I just cannot believe it is 2012. Seems so futuristic, that year, 2012. Shouldn't robots rule the earth, and cars fly? I also cannot believe that our school year is half over. It has gone by so fast! I blinked and it passed. I hope the second semester slows down. Just a bit. ;)
Today we only had five friends come to school. I am guessing some had older brothers and sisters that were out of school so they stayed home with them. That is a great way to squeeze in some family time, but we need to remember that preschool is just like elementary, middle and high school. We have a very spoecific attendance policy that we have to follow. Each child is allowed 10 absences per semester, that is the limit. Last semester I had a few exceed this number. Technically, that is grounds for dismissal from our program, but it would take alot more than a few extra absences for me to remove my sweet kiddos from school. But...if I were audited...and there were excessive absences...I could stand to get in some hot water. Let's work together to ensure my hiney stays outta trouble, shall we? I know the assumtion is that your child comes to school to "play", so that him or her being here doesn't really make that much of a difference. But it does. We follow a curriculum and have activities offered each day that help delelop and hone important skills. If your child misses too many days, they are missing out on those activites. They might also miss out on some special stuff too. I had quite a few not be included in our letter to Santa because they were absent that day. I cannot repeat or "make up" things that we do at school in most cases. If I keep repeating things, I'll never get ahead! So-I'll stop whining. But, please do your best to make sure your child doesn't exceed our absence limit. Thank you and good night.
Today...we began learning about how we get from place to place, or TRANSPORTATION. We named all the ways we can think of that we get where we need to go, near or far, by land, air, or sea. We then read a book about how we go places that gave us more ideas. Roller skates? Tractors? Space shuttle? We missed those. We will keep the list up and add to it as we continue with this lesson.
Along with transportation we are learning about this colder season called WINTER. We painted with white on blue paper. we talked about what the white could be on the blue. It wasn't long before someone said "snow"! Then later as Malachi was painting he said "Look Miss Beth! I paint snowmen!" :)
We also took a few minutes after lunch to watch the Rose Parade. The Siloam Springs marching band was in the parade, so we watched about ten minutes leading up to their section of the parade. By far, we loves the horses the best!
Outside we explored with some new building materials. Mr. Frank did a wood project over the break and had round blocks of wood left over. We brought them outside and stacked them, compared them, sorted them, and even smelled them! Funny how things most people would disregard as useless trash can help us learn so much. Thanks Frank!
THE CLASSROOM IS ALMOST FINISHED!!!!! I am so excited! M husband has worked SO hard on it. His father as well, even a former parent of mine came over on Sunday to help install trim. This has been a true "labor of love", and I am grateful that we will have our own space to play and learn. I know it has taken a bit longer than anticipated to get this project completed (typical), but I am proud that we have done it this way and at the end of it all it is paid for in full and I owe no one any money on it! :) I plan on starting our week next Monday in the new classroom. You will still use the front door to drop off and pick up your child, and we will still use the living room area for our large group and gross motor activites. As usual in times of transition, things will be shifting around and changing constantly until I get it just right. Control issues.
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