September 23-27, 2019

We had a very exciting start to our week - we met our "families" during community time on Monday! We made banners together to represent each family that are now displayed in the cafeteria. Throughout the year, we will meet with our families to do a variety of activities together. This is such a wonderful community building activity for all the students and it is heartwarming to see the relationships that develop between the older and younger students.

We began working with scissors in class this week. The boys and girls learned the proper way to hold scissors and how to cut on the dotted line. This is a tough skill for young children to master, but with a lot of practice, they will be pros in no time!

A big focus in Pre-K is following multi-step directions. We work on this almost every day in a variety of scenarios. This week, we completed a worksheet where the students had to color a picture using a key. We explained the directions first to the whole group and discussed what needed to be done to complete the paper correctly. Then, the children reiterated what we discussed. Finally, they went to their tables to complete the paper on their own.

On Thursday afternoon, we had an extra special treat - our 8th graders came to our classroom to teach us Spanish!  While the Spanish program at HCA is only for students in Kindergarten through 8th grade, Senora Vintimilla, our Spanish teacher, asked if the Pre-K could partner with the older students once a month to learn some Spanish! The 8th graders are acting as the teachers and reading Spanish story books to the Pre-K students and introducing basic Spanish vocabulary. They even colored some Spanish worksheets together. This will be a great way to introduce the younger students to the Spanish language and the boys and girls LOVED every second of it!

Looking ahead:

• Next Friday, October 4 (rain date Monday, October 7) will be the Blessing of the Animals at HCA at 8:15 am. Feel free to join us and bring your pet along! 
• There will be no show and tell next week. Our next show and tell will be on Monday, October 7. The topic will be "something that begins with /s/."
• Class photos will be on Wednesday, October 9 - please have your child wear his/her class t-shirts that he/she received on the first day of school. Individual photos will be on Thursday, October 10. More information on packages will be sent home soon.

"What's gonna work? Teamwork!"
Kaleo, Lucas, and Panos were so proud of
the factory they built together!

Have a great weekend!

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