January Newsletter

                JANUARY NEWSLETTER 2017

Dear Parents,

Happy New Year to all of our families! I hope you all had a restful and relaxing break and lots of time with your family. We wanted to say “Thank you” for all the nice cards, kind gifts and “special treats” that we had received from our families!! We felt truly spoiled! J  

We are looking forward to our first month of the 2017 school year and our batteries are fully recharged. I am sure your children are all ready to see their friends and to settle into our routine again!

JANUARY THEME

DINOSAURS

The year will start with an exciting unit about dinosaurs. There will be a lot of roaring and exploring going on in our classroom. The children will learn about how dinosaurs lived and how they became extinct. We will sing English and German dinosaur songs and you will hear us stomping through the hallways. Don’t be surprised if you see bones in our sensory box. Your child might be busy excavating (what a big word) and looking for fossils.

SORTING and MATCHING

In context with our dinosaur unit we will

Ø  Sort, count and match bones, foot prints, teeth and create dinosaur patterns.

Ø  Measure the size of a dinosaur by using ropes, paper rolls, masking tape

Ø  Create a skeleton out of different kinds of pasta.

Ø  Make our own fossils

Ø  Make dinosaur eggs

Ø  Bake fossil cookies and eat the foot prints after

Ø  Excavate in our sandbox (sensory table)

INDOOR SHOES CHECK

We realized a BIG GROWTH SPURT in some of our children and wonder if their little feet still fit in their indoor shoes! Please check your child’s indoor shoes to make sure that their little “happy feet” are not “trapped”. We might just send the indoor shoes home for a quick “check up”.

PRE-REGISTRATION FOR THE 2017-18 PRESCHOOL YEAR

Parents of students that are currently enrolled in the 3year old class can pre-register their child, prior to the Open House, when registration will be open to the public.

All currently enrolled students will get a spot guaranteed. However final class placement will have to be based on different factors. Our registrar will contact you once we have sorted through all the 2017-18 applications (after the Open House). The board will try their best to meet your placement requests but due to reasons of fairness we need to spread out students evenly in our a.m. and p.m. classes.  

Ø  Families who are pre- registering do NOT have to attend the Open House in order to get a spot.

Ø  If you have a child that you would like to register for next school year, please let me know and I will give you a pre- registration package.

Ø  Pre-registration starts on January 4^th and packages need to be returned latest by January 17^th.

LETTER AND NAME RECOGNITION

Starting in January and in regards to Kindergarten readiness, our MWF classes will start the day with some fun letter activities. We realize that children get most excited about letters and printing when they look at letters in their own name. One “starter activity” will be finding your own nametag and identifying and naming the letters of your own name. Students will also get to trace and print their name each day. It is great to see that a lot of families are helping their children with identifying and printing letters at home.

The following suggestions might be helpful:

 At school we always remind children to

Ø  Start your letters at the top! (At school we always sing the  song “Where do you start your letters?”)

Ø  Most letters are formed by:  “long lines”, “little lines” or “curves” (e.g. “E” has one long line and 3 short lines) Using these terms really helps children to understand the concept of letter formation. We always encourage our children to look for lines and curves in letters.

Dates and Reminders

Tuesday 17^th @ 6:30 p.m.             Registration Night /Open House H&G Preschool

Wednesday 18^th @ 7:00 p.m.        Kindergarten Info Night/Brevoort Park School

Friday 27^th                                   PD Day, no school

Don’t forget to visit us on Facebook! I also invite you to subscribe for the monthly newsletter of SGC (Saskatchewan German Council) to keep updated about activities in our community!

                                                      Please keep warm!!!

Regards,

Uli Hecker, Larissa Lorenz

Susanne Pachal, Samina Roohi