April and May 09

April and March, 2009

Dearest Parents,

To start, I just wanted to apologize for taking so long to put out a newsletter, as I am in school and facilitating a classroom. I have finally had some breathing room, to be able to get this news letter to you.

Here we are at the end of the school year, already. I wanted to fill you in on what we had done for the month of April, and what we are going to do during the month of March. During the month of April, the children were introduced to the parts of a reptile, specifically the turtle. We got to see a real live turtle, and we read many books about other kinds of reptiles. We also watched butterflies and lady bugs develop and metamorphosis, and we learned the names to the life cycle stages of these animals. In our Botany lessons, we introduced the parts of a leaf and the function of a leaf, and the children began having lessons on the different leaf shapes. An artist that I introduced to the children, and will be continuing to learn about the artist Marry Cassatt. The author, of who’s book we read for the month of April was Helme Heine, who wrote books such as The Marvelous Journey Through the Night. We will continue to work on learning about The continent of South America, so if there are parents who would like to bring in any artifacts for this country, that will definitely be welcome.

During our last month in school, we will finish up learning about South America, and we will introduce the parts of the flower and fruit. We will also introduce the children to the parts of the bird, and the parts of the mammal, and show the students how to classify the five classes of animals into fish, amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal. Towards the end of May, the students will be introduced Arizona, and we will talk about the desert and the animals that live here in our wonderful state. For our composer this last month, we will introduce the students to Fyderyk Chopin, so if anyone has this composer music, or can burn us a copy, we would really appreciate it. The author that I will be focusing on this month will be Dr. Seuss, and his crazy but fun books. In may we will be talking about taking care of our earth and recycling, and we will talk about Mother’s Day and Memorial Day.

Some dates that Mother’s should be aware of, is our annual Mother’s day tea party on May 8th. On this day We are asking all Mom’s to come and hang out with your child in the classroom, between 9:00am to 10:00am. We will be providing iced tea and donuts, as you can come and visit your child’s classroom, and perhaps have them show you a lesson.

Another event to mark on your calendars, is May 26th, as this may be the day that we are going to do the Kindergarten graduation after school. I will have more details about this as we get closer to the date.

Again, we would like to thank all the parents who help our classroom by bringing snack or helping us with other items, such as napkins, cups and Clorox wipes.

To help save paper, we will no longer be making copies of this news letter. We will be sending to parents on the email list, and one copy will be posted in the classroom window. You can also see this information on the Shaw school web sight under teacher blogs, just look for Mrs. Niederhausers.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask at anytime, and we will do our best to get you an answer as soon as possible.

Thank you

Mrs. Niederhauser and Ms. Lipp