Arcadia Episcopal Preschool Newsletter August 2020
From The Director
Dear Parents,
This has been a month of change for everyone at Arcadia Episcopal Preschool. Ms. Rita was my right hand for twenty years, I will really miss her. You may ask yourself who is going to take her position. Exciting news to share, Ms. Kim is going to be our new Assistant Director beginning August 3, 2020. She has her Administration classes and will be completing one more class for AEP requirements. In addition, she has been teaching for 25 years and was lead teacher for two years. So please congratulate her on her new position. We also will be promoting Ms. Beth to the lead teacher positon. Ms. Beth has an Associate of Science degree in Early Childhood and the required administration classes. Ms. Beth has been working here since 2004, but started as the food/server and a few years later was promoted to teacher. Congratulations to her as well.
It’s getting close to formal school starting and there are lots of things going on. As we projected, the public schools are going to on-line learning. So in order to continue to help parents, we are trying out to figure out a way to care for your children and still provide afternoon care. Therefore, we would like to purpose the following scenario to help you understand how we could care for your child in a learning environment. We would have the children in Kindergarten stay in the same room with the pre-kindergarten but block them off so the teacher could see them and what
they are doing. They would need to have a headset to wear for class time, but we could take care of everything else. I can arrange for Ms. Kim to take them on a break and they can eat lunch at the necessary time. I could have Ms. Kim assist until their class is over. I think I can record a zoom session to let you see how your children are doing if all parents in the class agree to it. I really think we could make this work. Please let me know what your thoughts are. Goodbye to all the families that are going to Kindergarten! We wish our families health, peace and happiness and don’t forget to visit.
I would also like to give parents a chance to meet with their child’s teacher and talk to them over a “Zoom “chat. It’s sort of an informal parent teacher conference on what/how they are doing at this time. We would want to limit it to 15 minutes to start. We definitely could schedule one every two weeks or so to keep you informed if you like. If you would like to schedule a conference please let me know if there is a day next week we could schedule you into one. I can do Monday through Wednesday- 9:00- 10:00am.
So at the end of the month we have two new children joining us in Ms. Beth’s class, a brother and sister. We are so excited to have them join the preschool. They sound like such a sweet family, they volunteered to self-quarantine for 14 days before starting the preschool. So they are definitely the kind of people we welcome to join us. Hope you get a chance to social distance meet them!
. We will begin formal teaching throughout the school in September. I will send you the class goals in an email.
Best wishes,
Ms. Marie
From The Seahorses
Hello again! I can’t believe summer is almost over. It’s been quite a ride. This past month, we celebrated summer with a week-long salute to California. The class went on an imaginary bear hunt for the California grizzly, took a pretend trip to Disneyland, and experienced what California traffic is like on obstacle course day. The children also studied dinosaurs and insects through stories, art and science projects.
As August unfolds before us, the class will explore storytelling with a week of nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes teach manners, perseverance, friendship and honesty. Nursery rhymes can hold morals
From The Butterflies
that foster social skills and promote language. The children will also work on expanding their vocabulary as they create their own stories. They will showcase their talent and imagination in books they make to take you, the reader, on a journey. We will also experiment with the science of wind by discussing pinwheels and how they relate to windmills. The opportunity to study natural science promotes critical thinking and problem solving skills.
In keeping with current events, we will go topsy-turvy on backwards day. Haven’t we all felt a little backwards these past few months? So go ahead, eat dessert first! The class will close out the month with a pretend, but much needed vacation to Hawaii. We will discuss the Hawaiian culture and may even witness a volcano erupt within our imaginations. It should be great fun!
Having a smaller class these past two months has given me the opportunity to get to know my students in depth. But I must say, I am looking forward to the day when I can see absent friends again. Until then, stay healthy, giggle a lot and explore your world!
Looking forward to Fall, Ms. Beth
From The Dolphins
July was a fun filled month for the Dolphins. Every day they are eager to know what the summer theme of the day is. The children are adapting more to the new normalcy routines in this second month. Wearing a mask, washing hands thoroughly, following the daily schedule, maintaining the social distancing, and staying in their designated personal table/area in classroom.
I had many teachable moments with the children as I spent more time getting to know them. They really enjoy listening to many stories, especially fairy tales such as Goldilocks and the three Little Bears and Peter Pan. On Sock Puppet Day, I had fun with the children performing a make-up story with our puppets. Ms. Rita helped extend their learning about their individual character of the puppet by hanging picture posters that were related to them. They were displayed on the wall of the back patio for the children to see and perform. One child displayed empathy in reaction to a picture of a cute kitten. Another child was telling a story in detail about an alien that got lost on earth. Moreover, another child
Happy Summer & Stay Safe,
Ms. Frannie
From The Assistant Director
Dear parents,
Hello, it is great to be back. I had some medical procedures done and now I am healthy and ready for my new adventure as assistant director. When the school closed in March I did not foresee such changes in our everyday routine and life style here at the school. I wanted to say thank you to all the parents who had to learn zoom and worked with all of the teachers as we learned it right along with you. I was so proud of how well the children adapted.
I look forward to the upcoming months.
Ms.Kim
August Birthdays
Ms. Frannie Aug. 19th
From the Dolphins
Dear Dolphin Parents,
Summer has past.
School starts at last.
I hope everyone had a fun summer. It always seems to go by so quickly.
Welcome to a new school year. This month we will get to know our class schedule, routines, centers and classroom rules. We start the month with following simple directions such as walking inside the classroom, keeping our hands to ourselves and lining up to go outside. We will have shorter circle times in the beginning to let the children adjust. The children will learn about weekly classroom jobs such as: line leader, table cleaner and fish feeder. The children love having a job to do each week and it teaches them responsibility. We will discuss our reward system with the children. If a child is caught being helpful or kind, they receive a toodle. A toodle is a paper clip in a cup labeled with their name. When a child receives ten toodles they take a trip to pick an item from the treasure box.
Some activities this month will be playing games such as; ABC bingo to help with letter recognition, using alphabet tracing boards for fine motor control and beanbag number toss for number recognition.
At the end of the month, we will focus on a letter of the week homework assignment using the “Weekly Reader”. I will give you more information about these things at our back to school night. I am looking forward to a fun year.
Sincerely,