Costigan

May

The Letter People Parade practice has been going great.  We hope all of you can attend.  Come early for a good seat. 

Art in the Park is one of the best, fun times in Kdg.  This will be on May 16th from 9:30 to 11:30.  It consists of stations with fun activities.  One is a wood building station and we need wood.  Please let us know if you can help find us wood pieces.

We are inviting parents, grandparents or a friend to come and read to your child on May 19 at 10:30-11:30.  Details will follow.

Reader's Theater, Talent Day, Field Day and "Dig It" are the other activities planned for the end of this year.   WOW!!!

Let's hope the weather is good to us.

April

Are we all ready for Spring break?   Let's hope for good weather next week no matter where we are.   When we return your child will be assigned the letter that they will be for the Letter People Parade on May 6.  Then the practices begin!  We will be going to Wheeler High on the 15th.  Some classes already went and loved it.  Then on the 18th we get to see If You Give a Mouse a Cookie program here at school.

Thank you for having your child ready to read to the class on the assigned date.  They love it and we love to hear them be so confident in front of the class.

We'll be hatching butterflies and watching our ant farm along with plants growing and talking about day and night....WHEW!!!  Then on to May...can you believe it?

March

Well, it looks like March came in like a lamb, hopefully it stays that way. 

We will be reading, reading, reading!  With Dr. Seuss's birthday and Reading Across America Week, we will also be sending home a letter letting you know when your child will need to bring in a book to read to the class.  They all want to read to their classmates and this gives them an opportunity to do so.

Please make sure your child knows the coin names and the value of each coin.  This is an assessment done for the report card this 9 weeks.  Also make sure your child knows his address, phone number, birthday and please work on tying those shoes. These are not assessed, but so-o-o important.

Don't forget Early Release tomorrow.

School pictures on Wed.

Dr. Seussical o n the 21st.  Wear your class T-shirt.

Book Fair Week Mar 31st-April 4th in the Media Center.

February

Love is in the air!  Hearts, cupids and all the things we love are filling up the month of February.

We are busy getting ready for Donuts for Dads.. Our room is decorated and we are working on the booklets, portraits and songs.  All we will need are the donuts and the dads.

Dinosaurs are a favorite of the children. We will use them for all of our subject areas...writing, math, science and social studies.  The science lesson consisted of the terrain where dinos lived and of course the volcanic eruptions.  Is that one theory of how the dinos dissappeared?

Valentines Day will be celebrated by passing out valentines and eating cookies and punch.  This is always is a fun day.

Reminders: Early Release       Feb. 6

                  Kdg. PTA Program     Feb. 7 at 6:30

                  Valentines cards and boxes due      Feb. 12

                  Donuts for Dads    Feb. 14 at 7:50

                  NO SCHOOL         Feb.18 and 19

                  Puppetry Arts       Feb. 21

          

January

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!  The way it looks, the only snow we will see is shaving cream and cotton.  One snow day would be nice.  Let's not give up yet.

I hope everyone is ready to begin a new year.  We'll begin by discussing resolutions and writing them in our journals.  Writing will continue to be done daily.  Our writing vocabulary will include capital letters, periods, quotation marks and question marks.  We will begin Power Writing soon.  This is an innovative way to begin to write a simple paragraph.

Please have your child recognize and know the value of a penny, nickel and dime.  We will be assessing this for the report card at conference time.  Also, review circle, square, rectangle, triangle, cone and sphere.  These are the shapes that were already introduced this year.  Our next math unit is writing and understanding numbers from 0-30.

Your conference time will be sent home on Thursday, Jan. 10.  Let us know if you are not able to come at the assigned time.  We will be happy to work with you for a convenient time.  See all of you then!

Nanci and Judy

December

Its that time of the year...gifts, good food, cookies, candy, candles and best of all, family.  We will try to keep the children focused on learning...measuring peppermint sticks, counting gumdrops, using gift giving as a way to show kindness, and of course using all of these topics in our journal writing.

Our kindness showed here at Mt. Bethel. We collected $600.00 in change for the United Way.

For the holidays, staff, teachers and students would like to be sure that we recognize some of the truly special people at the school who help us all:  the custodians, lunchroom staff and clinic nuse.  If you would like to help us do this, send in a donation by Dec. 13th. Thank you!

Please send in a clean, unlabled, empty, soup or small vegetable can next week.  It can not be the flip top, because the top is sharp and can cut the children.  We will be using it as Oscar's trash can in our center when we come back from holiday vacation.

Also, please remember to send in the wrapped book for our holiday book exchange.

Happy Holidays! Judy and Nanci

November

It is jacket time again!  Hopefully the rain will come with the cooler temperatures.  This is also a good time to make sure all of the jackets, mittens, etc. are labeled.  The lost and found is filled with unmarked items.

We only have 10 days before Thanksgiving vacation.  That means our days will be filled with Native Americans, Pilgrims, and turkeys. 

On Friday, we will have a pow wow wearing our homemade vests and headdresses.  We will use our drums to play some Indian music while eating popcorn.

Next week, we will learn some turkey facts and write our own fiction turkey story. We could not leave out making a turkey at the Art center with feathers telling what we are thankful for. 

Moms, don't forget Muffins for Moms on Friday 16th at 1:30.

When we return after vacation, we will be studying owls and other feathered friends.  If time permits, we will be making bird feeders to hang along the Nature Trail.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

October

Fall is such a fun time of the year--apples, pumpkins, colored leaves and nature walks to listen, hear and touch fall things.  These all go along with our lesson on the Five Senses.  We'll incorporate our findings in our journal writing.

We already used our apples for a math lesson and pumpkins are next.  Our buddies will come with us on our nature walk and then help us with our pumpkin math lesson.

Our Fall Festival will be on Halloween.  No costumes please.   We have many fun centers planned that will make the day special.  Thanks to those who volunteered to help.

Picture Day make-up is on October 9.  You must return your original pictures to have them re-done.

Chick-Fil-A is contributing some of their proceeds to Mt. Bethel on Oct. 25 from 5-8.  Come and help us out!

September

It's September!!!  Just think, if we didn't live here in the South, we would just be starting school. 

We have already accomplished many things.  Most of the children can write their first names in D'Nealian and a few can even write their last names.  Your child will be focusing on writing a letter a week in D'Nealian.  Along with their name, we worked on M and T.  Please practice these at home.

Computer Lab will begin this week.  We will introduce the children to Scholastic Keys.  This is a program that every child can succeed at.  It includes illustrating and writing. 

We met our Book Buddies on Friday.  We introduced ourselves and shared a book.  The children really enjoy the third graders.  We will do various activities with them throughout the year.

Just a few reminders:

* Gift wrap due Sept. 7

*Early Release on Sept. 19(out at 12:20)

*North Georgia Fair field trip on Sept. 25

*East Cobber Parade on Sept. 15

Since Fall is just around the corner and apple picking time is near, we will be cooking, weighing, measuring, etc. apples at the end of the month.

Thank you for following up on all our requests.  Nanci and Judy

Hello!

Okay, off we go!  We can't wait to begin a new year with all new smiling faces.  It was so great to meet all the children and parents on Thursday.  Hopefully we covered enough information to get us started.  You child is now an official Buccaneer! See you Monday.