January,   2010      Happy New Year!

SPACE  &  SKY   /   DINOSAURS

Text Box: Please welcome Kate Kiser, a teaching intern from Lake Washington Technical College!  She will be with us for several weeks, primarily with the TWTh class, but also with our class..
Text Box: TTh class
Text Box: Social Goals:                            We are continuing to learn & use our friends’ names.  We will soon send home a class snapshot.  This isn’t the special “save this forever”  one you’ll get at the end of the year.  This one is for your child to carry around and play with and bring to the dinner table so you can talk about school, using friends’ names & seeing friends’ faces.  If it gets ripped, we’ll give you another!
We are also adding to vocabularies with words to use when your child needs something or needs someone.
Text Box: SPACE!   5, 4, 3, 2, 1 -  Ready for take off!     We are preparing for take off in our Little Friends’ space ship (after your children help build it, of course.)  We explore some of the stars and planets in our galaxy.  We also talk about all the things we see in the daytime and nighttime skies.
HOMEWORK:  Please try to observe together our daytime sky and especially our nighttime sky.  Start a dialogue about what your child and you see.  If possible, write down some of these words or have your child draw an impression of what you have seen, and then send it back to school.  This can be a great way to take a deep breath, slow down, and appreciate the wonders of above.             ——-   Teacher Patrice                  
Text Box: DINOSAURS!     Well, of course, your child knows all the names.  But we can add a little bit  extra because we have the Dinosaur Box from the UW’s Burke Museum.  We see just how big a T-Rex tooth really was.   We touch a petrified stone with an impression of dinosaur skin.  And then there’s the gastroliths—rocks some dinosaurs swallowed to help “pound” vegetable matter in their stomachs into something which could be digested.  Let’s face it—Dinosaurs are really cool!
Text Box: PLEASE NOTE:  
Registration for next’s fall starts on Fri. 1/22.  Please see the attached information sheet.  And please make sure we have your new registration form.
Kids’ Time is Sat. 1/16.  Please sign up near the office.
There will be lots of digging in our sandbox for “dinosaur bones”.  Remember, sturdy shoes & warm clothing!