What a wonderful week in Pre-K!

The Pre-K students are always so amazed when they "match!"

Montessori Culture

The boys and girls are continuing to work on learning the names of all seven continents and a few have even started making their world maps. This week, Miss Webb introduced the students to a culture activity where the students sorted pictures of children by the continent where they live. They also learned that people do not live in Antarctica, but scientists do go there to do research.

We received our first pieces of international mail this week - from Vietnam, Canada, Japan, Germany, Luxembourg, and even Morocco! The boys and girls were so excited! They were so surprised to discover that most of the international mail took over a month to get to us.

Khadijah's aunt sent us a letter and included $20 for her to get a treat for the class. Khadijah immediately asked if we could buy a new game to play (which I loved!) and after some research, she decided on Pass the Potato! We had a great time playing the game and the children's giggles could be heard around the building.

Khadijah also asked to get ring pops for her classmates and the students were very excited to take their special treat home!

We have received mail from 18 different states and 7 different countries! Please tell your family and friends to keep it coming - it has become the children's most favorite part of the day. When sending mail to the school, please use the following address:

HCA Pre-K

475 Shadeland Avenue

Drexel Hill, PA 19026

Prayer Service

We were so proud of the Pre-K and Kindergarten students for leading the school in the Holy Child Collaborative Prayer Service. The children did an amazing job sharing about the foundation Cornelia Connelly built for us. Thank you to all the parents and grandparents who were able to join us!

Early Childhood Nature Space

The boys and girls had the best time exploring and playing in the Nature Space this week. Not only is this space a wonderful place for the children to play, but it allows them opportunities to develop their communication, collaboration, and problem solving skills.

A huge shout out to Wolf's parents for a fantastic toy donation. Wolf's grandparents are volunteer fire fighters and the crew makes handmade wooden toys for children in need. They gave us an amazing collection of vehicles, dinosaurs, and sea creatures that we plan to use in the Nature Space for all the early childhood students to enjoy.

Reminders:

Now that the spring weather is headed our way, please send in a seasonal change of clothes (including underwear) for your child. We will return the other clothing once this comes in.

In April, we will begin reviewing the vowel sounds. These are often trickier for children to master so we save them for the end when they have had more practice. When sending in items for the vowel show and tells, please make sure the object you choose has the short vowel sound. For example, /a/ apple, /e/ egg, /i/ igloo, /o/ octopus, /u/ umbrella.

When teaching letter sounds, it is so important to isolate the sound by itself when children are first learning. For show and tell purposes, we want to avoid objects with long vowel sounds (for example, angel, ice cream, or ukelele) or words with vowel diagraphs (for example, airplane or eagle).

Wednesday, April 22: something that begins with the /i/ sound
Wednesday, April 29: something that begins with the /o/ sound
Wednesday, May 6: something that begins with the /u/ sound

We are excited to bring back one of our favorite EC traditions - Mystery Reader time! We are inviting parents to sign up to come in and share their favorite story with the class. Parents may bring a story from home or you may borrow one from the classroom. We have reserved one spot per child, so both parents may come together if you wish. We try to keep this a surprise for the children so please do not tell them when you are coming in. When you arrive at school, please let Mrs. Richards know that you are there to be a Mystery Reader and she will call down to the classrooms to let us know. We will give the students clues to help them guess who our reader for the day is and then will welcome you into the classroom. Be prepared for the squeals of joy from the children!

We are hopeful that each child will have a special guest come in to read, so if a parent is unable to attend, we welcome another family member or friend to come instead. Click here to sign up. We are excited to share this special time with you!

This week, we welcomed Dr. Kellich as our first mystery reader!