Merry Merry!

Wow! What a whirlwind 2 weeks that it has been!! First off, let me thank each of you for your kindness and generosity. I was overwhelmed by the sweet gifts that you gave me and contributed towards for Christmas. You all are too kind. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness. I look forward to doing some shopping, eating some great meals, and just relaxing at home thanks to all of your thoughtfulness!! I truly am thankful for all of you!

Last week feels like forever ago- however I have to say that the Christmas program was just wonderful! I am a little biased, but I do think that our class, acting as the live nativity, just made the program. They were all so sweet and did such a wonderful job walking down the aisle and singing their songs. I enjoyed seeing so many of you there for the program and for the brunch as well! We had craft day last Friday and with the help of Christian's mom, Janie, we were able to get some fun crafts accomplished. Hopefully they all made it home with your child today in their Christmas craft bag.

This week we have been reading all kinds of Christmas stories, including the real Christmas story from the Bible. Don't forget (like I did today for my own daughter!) that tomorrow is pajama day and we'll be watching the Polar Express. We will not eat lunch at school- just a special snack. We dismiss at 12:00 and there is no aftercare tomorrow.

If I don't see you tomorrow, let me just take this opportunity to say Merry Christmas to you and your family!! I hope that everyone has a very blessed holiday with friends and family. See you in January!

Christmas is coming!

Hello All! I hope everyone is starting to feel the Christmas spirit! I know that I am- especially around here with all of the excitement in the air!
We've had a great week this week as we have begun to prepare for the birth of Christ! We have been working very hard on our program for next week. Our children will be performing on both Monday and Tuesday even though we will only do brunch on Tuesday. Please arrive a little before 10:30 on Tuesday to insure that you get a good spot in the sanctuary. Our class will act as the live nativity so they have a very important roll and you won't want to miss it! They are asking that all children wear Christmas attire, however, we will all be in costume. So just make sure that they are not dressed too warmly- we don't want anyone passing out up on stage!

We are headed out today to Ridgeview Nursing Home to sing some Christmas carols with the residents there. I know that it will be a very special time. My own grandmother, who is almost 91, has recently moved in at Ridgeview, so it really will be extra special!

Thank you for the hard work on the adorable Christmas trees that the kids have been decorating. If you haven't sent yours in by today, please do so by Monday. We are hanging them in the hall and they have already been quite a hit as others have walked by and admired how creative and different they all are.

We have been studying the letter J this week and have continued to work on our handwriting. November journals also came home this week. I know that your children have enjoyed showing those to you. And hopefully the Christmas chains made it home in one piece this week. I know that my own children always love hanging those in a special spot as we tear one off each day and count down the days until Christmas.

Next Friday will be our Christmas craft day. So far I have one, maybe two moms that are able to help. It would be great if I could have one more helper that day. I am planning on making four different ornaments/crafts with the children and I really could use lots of extra hands to help get those done!

Two weeks from yesterday- Thursday, December 16 will be our Christmas party. If you'd like to help or have ideas, please contact Libba Smith (Leyton's mom).
Our last day before the holidays is Friday, December 17. We will dismiss at 12:00 on that day. That will also be a pajama day and we'll watch the Polar Express and eat popcorn.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend!

A Time of Thanksgiving

"You are my God, and I will give you thanks; you are my God, and I will exalt you. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever." Psalm 118:28-29

As we approach Thanksgiving this week, I want to take this opportunity to let you all know how thankful I am for you and for your children. I love teaching your sweet babies every day. Their smiling faces, happy attitudes, and funny things they say, make my job one of such joy! I pray that over the Thanksgiving holiday this week, we will all have a chance to reflect on the many blessings that God has given to us including our families, our children, our church and school, and our Savior who loves us so much.

Last week was a full one to say the least! Thank you all so much for coming in for conferences. I enjoyed seeing you all and having an opportunity to talk with you about your child's growth. I'm so proud of the hard work they have all been doing and continue to do!

We had a wonderful time on our field trip to the Lovelady Center last Wednesday. Our boys and girls made a turkey craft with the boys and girls who are living and in the school at Lovelady. It was a great time interacting and sharing with one another. I've attached a few pictures for you to enjoy as well. We will go back to Lovelady in the spring to visit the children again.

We talked all about Thanksgiving last week and will continue tomorrow and Tuesday. We learned about the first Thanksgiving and have read many stories about Thanksgiving. We also wrote about things that God has blessed us with in which we are thankful.

I hope that everyone has a nice and relaxing Thanksgiving holiday! I will see you all back at CASA on Monday, November 29!

Nursery Rhymes

Hello All- It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted- so I apologize for the delay. Last week was crazy busy with the Open House and Spaghetti supper as well as the Harvest Hoedown on Friday! It was a non-stop, super fun week! I enjoyed seeing so many of you at Open House and I know that the kids loved showing you around. Thanks also to the many of you who helped with the Harvest Hoedown and to those who sent in food items and goodies for the children to enjoy. I think maybe we are starting to wind down from the sugar highs.... maybe:)

We finished up our Fall unit last week and started with Nursery Rhymes this week. Some of the familiar nursery rhymes that we've read this week include, Hickory Dickory Dock, Hey Diddle Diddle, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Star Light Star Bright. We have focused a lot on rhyming this week as well as word families. We've discussed elements of a story such as beginning, middle, and end as well as characters in a story. We started learning about telling time this week to the hour and will have some fun tomorrow experimenting with little clocks.

Reese was our star student last week and Cecil has been our star student this week. It has been lots of fun learning more about our friends! We will continue our unit on Nursery Rhymes next week.

**REMINDERS**

• No school next Thursday, November 11 in observance of Veteran's Day.
• I will do conferences the week of November 15-19. I will be sending home reminders and your conference time next week.
• We will be taking a mission field trip to The Lovelady Center on Wednesday, November 17.
• School pictures will also be the week of November 15-19. Our class will take pictures on that Friday the 19th, unless you have a younger child in the program. Otherwise they will have their picture made on the day of the youngest sibling. However, if your youngest sibling is scheduled for that Wednesday, they will take them on Friday with our class since we will be at Lovelady Center on Wednesday- did you get all that??? I will send reminders on that Monday of your child's day!
• Please return the portrait permission slip back even if you don't think you'll want pictures. This is just a permission for them to take the picture and they will make a composite for CASA.

Think that will do it for now! Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the nice cool weather! My baby is turning 3 this weekend- where does the time go?

Pumpkin TIme!

What a fun week it's been! Old Baker Farm was a blast! The kids had so much fun riding on the hayride and picking pumpkins from a real pumpkin patch. We also picked cotton, pet lots of farm animals, ran through a maze of hay, and had lunch in the loft of an old barn! Thanks to all of the moms who joined us too!

On Tuesday, we visited the pumpkin patch at Asbury. We listened to a story, got cool pumpkin tattoos, and got to choose another pumpkin. We're saving those to decorate during our Harvest Hoedown next week! The pumpkins purchased from our church go towards missions for the youth. If your family doesn't have a great pumpkin to carve yet, they have lots of pretty ones to choose from!

Jackson Bradley was our Star Student this week. We loved learning more about him from his great poster and from the show and tell that he brought to share with us. We also celebrated Leyton's birthday this week. We enjoyed a special treat of pizza and cupcakes on Wednesday to celebrate!

We wrote about pumpkins this week and made some funky witches too. We learned how to play new math games this week called "Path games." This is basically any board game where the players take turns rolling a die and moving along the path with their marker. It is a great counting game and teaches one to one correspondence. Any game such as Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders is great for reinforcing these skills. We continue to work on properly forming letters as well as sounding out words phonetically with inventive spelling. The homework pages that will occasionally come home will be for practice and reinforcement of these skills. There is no grade attached to this homework- just good practice! I have also worked with small groups this week specifically on initial sounds, ending sounds, rhyming words, and word families.

***I am going to do some fun M&M and Candy Corn math next week. If anyone would like to send in a bag of the harvest colored M&M's or a bag of the harvest mix Candy Corns, please email me and let me know!***

Don't forget... Open House/ Spaghetti Supper next Tuesday evening, October 26 at 5:00! Please plan to join us and take a look around our classroom to see all of the hard work your children have been doing!

Harvest Hoedown next Friday , October 29 from 11:00-1:00. Parents are welcome to come. Children dress in your cowboy/ cowgirl attire! No need to send a lunch on this day.

Have a great weekend!

Fall is Here!

We have had fun this week as we have begun our Fall unit! Although it has been a short week, we have stayed busy! We have read some stories about the season of fall and we made a list of all of the things that remind us of fall- such as falling leaves, cooler weather, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. The paints were out in full force this week as we used water color to paint fall leaves and bright orange to make a huge jack-o-lantern. We also made torn paper pumpkins this week too. We're getting our classroom very festive for the month of October!

We focused on the letter L this week and the children have been so excited to point out L's that they find all around! We are continuing our October journals and I am already seeing a lot of progress as they are becoming more and more independent in sounding out words on their own. Please continue to work on writing both upper and lowercase alphabet letters at home as well as writing our names correctly- with a capital letter at the beginning and the rest lowercase.

**Don't forget**

• Field trip to Old Baker Farm on Monday! Please have your children to school between 8:30 and 8:45 on Monday morning. Wear CASA shirts! Pack sack lunches and an extra water. Return permission slips and $7 by tomorrow.
• Tuesday, October 26- CASA Open House from 5:00-6:00 and Spaghetti supper and silent auction at 6:00. Please return your reservation and dinner money if you and your family are planning on staying that evening after Open House.
• Harvest Hoedown- Friday, October 29! This is a fun day for the kids to celebrate! They should wear their cowboy and cowgirl attire for this day- no other Halloween costumes please. Be looking for information from our room moms about items to be sent in and activities planned for this day.

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the fall weather!

A week full of fun!

This has been such a fun week and a busy one too!! We have continued our unit on Fairy Tales and have continued focusing on bears. We read Corduroy, This is The Bear, Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You See, Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See, and Corduroy Goes to School. We talked about parts of a story- beginning, middle, and end. We also focused a lot this week on rhyming words and on clapping out syllables in words.
Our letter of the week was B and the kids came up with so many B words. They have also been pointing them out all week around the room and around our school.
We did some fun math activities this week as well. We used three different kinds of Teddy Grahams to sort and distinguish most and least. And then we got to have a yummy snack too!
We had a blast having bear day today. I loved all of the different kinds of bears that the kids brought in to share. We compared similarities and differences in all of our bears. We lined them up on the floor and sorted them by bears who were wearing outfits and bears who were not wearing outfits. Then the children did their own graphs comparing the bears. We colored pictures of our bears and came up with special words that described our bears.
Thanks so much for returning the bears that the kids decorated at home. They are all so different and adorable! They have loved showing them to each other. We have them proudly displayed in our room right now.
Christian was our Star Student this week and we loved getting to know more about him. His mom came and read to us this week and brought a special treat to share on Friday.
It's been a wonderful week! I hope that everyone has a great weekend and enjoys this cool, fall weather! Thank you for sharing your sweet children with me each day- they are truly a blessing!

What a joyful occasion it was this past Tuesday when our class visited Ridgeview Nursing Home. The boys and girls were so excited, and I know that their smiling faces just brightened the residents' day so much! We sang a few songs such as "This Little Light of Mine" and "Jesus Loves Me." We passed out bookmarks that some of the younger children at CASA had made and we walked through the halls and visited many rooms, passing out flowers and visiting with the residents. The innocense and sweet words that your children shared with those men and women brought tears to my eyes! God is so good!

Fairy Tales!

I hope that everyone has had a restful weekend and is enjoying the cooler weather upon us! Rain is a good thing!

We had a great week at CASA last week! We began our Fairy Tale unit and focused on Bears and the letter F for Fairy Tales. We read several different versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. One of the favorites was about a little girl named Dustylocks who was always very dirty and hated to take baths! We did lots of writing in our journals and are getting so good at writing our names, the date, and even putting words on our paper. We have some budding artists upon us for sure! We pulled out the playdough at center time this week, which was a huge hit! Patterning and sorting was our focus in math this week, along with counting and number identification with a fun game of Number Bingo!

I loved seeing so many of your faces at Parent Night on Thursday night! Hopefully you learned a little about what we do each day. Please don't hesitate to call or email if you have questions.

Next week is going to be very busy! We are going on our first field trip to Ridgeview Nursing Home on Tuesday. You all should have seen a permission slip in your child's folder on Friday. Please sign it and return it tomorrow. If you are planning on going on the trip with us, you can just walk your child in that morning. We'll be leaving soon after carpool.

DON'T FORGET>>> Please have your child decorate their brown bear that came home last week. Please return it this week so that we can share them and display them in our classroom.

>>>This coming Friday is Bear Day. Please have your child bring a stuffed teddy bear from home. We'll be doing all kinds of bear activities with them.

>>>We will also be doing a graphing activity this week with Teddy Grahams. I need one box of chocolate Teddy Grahams, one box of cinnamon Teddy Grahams, and one box of regular Teddy Grahams. If you can send in a box to share, just email me and let me know. Thanks so much!

Brooks was our star student last week and we loved learning more about him! Have a great afternoon!

In Full Swing

Well, we made it through our first full week of school at CASA and it has been full of excitement!! We have continued getting to know one another and have been learning "All About Me." We celebrated Lou's birthday on Monday and had a special visit from his mom and brother, who brought cookie cake to share! We drew family portraits and read all kinds of great new books! The kids have also really gotten the hang of our center rotations as well. I started working with small groups focusing at this point on letter identification and sounds.

Our letter of the week this week was M for "Me!" They came up with so many M words and were excited to find new M words during our Shared Reading each day and throughout the classroom.

One of the most exciting parts of our week was the visit we had from a real author. Her name is Sheila Booth-Alberstadt. She wrote the book, Maggie McNair Has Spiders in Her Hair. She read it to us and told us all about what it is like to be an author with published books. You should have received a hand out in your child's folder with more information about her upcoming book signings.

We made Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom trees after reading that story and we also are going to graph how many letters are in our names, after we have read the book Chrysanthemum.

Don't Forget... Parent night is next Thursday night at 6:00- adults only please.

We will begin our unit on Fairy Tales next week and will be studying the letter F!