Who Will Help?

March 18-22 - Let’s have lunch or dinner at AL’s BURGERS! Al's Burgers is excited to support our school this spring. Instead of a "Spirit Night," they are proposing a "Spirit Week" fundraising opportunity. From 3/18-3/22, a customer can bring in a coupon, donate $5 to the school, and receive a "free" burger. The coupons will be in the cubbies on Monday/Tuesday of next week (one per order). Thanks for your support!

30 - April 6 - Spring Break!

April 15 - Spring picture days. We will have both individual and class photos done.

April 21st – Planetarium Field Trip (Every child can have one chaperone join them and NO siblings are allowed on the field trip).  Please return your permission form & fee by April 10th.

April 23rd - 🎼 Casual music programs in the fellowship hall. Shortly after drop-off on Thurs., 4/23, your child will sing a few songs with the class & Ms. Vicki for an audience of parents and special loved ones in Ascension Hall. More details to come…

*SPECIAL REQUEST- The Ducks will be doing a special “egg drop” STEM experiment during the last week of March. We need recyclables to use in our creations to protect our egg! Please send recyclables (washed out containers, small boxes, packaging materials, etc) ASAP. Thanks! : )

YELLOW DUCK NEWS:

We had a very exciting week, despite the very short time we had with our Yellow Ducks due to the shortened week. Our fairy tale was The Little Red Hen and, just like the book, we asked our young friends “Who will help?”. Everyone had a hand in measuring, mixing, and kneading our “Bread in a Bag” (here’s the recipe if you’d like to try it at home: https://busytoddler.com/wprm_print/bread-in-a-bag )

Then on Tuesday we made our own butter to spread on our bread, of course! We learned how the fat separates from the cow’s milk to make cream at the top. Then everyone got a little cream in a cup to 🎵Shake, Shake, Shake 🎶 as we danced. We noticed when it stopped sloshing around it had become whipped cream, and then when we heard a liquidy noise again our butter was done! We poured off the buttermilk & spread our homemade butter on our homemade bread 😋. It feels good to make things on our own!

We also read Rapunzel this week. At our math center we used links to make Rapunzel’s hair different lengths according to the number on the card. It was fun to make jewelry & practice patterning as well, all the while working those fine motor skills as we linked them together.

Thank you all for taking time to meet us this week to talk about your Duck. It’s always such a pleasure to share with parents the areas where their children are successful. We couldn’t be any prouder of these small humans for all they have accomplished this school year so far, from learning numbers and letters, to figuring out how to navigate the waters of several social situations. We have modeled and taught them how to become a team and to care for one another. Introverts are finding their voices, the unsure are taking chances and believing in themselves, and everyone is finding out that even adults like Ms. Carina and I don’t know everything and are still learning and practicing to get better at something.

Several parents asked about ways to work on academic skills at home in preparation for kindergarten, and we suggested making learning a game. Here are a couple of ideas for easy games to play at home with supplies you probably already have on hand.

The first are math games using a deck of Uno cards: https://playpartygame.com/kids-party-ideas/fun-games-you-can-play-with-uno-cards/

And the next is a game I’ve used for years called Kaboom. You can change the “kaboom” sticks to other actions (at Christmas I make them HoHoHo sticks and everyone has to hohoho like Santa when one gets pulled). It’s a fun quick game to play! https://themanylittlejoys.com/alphabet-kaboom-a-simply-brilliant-preschool-game/

Try one this weekend & let us know if it was a hit : )

Have a great weekend with your sweet Ducks,

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Once Upon a Time...

UPCOMING EVENTS:

March 11 & 12 - Conferences - School is closed to allow for spring conferences, but our playground is always open! Feel free to plan with another parent to watch each others’ children on the playground during your conference times. We ask that you please come without children to conferences, so that we can have a private conversation about your student’s progress.

March 30 - April 6 - Spring Break!

April 15 - Spring picture days. We will have both individual and class photos done.

April 21st – Planetarium Field Trip (Every child can have one chaperone join them and NO siblings are allowed on the field trip).  We will provide more information next week during conferences.

April 23rd - 🎼 Casual music programs in the fellowship hall. Shortly after drop-off on Thurs., 4/23, your child will sing a few songs with the class & Ms. Vicki for an audience of parents and special loved ones in Ascension Hall. More details to come…

*SPECIAL REQUEST- The Ducks will be doing a special “egg drop” STEM experiment during the last week of March. We need recyclables to use in our creations to protect our egg! Please send recyclables (washed out containers, small boxes, packaging materials, etc) ASAP. Thanks! : )

YELLOW DUCK NEWS:

Did you guess from the blog title that our framework for learning this month will be fairy tales? Fairy tales spark imagination and offer moral lessons. Children can learn from the characters’ mistakes which helps them develop critical thinking skills. These stories can also help children confront real-life fears and anxieties in a fantastical setting. Best of all, they’re so much fun! We will be reading alternate (or fractured) versions of the tales as well. These stories encourage critical thinking, creativity, and humor by challenging the traditional, often rigid, structure of the original fairy tales.

After a lively discussion of what constitutes a fairy tale- magic, animals that can talk, fairies, make believe!- we began by reading Jack & the Beanstalk (and the alternate version- Jack & the Beanstalk and the French Fries!). Everyone planted a bean in a bag. We are eagerly watching & waiting for them to sprout! We used real leaves to make prints to add leaves to our classroom beanstalk. And in our sensory table our Ducks found matching upper & lower case letters laid by the golden goose.

The Ducks have really been working hard to strengthen their fine motor muscles all year & are ready to do some more complicated cutting. They cut out swirly beanstalks and crowns this week. The princes & princesses also loved using shaving foam “mortar” to build castles in the sensory table.

The game Pretty, Pretty Princess was also a hit. The children have been learning how to take turns, count and help others count, and lose gracefully. Pretty much all the important things in life!

We continued with Goldilocks & the Three Bears next (and the alternate version- Goldilocks & the 3 Dinosaurs). After the story was read, we set the table in our dramatic play area complete with different sizes of chairs, dishes, “beds”, and bear headbands . The story was then played out again by the children moving through the story on their own. Doing this allowed them to practice story sequencing, retelling, and practicing with size order. They were learning again without even realizing it. We’re sneaky aren’t we?

We’d like to thank former CCP student Brooks, brother of Aubrey, for visiting at circle time to READ to us. How inspiring to hear another child, not an adult, reading stories to us! He read one of our favorite books, Find Fergus 🙂

We had some beautiful weather this week and finally got the bikes back out of the shed. The Ducks have some speedy legs & enjoyed racing as well as some leisurely rides around the lot. Don’t forget to lather up with sunscreen before school!!

Wishing you all well with our jump ahead as the clocks Spring Forward this weekend!

Enjoy the weekend,

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

We've Got Spirit! 🎉

UPCOMING EVENTS:

This Sunday is Preschool Sunday! Your children will sing some special songs near the beginning of the 9:00 worship service and we will celebrate the CUMC Preschool Ministry. Please meet us in the Disciple Room at 8:40. We need everyone’s beautiful voices 🎶

March 11 & 12 - Conferences - School is closed to allow for spring conferences, but our playground is always open! Feel free to plan with another parent to watch each others’ children on the playground during your conference times. We ask that you please come without children to conferences, so that we can have a private conversation about your student’s progress.

March 30 - April 6 - Spring Break!

YELLOW DUCK NEWS:

We had such a great week being silly together. Thank you all for participating in our silliness. We had almost 100% participation EVERY day!! That is some amazing school spirit!

We discovered that the Tar Heels fans highly outnumber the rivals, our class can really pack away the pancakes, and everyone loved glow day the best.

There was some “work” done in between all the shenanigans. On Monday we took out those boats we made last week and experimented with how to make them sail. Of course, the Ducks knew we needed wind, and they tried blowing on them, using a paper fan, puffing air at them with a baster and even finding items in the classroom to wave. I believe they found the fan and trays made the most wind.

We played rhyming bingo, learned about the letter Q, and traced & then wrote our names in our journals this week. And as we played in the water table we experimented with measurement & volume.

We also wrapped up our Community Helpers study with a visit from Dr. Iglesia, Catherine’s mom. She brought her dental dragons on Friday to teach us about her job & dental health. Thank you, Carol Ann!!

We learned about another artist this week. Tyree Guyton used junk and bright colors to transform neglected houses in his old neighborhood into works of art. The Ducks used recycled supplies to create houses and painted them with neon paint on Glow Day. They certainly brighten up our room!

Sadly, we also said goodbye to one of our Duck friends this week. Diana will be going to a new school with her little sister, so we all wished her well and had a goodbye party with her dad. There were LOTS of hugs. Her dad read See Ya Later, Alligator …and we will!! Diana plans to join us for some special events when she can. In fact…she will be back this Sunday for Preschool Sunday!!! We hope we’ll see you there, too 😃

Have a great weekend with your sweet Ducks,

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

All Around Town

Our Spirit Week is finally happening!!! Here is the list of events this week:

Monday, Feb 23rd– Silly Socks Day -wear your silly (or mismatched) socks

Tuesday, Feb 24th– Team Tuesday (wear your favorite team’s gear)

Wednesday, Feb 25th- wear your PJs for Pancakes in Pajamas!

Thursday, Feb 26th- Glow in the Dark Day (wear white or neon clothing- we will supply glow sticks, etc at school).

Friday, Feb 27th- Freaky Friday (go wild with crazy clothes combos or crazy hair…or both!)

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Sunday, March 1 at 8:45 -Preschool Sunday. Your children will sing some special songs near the beginning of the 9:00 worship service and we will celebrate the CUMC Preschool Ministry. Please arrive at 8:45

March 11 & 12 - Conferences - A sign up genius link was emailed to you on Monday for you to sign up for a conference time. School is closed for spring conferences, but our playground is always open! Feel free to plan with another parent to watch each others’ children on the playground during your conference times. We ask that you please come without children to conferences so that we can have a private conversation about your student’s progress.

March 30 - April 6 - Spring Break!

Thank you all for joining us for Donuts with Grownups! We hope you felt loved by your sweet Ducks and enjoyed spending a moment in the classroom with them.

All throughout this month we have been discussing our communities. We have talked about the towns each of us live in, the jobs that people do around town, and ways to move around town (transportation). This week our loft turned from doctor’s office to dentist’s office with the addition of a special hippo patient that Aubrey brought to share with the class! It was also fun playing letter Bingo by erasing the “cavity” letters from teeth as the letters were called. We even had some new “teachers” leading circle time for the dinosaurs 🤣

In our sensory table we floated boats & attempted to balance people in them. We also decorated sailboats that we will try to race in the baby pools next week! There was lots of block building including roads and street signs to direct the traffic on the carpet. And it was very exciting painting at the easel with a drill (a paintbrush was taped to the drill)! It made really cool swirly patterns.

Next week, weather permitting, we plan to take a neighborhood walk to expand on our community discussion. Please send your child in comfortable walking shoes on Monday (along with their silly socks 🤪).

At the beginning of the year each child drew a self portrait. Mid-year we like to re-evaluate that skill with another self portrait. This time we thought back to when we made symmetrical snowflakes & noticed how faces are also symmetrical. Everyone then worked with a photo of half of their face to draw the symmetrical side. It was a challenge. Many wanted to draw a whole face on the blank side of their paper. We used erasers for the first time, so we could go back and change things to make them match on both sides. It’s ok to make mistakes and revisions! I like to remind our young Ducks that they are doing their work just like a 4 yr old…and that’s perfect. We are here to learn & grow together. I think everyone was pretty proud of themselves when they were done!

I’ll tell you another thing that they should all be very proud about- this week Miss Vicki began teaching the 4 yr olds how to play handbells. These are not jingle bells. They are color coded & child sized handbells that require special technique and effort to play them correctly. The Yellow Ducks listened attentively to the instructions and were able to play their bells as their colors were called- one hand holding the bell & the other resting behind their back. Miss Vicki has a special song planned for them to learn once they master the technique.

There is one last thing that I’d like to share with you this week. During our letter writing time one of the children noticed that our wipe off markers say Amazon on them. “Aha!! You are reading!”, I said. We talked about recognizing familiar words in the world around us. This is called environmental print. The next day I pulled out pictures of familiar environmental print—Band-Aid, Walmart, Exit, Lego, Paw Patrol—and students then came up and “read” it in the sentence frame: I can read ___. No, they aren’t decoding. This is preschool. The goal isn’t independent reading yet. The goal is building the foundation that makes reading possible. In this lesson, children are learning that print carries meaning, words are read left to right and top to bottom, and words are made up of letters. They begin to understand that the same word looks the same every time you see it, and that environmental print connects language to the real world. They’re building confidence, oral language, visual discrimination, and one-to-one matching between spoken and printed words. Environmental print helps children realize they already recognize words—and that print is everywhere.

Ask your child to read to you as you go about your weekend!

Happy reading!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Spreading Love...and glitter...everywhere!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

School will be closed Mon., February 16th for a teacher workday.

Tuesday, Feb. 17th- DONUTS WITH GROWNUPS- The Yellow Ducks invite you to pop into the classroom at dropoff for a donut and some special surprises they have been preparing for you! Don’t worry- this is a quick celebration. Just stay for a few minutes for a special moment with your child. Please let me know if you WILL NOT be able to come to drop off that day!

Spirit Week has been rescheduled once again (along with Pancakes & Pajamas). The new dates are below:

Monday, Feb 23rd– Silly Socks Day (wear your silly socks)

Tuesday, Feb 24th– Team Tuesday (wear your favorite team’s gear)

Wednesday, Feb 25th- wear your PJs for Pancakes in Pajamas! Our class representatives will send more details. You are invited to sign up to help. You may either provide items or cook/serve/clean-up pancakes.

Thursday, Feb 26th- Glow in the Dark Day (wear white or neon- we will supply glow sticks at school).

Friday, Feb 27th- Freaky Friday (go wild with crazy clothes combos or crazy hair…or both!)

Sunday, March 1 at 8:45 -Preschool Sunday. Your children will sing some special songs near the beginning of the 9:00 worship service and we will celebrate the CUMC Preschool Ministry.

March 11 & 12 - Conferences - A sign up genius link will be sent after 2/16 for you to sign up for a conference time. School is closed for spring conferences, but feel free to plan with a friend to watch each others’ children on the playground during your conferences.

March 30 - April 6 - Spring Break!

YELLOW DUCK NEWS:

The classroom was splattered with hearts, glitter, jewels & doilies this week as our busy Ducks went about creating the most beautiful pictures and cards to give to friends and family. We showed them how half a heart can be drawn on folded paper & then they practiced cutting (which they’re getting quite good at!) to make a symmetrical heart. After that they had free range to use all of the materials to design away! It may seem just like simple fun, but everyone was busy planning design, problem solving how to fit the items they wanted all on the heart, and working fine motor skills as they controlled the amount of glue so as not to make a gooey mess.

And as I promised last week, there was more beading. This time we used elastic string and pony beads. We saw some great patterning happening here, as well as at the table with our heart patterning game.

Our loft has been a very busy doctor’s office! Our Dr. Ducks have been taking notes using the keyboard and writing prescriptions for their patients. They are excellent at bandaging broken arms, legs and heads, too! Since February is Dental Health month, next week it will become a dentist’s office while we learn about taking care of our teeth.

Again, if anyone would like to share a bit about their job with the class, we’d really love to have you visit or even just send something representative of your work for your child to “show & tell” to the class!! It would be a great addition to our community helpers study.

Everyone was VERY excited to share the valentines they brought to school on Thursday!!! They each waited patiently for their turn to pass them out to each of their Duck friends to add to the bags we had created ❤️ It was clear that they were all feeling the power of love.

We finished up making gifts, our expression of love for you, to give you on Tuesday at our Donuts with Grownups celebration. We can’t wait!

We also celebrated Diana’s 1/2 birthday this week. She brought LOTS of beads back from her trip to seee the Mardi Gras parade and shared them very generously with us all. Happy 1/2 Birthday, Diana!!

Well, this email will reach you as we are all dancing away at the Valentine’s Dance! I hope you had a great time, if you were able to make it. The children have been showing us their best dance moves all week in preparation for the party.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

love, Miss Sue & Miss Carina

A special surprise created by Miss Carina’s very talented daughter, Dallyn. Our class in miniature!! The Ducks had fun identifying each of their friends’ dolls and then playing with them in the classroom.

Love is in the Air

foot heart

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Thursday, Feb. 12th- VALENTINE CARD EXCHANGE- Please send in Valentines with your child by Thursday and our ducks will deliver them to one another using decorated bags we’ll make here in the classroom. Have your child sign their names on their Valentine cards and leave the “to” part and envelope, if there is one, blank. This way they can practice writing their own name and not be overwhelmed by writing all of their friends’ names. We have 16 Ducks in our class.

Friday, Feb. 13 from 6:00-7:30pm -FAMILY VALENTINE’S DANCE - A favorite event in Ascension Hall!! Everyone is invited! People have asked what to wear…whatever you like! Some wear jeans and others wear velvet and sparkles…anything in between is OK! Keep in mind, this is a kid-friendly, family event.

School will be closed Mon., February 16th for a teacher workday. We will be prepping for conferences coming March 11th & 12th. A sign up genius link will be sent after 2/16 for you to sign up for a conference time.

Tuesday, Feb. 17th- DONUTS WITH GROWNUPS- The Yellow Ducks invite you to pop into the classroom at dropoff for a donut and some special surprises they have been preparing for you! Don’t worry- this is a quick celebration. Just stay for a few minutes for a special moment with your child. Please let me know if you WILL NOT be able to come to drop off that day!

Spirit Week has been rescheduled once again (along with Pancakes & Pajamas). The new dates are below:

Monday, Feb 23rd– Silly Socks Day (wear your silly socks)

Tuesday, Feb 24th– Team Tuesday (wear your favorite team’s gear)

Wednesday, Feb 25th- wear your PJs for Pancakes in Pajamas! Our class representatives will send more details. You are invited to sign up to help. You may either provide items or cook/serve/clean-up pancakes.

Thursday, Feb 26th- Glow in the Dark Day (wear white or neon- we will supply glow sticks at school).

Friday, Feb 27th- Freaky Friday (go wild with crazy clothes combos or crazy hair…or both!)

YELLOW DUCK NEWS:

Everyone finished creating their own postcard party invitation this week. We took our first short walk to go across the street to the big, blue mailbox around the corner to mail them on Friday. Yours should show up soon at your house! Thank you all for responding so quickly to our permission request this week. You are the best!

The Ducks have been busy writing letters to each other at the writing table and taking turns being the mail carrier to make deliveries around the classroom as well. And they have been caring doctors for people (and for pets!) in the loft this week. This is just the beginning of an exploration of careers and community helpers. We would love to learn something about your jobs, too!! If you would have time to stop by at the beginning or end of our day to show or tell a small bit of what you do (show a piece of equipment you use in your job, teach us a skill, share a story related to your type of job?) we would LOVE to have you! Just let me know, and we can arrange a time.

The children also worked with clay for the first time this week as they began creating special surprises for our Donuts with Grownups party. I think it surprised many how much harder clay was to roll and smoosh than playdough. It offers more resistance, providing a more intense workout for arm as well as hand muscles. Using materials with different properties such as these is also great for giving children proprioceptive feedback (a sense of body position & force).

Our fine motor skills were really put to the test creating heart wands with teeny, tiny beads this week. Everyone loved the beading so much, so there will be more beading projects coming home soon!

Since it was a bit too wet to go on our playground on Wednesday, we decided to go on a scavenger hunt! We read a story about animal tracks and then hunted around the school to find pictures of tracks. We gave each child a partner & they shared a checklist on a clipboard as they hunted. It really was a lesson in cooperation, conflict resolution, turn taking and even empathy (as they patiently helped a partner struggling during their turn). It was also just fun!! We really are hoping for warmer, dry weather next week, though, so we can spend more time outside. 🙏

Have a wonderful weekend with your sweethearts this weekend!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Can we come out of hibernation now…please?

With the weather putting a wrench in our preschool plans this week, there is not much to report. Our Yellow Duck friends were happy to come together for a few short hours to play and begin some prep for our Donuts with Grownups party happening in mid-February.

We also were able to celebrate Emery’s 5th birthday together on Friday! Happy Birthday Emery!

Before we left for the weekend everyone made a prediction (about as accurate as real meteorologists 🤣) about how much snow we might get on Saturday. Hopefully we get to revisit this chart on Monday to see who was the closest to the actual snowfall.

Don’t forget that we will have Spirit Week next week:

Monday, Feb 2nd– Silly Socks Day (wear your silly socks)

Tuesday, Feb 3rd – Team Tuesday (wear your favorite team’s gear)

Wednesday, Feb 4th- wear your PJs for Pancakes in Pajamas! Our class representatives will send more details. You are invited to sign up to help. You may either provide items or cook/serve/clean-up pancakes.

Thursday, Feb 5th- Glow in the Dark Day (wear white or neon- we will supply glow sticks at school).

Friday, Feb 6th- Freaky Friday (go wild with crazy clothes combos or crazy hair…or both!)

Wishing you a warm & safe weekend,

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Winter Wonderland?

Get your calendars out! I have a bunch of dates to add to your calendars, so that you are prepared for the next 2 months. Ready?!

We will have Spirit Week next week (weather permitting 🙏)-

Monday, January 26th – Silly Socks Day (wear your silly socks)

Tuesday, January 27th – Team Tuesday (wear your favorite team’s gear)

Wednesday, Jan. 28th- wear your PJs for Pancakes in Pajamas! Our class representatives will send more details. You are invited to sign up to help. You may either provide items or cook/serve/clean-up pancakes.

Thursday, Jan. 29th- Glow in the Dark Day (wear white or neon- we will supply glow sticks at school).

Friday, Jan. 30th- Freaky Friday (go wild with crazy clothes combos or crazy hair…or both!)

Thurs., Feb. 12th- Please send in Valentines with your child on that day and our ducks will deliver them to one another using their decorated bags we’ll make here in the classroom. Have your child sign their names on their Valentine cards and leave the “to” part and envelope, if there is one, blank. This way they can practice writing their own name and not be overwhelmed by writing all of their friends’ names. We have 16 Ducks in our class.

Friday, Feb. 13 from 6:00-7:30 pm will be our annual 💕 Valentine Dance 💕 . Put on your dancing clothes and shoes! The fellowship hall will be transformed into a party! There will be snacks, a photo booth, and music for dancing! This event is for your whole family. It’s always a favorite!

Mon., Feb. 16th- CCP will be closed for a teacher workday

Tues., Feb. 17th- The Yellow Ducks would like to celebrate our parents. You will receive an invitation to stop in at dropoff for a quick snack and special gift from your child. Please try to plan to have one (or both) parents dropoff that day, if possible.

Looking ahead with spring dates -

March 1 - at 8:45 is Preschool Sunday. The children will sing a special song near the beginning of the 9:00 worship service.

March 11 & 12 - Conferences - School is closed for spring conferences, but feel free to plan ahead with a friend to watch each others’ children on the playground during your conferences.

March 30 - April 6 - Spring Break!

Ok….so now that we have that all straight, here is some Yellow Duck News:

Our multi-step winter forests worked on following directions, tracing triangles, cutting, and drawing diagonal lines (snowflakes)

Our week started with a very exciting new shop opening in the kitchen area- an Ice Cream Shop! There was a line out the door waiting for new flavors to be served. The staff kept busy clearing the cafe table, restocking the ice cream cooler and counting the money at the register. We had a surplus of employees, so the kids decided that we needed a sign up sheet!

We started our multi-day winter forest this day, too. The first step was a paint mixing study. We mixed blue & yellow, green & black, and green & white to make different shades alongside the plain green paint. When they were dry the following day, everyone used cardboard triangles to trace trees onto their paper & cut them out to create a forest. The final step was adding the snow. Making the horizontal, vertical & diagonal lines to create a snowflake is a sneaky way to develop skills for writing 😉. We have also been using chalk at the easel this week to draw. Working on a vertical surface strengthens the shoulder girdle and core, fosters wrist extension for better pencil grip, improves hand-eye coordination, and encourages midline crossing.

On Wednesday a GIGANTIC box appeared in our room! I mean…who can resist a massive box?! So many possibilities. First we tested out how many people could fit inside. We had a whole CLASS in a box (and room for more!). Of course everyone wanted to draw on (and in) it. On Friday it became a snuggly cave with pillows, blanket, bears & books. It has been great fun!

In my rush to write the blog while traveling last week, I neglected to give a shout out to Reese on her 5th Birthday. Welcome to the whole hand club, Reese! 🥳 This week we also celebrated Warren’s 1/2 birthday with some donuts and a story! They are growing up so fast!

Be safe & warm this weekend!!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Snow much fun!

Upcoming Events:

CCP is CLOSED for MLK, Jr. Day on Monday, January 19th

We will have Spirit Week the last week of the month-

Monday, January 26th – Silly Socks Day (wear your silly socks)

Tuesday, January 27th – Team Tuesday (wear your favorite team’s gear)

Wednesday, Jan. 28th- wear your PJs for Pancakes in Pajamas! Our class representatives will send more details. You are invited to sign up to help. You may either provide items or cook/serve/clean-up pancakes.

Thursday, Jan. 29th- Glow in the Dark Day (wear white or neon- we will supply glow sticks at school). IF ANYONE HAPPENS TO HAVE GLOW LAMPS AT HOME WE WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL TO BORROW THEM.

Friday, Jan. 30th- Freaky Friday (go wild with crazy clothes combos or crazy hair…or both!)

LOOKING AHEAD - Our annual 💕 Valentine Dance 💕 will be on Friday, Feb. 13 from 6:00-7:30 pm. Put on your dancing clothes and shoes! The fellowship hall will be transformed into a party! This event is for your whole family. It’s always a favorite!

Yellow Duck News:

We created our own winter wonderland full of snowy castles, polar landscapes & snowmen this week.

 The children had the opportunity to create their own winter castles out of paper cups, paper cones, plastic ice cubes, and “snow”. We had pictures of real and pretend castles hanging by our block area that they could use for reference while building with magna-tiles and our wood blocks as well. Everyone shared some new winter capes in our dress up area. They kept us warm on these cold days!

We learned about the artist Paul Klee who used geometric shapes in his paintings. After looking at his painting Castle in Sun everyone had a chance to make their own shape castle picture.

Our arctic friends were in our sensory table playing in some snow. “Instant Snow Powder” is made of safe and non-toxic superabsorbent polymer, developed specifically to imitate most of the properties of snow. It’s actually similar to what is inside of a diaper 😄. When water is added to the dry mix, it can grow to 100 times its size. It was fun to watch it grow right in our hands before we added it to the sensory bin!

We also learned about symmetry this week. We examined snowflakes and held one up to a mirror to see the mirror image complete the snowflake. It was really fun to make blot paintings by squirting paint on 1/2 our paper and then folding it to create a symmetrical picture! We then read It Looked Like Spilt Milk and imagined what our paintings could be.

We tried finishing drawing some symmetrical shapes such as a heart, house, face and tree on white boards. This was a very tricky concept & will take continued practice.

Some of our friends were very excited (and some confused) to hear Miss Sue’s voice coming from the magic red button that appeared in our room while she was away this week. The new red button plays a recording of our letter of the week, its sound & three words that begin with this sound. The children can press the button, listen and say the sound & words, and give themselves a high-5! This provides a multi-sensory approach to make learning fun for each of our little Ducks 😊

Happy New Year!!

Upcoming Events:

CCP is CLOSED for MLK, Jr. Day on Monday, January 19th

We will have Spirit Week the last week of the month-

Monday, January 26th – Silly Socks Day (wear your silly socks)

Tuesday, January 27th – Team Tuesday (wear your favorite team’s gear)

Wednesday, Jan. 28th- Pancakes in Pajamas Watch for more details about how to help with this event coming soon from our Room Reps. But for now, please mark your calendars to send your child in their pajamas on that day!

Thursday, Jan. 29th- Glow in the Dark Day (wear white- we will supply glow sticks at school)

Friday, Jan. 30th- Freaky Friday (go wild with crazy clothes combos or crazy hair…or both!)

The Yellow Duck News:

Welcome back! We hope everyone had great family time and made some wonderful memories during our holiday break. We were happy to see our Ducks eager to be back with us and smiling at drop off on Monday. How did they all seem to grow so much in just 2 weeks??!

It wasn’t a particularly wintry week, but since it is wintertime we brought the chill into our classroom. Our sensory table was also a science center as the children played with penguins & polar bears trapped in ice. At first the Yellow Ducks just enjoyed sliding the penguins down foil ramp slides. They had races & experimented with ways to make them slide faster. Then someone had an interesting question- how can we get these animals out of the ice?? That was the problem…what was the solution? They tried banging them and chipping at them, but it wasn’t very successful. A child suggested warm water, so everyone took turns carefully carrying water from the sink to give the penguins a warm bath and melt them out. Yay! Success! The next day we used eyedroppers to spray the warm water on a new batch of frozen penguins (we are always working on our fine motor control!), and we even experimented with salt on the ice to see if that would melt it. This was a perfect example of play based learning! ❤️

We also had frozen paint popsicles to paint with this week, but the children discovered what a Pinterest fail is 🤣 Sometimes teachers’ ideas just don’t work out. That’s ok, because the Ducks are learning to be flexible and deal with disappointments. The children decided to let the popsicles thaw, take them to the easel and use paintbrushes instead. Maybe we’ll try a different method soon to see if we can create ice paint another way.

This week we also wrote our names on paper snowballs and made snowmen ⛄️. Everyone counted how many letters they had in their name. Catherine had the most with nine letters! Math and handwriting practice, all in one activity.

We also enjoyed drawing letters in shaving cream “snow” on mirrors, playing the Plus & Minus tug-of-war game, and creating designs with Lite-Brite.

At the end of the week we celebrated Mary’s 1/2 Birthday! Happy 4 1/2 to Mary!!

Have a wonderful weekend with your Yellow Ducks,

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Merry Christmas!

What a joyful, fun week for the Yellow Ducks! Our room reps, along with help from all of you, gave the children their best day ever- full of candies and icing and fun with friends as they decorated their “gingerbread” trees. Thank you all for making their sweet dreams come true! (and sorry about the bit of a sugar rush they may have arrived home with 🤪).

We are so proud of our Ducks who have practiced for weeks learning Christmas songs to share with you at our concert ❤️ They smiled, sang beautifully and were the epitome of cuteness! Thank you for coming and filling our chapel with family and friends. I know that they felt your love and pride in them.

And another thank you… Miss Carina and I would like to extend our thanks for all of your thoughtful (and many tasty) gifts. We are humbled by your generosity. We are grateful for the cards and drawings from our Ducks, and the kind, heartfelt words of encouragement and thanks from you. And again, we thank you for the gift of sharing your children with us. Each day brings wonders, adventure, and best of all, love. Can work get any better than that?!!

We wish you lots of special moments with your young children as the holidays approach. We know all too well how quickly these years pass. Take a moment to snuggle them close, put the hustle & bustle on hold and see the magic through their eyes. Merry Christmas to you all!

We’ll see you back on January 5th!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

“GINGERBREAD” DECORATING PARTY- Tuesday, Dec. 16th Our room reps, Carol Ann & Carrie have organized a fun party for the class. We have received most of our supplies and are excited to make our “gingerbread” trees! Thank you all for helping to make this fun event happen!

PRESCHOOL CHRISTMAS CONCERT - Thursday, Dec. 18 we will have our Preschool Christmas Concert at 9:30 in the Sanctuary. It will only last about half an hour, and then we will say our good-byes for the holidays right after the concert. Please park, bring your child to the classroom at 9:00, and have a seat in the Sanctuary. (Since the whole school will be here at once, you may need to park in the municipal lots.) This is our Christmas gift of love to you! We hope you can come!

CHRISTMAS VACATION- December 19-January 2 School will be closed for the holidays. We reopen Jan. 5th.

Last week in the Yellow Duck class the children made elves. Everyone had fun finding their elf hiding somewhere in the classroom come Tuesday morning when we returned from our snow day and delays.

This week we practiced size order, positional words and patterning as we played and created. We have a set of Santa nesting dolls that have been fun to take apart, play with and nest them together again as we learn about size order. We also have many sizes of jingle bells hiding in the sensory table to sort into cups: small, medium, and large. In small groups we worked to order paper strips from largest to smallest to build a Christmas tree & decorate it with jeweled ornaments

There were beads to make candy canes at our fine motor table. We noticed most of our Ducks were doing a great job making AB patterns, so it was time to introduce more complicated AAB and ABC patterning. We practiced at circle time using some Christmas pictures and then again with the beads at the table. Next week there will be some more items added to make necklaces as we continue working on this skill.

At circle time on Tuesday our advent book of the day was The Gingerbread Girl. After the story we passed out gingerbread cookies and used them to learn positional words. The cookie went above, under and behind our heads, far, near, beside and finally INSIDE! Crunch! 🤣

At our writing table this week, we added some wrapping paper, small boxes and tape. Our little gift givers worked hard folding and wrapping paper around their creations and applying tape correctly (fine motor skills activated!). It is so sweet watching as they hand their friend the gift they made or sneak it into a friend’s cubby.

We celebrated Ayzal’s 1/2 Birthday on Wednesday with a treat and a visit from his sister. Ayzal was so excited to have his sister read the class a story! Everyone listened with rapt attention to hear someone not that much older than themselves (8) reading to us.

I also wanted to share with you how much the children love to have a moment one on one with Pastor Lee. At the end of every chapel he invites them to come up to ask a question or share comment with him. We love that Pastor Lee is always here ready to listen to the children.

Finally, on Friday we had the joyous surprise of snowfall during our classtime. We quickly pivoted from our schedule (we are learning to be flexible…especially on Flexible Fridays when there are less children in school) and went outside to try to catch snowflakes on our tongues!!

Wishing you a weekend of Christmas joy with your Yellow Duck,

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Focus & Fun...are they both possible at Christmas time?

“GINGERBREAD” DECORATING PARTY- Tuesday, Dec. 16th Our room reps, Carol Ann & Carrie have organized a fun party for the class. A Sign-Up Genius was emailed to everyone earlier this week, but there are still a couple spots that need to be filled, if you haven’t had a chance to take a look at it. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084CACA62DA3F58-60803576-yellow#/ Thank you all for helping to make this fun event happen!

PRESCHOOL CHRISTMAS CONCERT - Thursday, Dec. 18 we will have our Preschool Christmas Concert at 9:30 in the Sanctuary. It will only last about half an hour, and then we will say our good-byes for the holidays right after the concert. Please park, bring your child to the classroom at 9:00, and have a seat in the Sanctuary. (Since the whole school will be here at once, you may need to park in the municipal lots.) This is our Christmas gift of love to you! We hope you can come!

CHRISTMAS VACATION- December 19-January 2 School will be closed for the holidays. We reopen Jan. 5th.

Our advent countdown- each day we unwrap a book

The Yellow Ducks classroom is abuzz with holiday joy and energy. Our kitchen is a Christmas bakery, there’s delicious smelling gingerbread playdough to roll & press, new Christmas themed stickers to add to our writing center for creating cards and pictures, and our own little tree to decorate (and re-decorate). We even painted & decorated little tree ornaments to bring home to add to our home Christmas trees!

In addition, we have been exploring with magnets in our science center, playing vet in the loft, and learning about the letter Rr.

We practiced numeral recognition and one to one counting in a game as we picked an Uno card and moved along the gumdrop path to get the Gingerbread Man to his house. Later, the Yellow Ducks were invited to play the game independently and mark their path with dot markers as they counted.

All of this excitement has certainly increased the energy in the classroom. We spent some time working on harnessing our focus. At circle time we took turns hiding our eyes as one child took a jingle bell. Then everyone pretended to shake a bell cupped in their hands as the child listened carefully to find who really held the bell. We played Bingo and had to carefully distinguish similar pictures on our cards and pay attention to see if we had 4 in a row yet! Later in the week, we worked on making elves. It was a multi-day project that involved following step-by-step directions. The Yellow Ducks laughed as they turned themselves into the Elf on the Shelf!

It is a balancing act at this time of year, but our little friends are learning that we have time for both joy and calm as we celebrate the holiday season.

Wishing you a fun weekend with your little Ducks,

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

PS- we could use a few more boxes of tissues for the class ❤️

Happy Thanksgiving!!

CCP WILL BE CLOSED FOR THANKSGIVING BREAK all next week, November 24-28.

PRESCHOOL CHRISTMAS PROGRAM- Please reserve Thurs, Dec. 18 at 9:30 for our annual CCP Christmas Program in the Sanctuary. Each class will sing a song or two and we will tell the Christmas story. It is our gift to you! Bring your child to the classroom at 9:00 and go find a seat in the sanctuary. We will begin at 9:30. Please keep in mind that you may need to park in the municipal lots around Southern Village since the whole school will be assembled.

We had a busy week talking about so many wonderful foods and all of the other things we are thankful to have. The Yellow Ducks made their own Easy Reader books about food. We talked about food groups and then cut out pictures of our favorites to add to the books. Thank you all for sending a piece of your child’s favorite fruit, also! Our little chefs really enjoyed using the peeler/corer and our montessori knives to prepare fruit salad to share at lunch. Did you know that they loved to help in the kitchen so much?

At our easel, we used giant feathers instead of paintbrushes to paint and mix colors. At our fine motor center, Ducks threaded beads on skewers to make feathers for our pumpkin-turned-turkey. There was some amazing pattern work happening here! And in our journals everyone traced carefully around their hand and created a handprint turkey!

We learned the letter Ii this week. It is one of the letters we write in red on our chart, because it makes two sounds (long & short Ii). It was tricky thinking of words with those beginning sounds, but there were some favorites….like Ice cream! 🍦😋 We also learned about another artist- Michelangelo. We saw pictures of a building he designed, the statue of David (cropped) and the Sistine Chapel. Our little Duck artists tried their hand at “painting the ceiling”. Well…drawing upside down under the table, because we decided that paint probably required goggles to keep it out of his eyes and also, we can’t reach the ceiling!

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family. We are so grateful to get to spend our workdays with your sweet Yellow Ducks! The daily hugs, laughter, challenges, accomplishments, and smiles make this the best job, and your support of what we do here makes CCP the best school!

Wishing you full bellies and happy hearts 🦃❤️ Happy Thanksgiving!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Turkey Season

Wednesday, Nov. 19th- please SEND ONE PIECE OF FRUIT (or a few-not a whole container- if they choose berries) with your child. We will work together to cut up & share our fruit in a Friendship Fruit Salad during lunch.

Thanksgiving Break - 11/24-11/28 - CCP is closed.

Please mark your December calendar…We will have our Preschool Christmas Concert on the last day of preschool before Christmas. It will be on Thursday , December 18 at 9:30am in the Sanctuary. We will sing a few songs and tell the Christmas story. We will have our program at 9:30 and then everyone will go home with their families after the program.

The turkeys have come to roost in the Yellow Duck classroom! This week each child created some very unique turkeys. They used playdough, feathers, wiggly eyes, and stick or pipecleaner legs. Each turkey had their very own photo shoot 🤣 The turkeys were FULL of personality! Stop by our hallway to get a closer look at your child’s turkey. They are guaranteed to make you smile!

We also learned some turkey songs- A Turkey is a Funny Bird and Albuquerque Turkey- and practiced number sense as we matched feathers to the correct number turkey.

We cleared the shelves in our grocery market. Maybe the Yellow Ducks thought they were playing Supermarket Sweep! 🤣🤣 We talked about everyones favorite foods and used real veggies to make prints at the easel. Painting with broccoli trees & making corn “donut” circles was especially fun.

In addition to working with numbers, we have continued our letter study with Ee this week. We practiced making just 3 horizontal lines on uppercase E and “a line across & then a c” to make lowercase e. Everyone enjoys using the whiteboards and wipeoff markers to practice writing!

We had a fun puppet show from Mr. Steve & Milo (the puppet) on Monday. Milo read some poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. He can do a really silly trick with his hair, too.

It was a shorter, but busy week. We can’t believe it is almost the holidays!

We have had many stuffy & runny noses and are adding some extra steps to our cleaning. If your child has had an especially runny nose, we’d appreciate if you could send an extra box of tissues as we’re running low. Thank you!!

Have a wonderful weekend with your Yellow Duck!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Let's Go Outside!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Tuesday, Nov. 11 is Veteran’s Day and CCP will be closed. Thankful for all of our veterans!

Thanksgiving Break - 11/24-11/28 - CCP is closed.

Please mark your December calendar…We will have our Preschool Christmas Concert on the last day of preschool before Christmas. It will be on Thursday , December 18 at 9:30am in the Sanctuary. We will sing a few songs and tell the Christmas story. We will have our program at 9:30 and then everyone will go home with their families after the program. I will provide more details as we get closer, but for now, please mark your calendar for this special day.

We had an exciting visit with the Chester Fire Dept. on Monday. We had a chance to see all of the gear that the firefighters would be wearing if they ever have to come to our rescue. We also were allowed to climb INTO the firetruck. Boy is it BIG! The Yellow Ducks worked together to make a huge thank you card for the firefighters after the visit.

We followed up the fire dept. visit with the story Alphabet Rescue and practiced finding the matching upper & lower case letters on our magnet board. We made fire pictures and worked on identifying letters & building our names to create the ladders.

We are LOVING the beautiful Fall weather we’ve been having and enjoying the connection with nature that the changing leaves brings- the beautiful colors, rustling sound & earthy scent of the fallen leaves, and the joy of jumping in piles and twirling through leaf storms. It is good for everyone’s soul. Reese brought a bright yellow leaf to show us on our Spirit Days, and we went for a walk to find the tree. It is a gingko tree on Kildaire Rd. next to the school. Each Yellow Duck was excited to get their own yellow leaf. Treasures abound in nature.

Writing Ss, our letter of the week, in blazing yellow!

There has also been a lot of building going on in the classroom this week due to two new materials. Block building is one of our favorite things in preschool because it fosters comprehensive development, including cognitive skills like problem-solving and critical thinking, physical skills such as fine and gross motor control, socio-emotional skills like cooperation and negotiation, and early academic such as spatial awareness.

We brought out a giant box of 1000 blocks (yes, we compared the number on the box to 10 and 100 & this definitely had an extra zero!). However, in this box all of the blocks are exactly the same size & shape. The Ducks had to use some creativity and problem solving to figure out how to construct with these. There were some amazing towers, cities, and zoos built this week. We also had SuperPuffs at the table to build some colorful creations. SuperPuffs stick together when you wet the ends. We loved seeing Yellow Ducks making patterns and letters along with their designs!

Thank you all for sending packages for our Grocery Market this week. The children have had fun playing supermarket sweep and then re-stocking the shelves 🤣 If you have any more empty boxes, I believe some of ours may need replacing at this point!

Have a wonderful weekend with your sweet Yellow Ducks!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Halloween Fun!

FIRE TRUCK - The Chapel Hill Fire Dept will bring their truck for a visit on Monday , November 3rd! Usually the fire fighters show us how they look & sound when wearing all their gear. Then they take us, class by class, to look at the truck!

CCP will have SPIRIT DAYS on November 5 & 6. Wear your school shirt or class color (yellow) on either or BOTH of these days : )

BOOK DRIVE - A former CCP parent, Heather Bochicco, works with Chatham Reads to gather gently used or new books for children in Chatham County that may not have easy access to books. To help put more books in the hands of children in our area, Heather has placed a bin under the Blue Whale classroom to collect some books. Thank you for considering donating to this cause during the month of November!

CLASSROOM DONATIONS WANTED!!

We would like to transform our kitchen area into a grocery market in November, but need to stock the shelves! Send in your recycling. Instead of throwing food packaging into the can at home, you can bring it to the Duck Market (for example, cereal boxes, berry containers, snack boxes…if you have the can opener that pops the lid off instead of making a sharp edge, we’d LOVE to have some sturdy cans). You can send a couple items as you use them throughout the month & we will add them to the market. Thanks for your help!

We had a busy week of Halloween fun! We began by decorating our room for the holiday. With the decorating supplies set out before them, the Yellow Ducks went to work with tape, streamers, spiderwebs, etc. They seemed to truly enjoy having complete autonomy in deciding how THEIR classroom got decorated.

Later, the witches & wizards were experimenting with baking soda, vinegar & soapy water to create potions in the sensory table. They worked with pipettes and squeeze bottles to find the right combination of ingredients to make their cauldrons of eyeballs & spiders bubble over as they cackled with glee!

The class then voted on a face for our jack-o-lantern and learned about making tally marks. In the end the happy face had the most votes. Most of the Ducks enjoyed helping clean the slimy goo & seeds out of the pumpkin and gave instructions to the pumpkin carver (me 🙋‍♀️). We turned off the lights during lunch to enjoy the glow of our happy pumpkin 🎃 .

In between all of this holiday madness, we learned a new letter, too!! H is for Halloween, of course. We were impressed with how many other words the Ducks thought of that had the H sound. They really enjoy adding words to our Letter board as they think of them throughout the week.

We also learned about our next artist this week- Jackson Pollock. We read Jackson Pollock Splashed Paint and Wasn’t Sorry. One friend told us he saw an elephant among the splashes, others thought it just looked like fun. It may be time to go visit an art museum to get a 4 yr old’s perspective on your favorite paintings! Everyone used squeeze bottles to make splashes of paint on paper and used straws to blow and splatter the paint across their paper. When the paintings were dry, wiggly eyes, foam shapes and lines were added to turn the splashes into monsters.

Our Halloween Parade & party were a blast! The skies finally cleared and everyone was happy to walk through the village showing off their great costumes. Thanks to our wonderful room reps, Carol Ann & Carrie, and all of your generous donations, we had lots of yummy treats, played games with spiders & eyeballs and decorated haunted house lanterns at our party afterward.

Please remember that while taking pictures of school events is encouraged, and hopefully enjoyed within your family, many of our families choose to keep their children’s images private. Please refrain from posting photos on social media that include children other than your own. Cropping is a great way to prevent this from happening. Thank you!!

Happy Trick-or-Treating! And may the force be with you through the time change this weekend 🤪

Wishing you well,

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Spooky Season

HALLOWEEN PARADE on OCT. 30TH- We hope you can join us for our Halloween Costume Parade around Southern Village.  Please send your child to school in their costume and drop them off at the classroom at our usual 9:00 a.m. time.  The Yellow Ducks will meet families outside in front of the church at 9:25 a.m. on Oct. 30th and start our parade with the Blue Whales class (please note that the parade is NOT on the 31st!! We will do it on Thurs. since the Blue Whales are not in school on Friday).  Families are welcome to dress up too.  Please help your child change out of their costume after the parade before you leave.  If you are OK with them wearing their costume all day (and they will be able to move & function) that is fine too, but we will be our normal messy selves and play outside that day.  Our room reps, Carol Ann & Carrie, have organized a fun party for the children in our classroom with treats, art activity and game after the parade. Thank you all for donating!

FIRE TRUCK - The Chapel Hill Fire Dept will bring their truck for a visit on Monday , November 3rd! Usually the fire fighters show us how they look & sound when wearing all their gear. Then they take us, class by class, to look at the truck!

CCP will have SPIRIT DAYS on November 5 & 6. Wear your school shirt or class color (yellow).

Picture Day resulted in some of the cutest pictures I’ve seen! But…our funny face class photo literally made me laugh out loud. These Ducks are having so much fun and have truly bonded with each other now.

This week we have had a focus on shapes while we have some Halloween fun 🎃 We practiced drawing a triangle & square on the whiteboard. We also painted black bats and cut triangles to make their wings. They are hanging upside down, as bats do, in our window. We chose shapes to cut out and turned them into monsters in our journals. The children thought up some silly & spooky stories about the monster they created, too. We even read Spookley the Square Pumpkin and talked about how each of us is different (just like the shapes). At circle time we compared some shapes to solids. This week we discussed the differences between a triangle & a cone or pyramid and between a circle & sphere. We noticed shapes are flat and solids take up space & can be held.

Our loft became a campsite this week…Camp Quackiwaka! Everyone enjoyed building a campfire, roasting marshmallows, using the flashlights, and most of all having a turn to play some tunes on the guitar. Our new sign up sheet has worked very well & the Ducks are learning to manage their turns on their own.

It will be nice & cool this weekend….perfect weather to start a fire and roast some REAL marshmallows!

Have a great weekend with your Yellow Ducks,

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

Fine Motor Halloween Fun

FALL PHOTOS - The Yellow Ducks photo day is scheduled for Wed., October 22nd with photographer David Gellatly outside under the bell tower. You are also invited to have a family photo taken on Saturday, Oct. 25. The photos will be outside in the church yard. Click here to sign up for a convenient time slot.

HALLOWEEN PARADE on OCT. 30TH- We hope you can join us for our Halloween Costume Parade around Southern Village.  Please send your child to school in their costume and drop them off at the classroom at our usual 9:00 a.m. time.  The Yellow Ducks will meet families outside in front of the church at 9:25 a.m. on Oct. 30th and start our parade with the Blue Whales class (please note that the parade is NOT on the 31st!! We will do it on Thurs. since the Blue Whales are not in school on Friday).  Families are welcome to dress up too.  Please help your child change out of their costume after the parade before you leave.  If you are OK with them wearing their costume all day (and they will be able to move & function) that is fine too, but we will be our normal messy selves and play outside that day.  We will party with the children in our classroom with treats, art activity and game after the parade. The party sign up request that was sent out by Carol Ann & Carrie was quickly fulfilled! We appreciate all of your donations.

FIRE TRUCK - The Chapel Hill Fire Dept will bring their truck for a visit on Monday , November 3rd! Usually the fire fighters show us how they look & sound when wearing all their gear. Then they take us, class by class, to look at the truck!

We started our week with some Monday Math- measuring monsters and a roll & count game of kids vs. teachers (whose ice cream cone would get colored in first?), as well as a few rounds of the Sneaky Snacky Squirrel game. The Yellow Ducks are good sports & give each other high 5s at the end of their games.

But our real goal this week was working those hand muscles! We rolled & cut pumpkin pie scented playdough to create pumpkins and monsters. Miss Carina read Room on the Broom and the Yellow Ducks threaded beads on to their own brooms. Everyone drew and cut out their own pumpkin and gave it a jack-o-lantern face complete with teeth they also cut. Most exciting of all, the children got to apply tattoos ALL over the pumpkins they brought to decorate! They were peeling the plastic off the tattoo & squeezing sponges to apply them on their own, and they loved it!!

Is there room on the broom for a bead?

Is there room for another friend??

I want to thank you all for taking the time to meet with me for conferences. It was so nice to connect with each of you and share insights on your child. Carina & I are enjoying getting to know them and look forward to watching them bloom & grow 😊. I was very glad to be back with them in my happy place on Thursday. Being out of the classroom is a bit unsettling to me, but your Yellow Ducks are learning to be flexible and enjoyed meeting Miss Melissa & having Miss Vicki in class with them!

We hope you are enjoying a nice long Fall weekend with your families!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina

UPCOMING EVENTS:

*BRING A PIE SIZED PUMPKIN (about 6” size) ON MONDAY!!* 🎃

CONFERENCES are this week on October 14th &15th. Each conference will be about 20 minutes. Ms. Vicki & Ms. Melissa will be working with Ms. Carina in the classroom with the children, and I will be meeting with you across the street. Just park in the lot at 105 Market Street & enter through the door on that side of the building. You will find me in the conference room to the right. I look forward to chatting with you about your children!

TEACHER’S PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT- School will be closed on Friday, Oct 17th

FALL PHOTOS - The Yellow Ducks photo day is scheduled for Wed., October 22nd with photographer David Gellatly outside under the bell tower.

HALLOWEEN- We hope you can join us for our Halloween Costume Parade around Southern Village.  Please send your child to school in their costume and drop them off at the classroom at our usual 9:00 a.m.  The Yellow Ducks will meet families outside in front of the church at 9:25 a.m. and start our parade with the Blue Whales class.  Families are welcome to dress up too.  Please help your child change out of their costume after the parade before you leave.  If you are OK with them wearing their costume all day (and they will be able to move & function) that is fine too, but we will be our normal messy selves and play outside that day.  We will party with the children in our classroom with treats, art activity and game after the parade. Our room reps, Carol Ann & Carrie sent an email with a link to sign up to contribute to our party. We appreciate your help!

(**on that note, I need to make a correction to last week’s blog. The Blankenships, Lilly’s parents, gifted us with our taco set. We have enjoyed it so much!! Thank you ❤️)

We had our first fire drill this week! After reading our CCP Fire Drill book everyone was prepared and knew what to do!

We also celebrated another addition to the Whole Hand Club. Happy 5th Birthday to John!!

This week we continued to discuss Autumn. We had many beautiful leaves to compare and used some to make our own leaf creatures similar to the ones we saw in the story Leaf Man. The Ducks squeeeeeezed tubes of glitter glue to add sparkle to the fall leaves they painted last week and worked together to add more decorations to the giant pumpkin we now have hanging above our writing table. We also read the story The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. We moved our bodies along with the movements in the story and then used felt pieces to retell the story and build the scarecrow. Following the sequence of a story helps with comprehension, recognizing patterns and understanding the components of a story (beginning, middle & end).

The taco truck remained open all week- no health violations! Upstairs in the loft we opened a Lego Lounge. We began using a sign up sheet for time in the loft. The kids wrote their names on the list and waited for a turn without complaints. Everyone appreciated this fair approach and respected it. At the same time we were sneaking in some writing practice (and on a vertical surface!).

Our letter of the week was Tt, and our turtle puppet was seen all around the room. The Yellow Ducks thought of many words beginning with the Tt sound. We practiced making our names this week, too. Learning the letters in their names is always the best place to start with preschoolers. Most of our 4 yr olds recognize their name in print and can rote spell their names when asked. However, they may still struggle to differentiate the individual letters. We practiced finding and naming letters as we built a name rainbow!

Have a cozy weekend with your Yellow Ducks!

Miss Sue & Miss Carina