kites will fly. And then, as a special surprise for all the parents coming to PTA, we made special DIAMOND necklaces for our mothers. They were so much fun to make, and took a lot of skills too. We had to count the beads and make sure we put on only five beads before we put on a DIAMOND, and then start again. When we were done, Morah wrote the special messages onto the envelope. Weren’t you excited when you came and got it?

Morah didn’t tell us yet what’s coming next, but I have a suspicion that we’ll be starting a new unit. What will it be? I can’t wait to find out!

The Purple Group has also been very busy this month! We had so many new concepts to explore in our Letterbooks, and learn something new every day. After finishing the letter “Oo”, we moved on to “Gg”. The sound of “Gg” is /g/, like in goat, grape, and garden. Speaking of goats, grapes, and gardens, wasn’t it nice the way I was able to “read” the story about the goats and other animals eating grapes in the girl’s garden?

Our Oo Mural. The Purple Group worked really hard on this!

In the Gg Letterbook, we started practicing many new skills. The first new skill we learned is to notice details. We started noticing that things are not always exactly the same, once you look closely. Four goats in a row may look the same, until you look really closely at their collars. Whoops, one has a bell, one is a rectangle, and one has a bow! The one we needed though, had only a plain, round collar around his neck.

We started working on sequencing too. We noticed how first you have to mix up the cookie dough, and only then can you take the cookies out of the oven. A good way to practice this skill at home is to ask me what we should do first in any situation. Hmmm….what goes first? Do we take the bowl out of the cabinet, or do we pour the cereal and milk? I know, I know!

Part of getting closer to being able to read is learning how to recognize sounds in places other than the beginning of a word. We started this with the letter Gg. Morah brought in a bag, and many familiar and unfamiliar objects. We had to decide which items could go into the bag. The ticket to entry was ending with /g/. If you read the list of words at the end of this paragraph to me, I can tell you which ones go in the bag. Here are some of the things that Morah brought to school: glue, rug, goop, mug, pig, goat, dog, wig, glasses, jug, and flag.

Gift starts with Gg. And what a coincidence, the Pink Group was learning about squares, a very common shape for a gift box! We joined up with them in making gift boxes out of food, as we usually do, but this time, it connected with our unit too.

You know what else I know about the letter Gg? The big G is almost like a C, but not quite! Just like a C is a circle with its mouth open, so is the G, except…the G lets us see his tongue! The little g is different. It’s also like a circle…but it has a tail!

E. M. shows off the colors she knows

In our dictionaries, we covered the letter Gg with gold glitter glue and green glue. We also colored Gila Gorilla, practiced writing Gg, and cut and pasted pictures of objects beginning with Gg in our books.

Our next letter is Aa! We’re not done yet, but we’re definitely moving along. Here are some of the things we have done so far:

We reviewed a shape we know well on the first few pages of this Letterbook. Triangle! Did you ever notice that the top of a big A is a triangle? We learned that the sound of Aa is /a/, like in apple, alligator, and anteater. Apple day was so much fun! We tasted red, yellow, and green apples, and decided which ones we liked best. We counted the seeds as well. The red apple had the most seeds, but the apple that most of us liked best was green. Another day, Morah read us a poem about animal crackers, and we guess what was in the Mystery Box that day? You guessed it! Yummy animal crackers for snack!

We’ve been working on things that go together as well. Morah hung up a sign with pictures in two columns, and we had to match the pictures. What goes together with shoes? Socks of course!

M. A. points out letters she knows

What do we drink with chocolate chip cookies? Milk! We color with crayons on…paper! It’s good to practice these skills, they’ll help us in learning as we get older.

With the letter Aa, we started a new concept in reading-blending sounds together. It’s not easy, but it sure is fun! Soon, we’ll be able to read whole words on our own! Morah read us lots of words beginning with the sounds listed below, and we were able to figure out the first two letters. We’re well on our way to reading! I don’t know what these words mean, since they’re grown-up words, but it sure is nice to know that I can recognize the sounds they start with! Here they are: acrobat (/ak/), oculist (/ok/), agriculture (/ag/), Ogden (/og/), cavern (/ka/), cobbler (/ko/), gallop (/ga/), and gossip (/go/).

We also started to listen for the sounds in the middle of words, like /a/ in bag. A suitcase is a type of bag, and we colored pictures in our Letterbooks of things that could go into the bag on the page. Do you know what can go into this bag? Only words that have /a/ in the middle, of course!
You know what else begins with Aa? Alphabet! We placed alphabet stickers inside the letter Aa in our dictionaries. They’re really coming along nicely, and I can’t wait to bring it home to you at the end of the year. Morah says that it would be very helpful if you would send in old magazines and catalogs (make sure that all people in any pictures in them are fully dressed) for us to cut pictures from. That way, you get to have a part in my dictionary too! Just make sure there are lots of pictures in them!

I can’t wait to see what we’ll learn next week!
Have a happy Chanuka!

October Newsletter

Dear Shalsheles Preschool Parent,

Welcome to our first e-newsletter of the year! While I send communication home in the notebooks all the time, this is a way for me to update you on what’s going on in our classroom while saving school resources. I look forward to hearing back from you, whether it’s with comments, concerns, or questions.

For the afternoon, our class has been divided into two groups, based on ages. This way, no one is forced to try focusing on material that is too far above their grasp. While I encourage the girls to learn new things all the time, I feel that pressuring them to be older than they are is not only unhelpful, but harmful as well. Many activities are shared by both groups, however the younger group will NOT be doing things that are not developmentally appropriate.

The younger group is called the Pink Group. In the pink group, we are focusing on our Shapes Unit! This week, we are learning about circles. Some activities we did this week were:
Classroom Shapes Hunt-we searched the classroom to find as many circles as we could! Some circles we found in the classroom included: toy plates, cups, and bowls, beads, buttons, chairs, and bracelets.
School Shapes Hunt-we searched the school building to find circles too! Some circles we found: doorknobs, posters, lightbulbs, and elevator buttons.
Cheerio Circle Necklaces-everyone knows that cheerios are circles-and so are necklaces! We had fun stringing our cheerios onto yarn, and then got to eat the cheerios off our necklaces while we waited for our parents to come, or on the bus on the way home. So if you didn’t see my necklace, don’t worry! It means that the cheerios were yummy enough for me to finish them!
Floor Circle-we stood, walked, jumped, sat, and touched a circle on the floor of the classroom.

We also did a Circus Unit, where we talked about different circus characters, and what they might do. We made life sized clowns by tracing our bodies on paper, coloring them, drawing on features, and tracing and gluing on a hat.

Our older group is called the Purple Group. We are already working on our second letter! Our first letter was “Cc”. We know the letter “Cc” says /k/, like clown, cake, candy, and cat. We decorated our CLOWNS, just like the Pink Group. We learned about top, middle, and bottom, and about above, below, and on. We also learned that the letter “Cc” is a circle with it’s mouth open. We are always careful to leave it open!

Now we’re working on the letter “Oo”! An “Oo” is a circle with its mouth closed. We know it says /o/ like octopus, otter, and ostrich. We learned so many interesting facts about those animals while we practiced the sound of the “Oo”! We also discussed visiting the doctor, and know that when we open our mouths to say “o” for the doctor, our mouth looks like an “Oo”. We practiced sorting objects by size, using Rachel for biggest, Mazal for medium sized, and Ruthie for small. We sorted so many things from our classroom!

We’ll be finished the letter “Oo” soon, and be ready for the next one. We can’t wait to see what will come next!

We Can Win $20,000-Another Update

A message from Care2.com, the company sponsoring the $20,000 contest:

Thanks for voting for your school in America’s School Spirit Challenge!

Weekly Winner
Congratulations to our fourth Weekly Winner of $500–Shalsheles Bais Yaakov School in Brooklyn, New York!

If you haven’t voted yet at the main contest, for our school to win $20,000, please do so now at http://tinyurl.com/35t4y8v

We Can Win $20,000-Update

We are now number 33 on the top 100 list to get the $20,000. That actually sounds a lot better than it is! To win, we will need over 2700 votes-and we only have ninety five! Have you voted yet? Have you passed it on to all your friends?

If you are interested in posting about this as your status on facebook, email me at morahmamela@hotmail.com and I’ll send you a text to use. If you are interested in writing a note about this on facebook, and tagging your friends to get them to vote, email me at the same, and I’ll send you a poem that you can use.

New Cubbies Are Here!

Today, the new cubbies were finally ready for use! It’s hard to describe the looks of joy on my students’ faces, as they got to practice coming up the stairs and putting away their jackets and bags.

The hooks were first installed today. As each cubby was completed, it was brought into the classroom, where the girls were sitting on the mat. Then, we carefully removed the name tags from the makeshift cubbies we were using until now, and placed them on the back of the cubby. The girls carefully put all their things into their knapsacks, put on their jackets, and waited outside the room. They took turns being greeted as though it was the morning and they were first arriving. Then, they took their notebooks out of their bags and put them in the proper place, and did the same with their jackets and bags. It’s a pleasure to watch how nicely they put away their things, even though it was only the first time!

Since I don’t have permission to post photos of their faces, you’ll have to make do with pictures of the cubbies, and the backs of one student putting her backpack away for the final time for today! With your continued support, we can have new tables. So what are you waiting for? Click “How Can I Help,” and see what you can do!

R putting away her bag

 

Making Our Way to the Top

We’re working hard at our fundraisers this week! Many people have been kind enough to post links to the two main fundraisers, Del Monte Teachers Monday, and America’s School Spirit Challenge on their blogs, facebook, and twitter. That’s what has brought us this far! At 192 votes, we are number 25 on the list at Del Monte-which puts us in week three! If we keep moving up at a quick pace, with all of you, and your friends voting daily, we can easily move up a few notches, maybe even enough to make it into the second week! At America’s School Spirit Challenge, on the other hand, we are not doing nearly as well. That’s a pity, because $20,000 in the school’s coffers could make a huge difference in the education of so many children! With 42 votes, we are only number 66 in the top 100 schools, and that won’t get us any money.

If you want to make a difference, not only should you vote, but encourage your parents, friends, and relatives to vote too! Anyone over the age of 18 can cast a ballot in America’s School Spirit Challenge, and all you need to vote in Teachers Monday is a computer with internet access-it doesn’t matter how old you are! In fact, in one family, some people who didn’t yet have email addresses made them special for America’s School Spirit Challenge! It’s not hard, and you won’t be flooded with spam.

Please help today!

We Can Win $20,000!

Please vote for us HERE. The school with the most votes gets $20,000, and each week a school is randomly chosen to win $500. PLUS, if you refer a certain amount of friends (I believe 20), the program will send you a $50 gift card!