We Love PE!

As you know we do not have all the specials that the other students in the district have (i.e. art, music, library, etc.). We ARE lucky though when it comes to PE. Mr. Brady makes time for pre-k. Every week we have about 20 minutes of Physical Education on Tuesdays or Thursdays. The kids love it!

Happy Thanksgiving

After much learning and preparation, our culminating event, our Thanksgiving Feast was such fun! We popped popcorn, baked pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and had some turkey of course! Thanks to everyone that helped, we appreciate it.

Gingerbread House

The Holiday Festival and Tree Lighting is happening this Sunday (Dec. 2nd) at the Orange Town Green. There will be a Gingerbread display and contest between 3 and 5 at The Clark Building. We are entering the gingerbread house we decorated in the Gingerbread House Making Contest. The students had so much fun decorating the house and there was a lot of fine motor skills being used as students unwrapped all the colorful candy!

Mystery Reader Wall of Fame

Our Mystery Reader Wall of Fame is growing. We appreciate all our visitors taking the time out of their day to share their reading powers with us. Today Orange's Chief Elected Official visited and re-read us the story "Duck for President". Thank you Mr. Zeoli!

We Met Mr.Clint

We had a great day to end our busy week.  The day started with the boys and girls helping Mrs. Murray do the morning announcements  from our classroom.   Then we went to the gym to meet an old  friend of Mary L. Tracy School, Clint.

He brought a lot of really cool things with him.

We all got to touch the soft animal furs, and he showed us his 3 beautiful headdresses.

He showed us buffalo skin and a picture of a buffalo.

We were all really good listeners!  Thanks for visiting Mr. Clint!

We are getting ready for Thanksgiving!

Colors and letters and feathers - Oh my!  As you can see we've been very busy using all sorts of different materials to say "Happy Thanksgiving".   We are planning a little feast of our own on Tuesday, more details to follow!

I Voted Today!

There was a lot going on when students came to school on Election Day.  Since our school was a polling place the students noticed quickly that this was not a typical day.    We peeked in through the gym windows and saw the voters casting their ballots.  

Then we casted our votes.  Yes, our 3 year olds voted on Election Day!  Not for Romney or Obama.  The students voted for Farmer Brown  or Duck after listening to the story Duck for President by Doreen Cronin.  In the story, Duck gets tired of doing his daily chores on the farm and decides to hold and election to replace the man in charge, Farmer Brown.    When he wins the election, Duck quickly realizes that running a farm requires too much hard work, and sets out to run for governor and then eventually ends up running the country. 

Our former "Haunted House" was revamped into a polling place and the students took turns going in one by one (because voting is private) and voted for either Farmer Brown or for Duck.  It was a close race, but in room 101 Duck won!

Aww Sandy!

I hope that everyone has recovered from Hurricane Sandy and that your loved ones are safe and sound. We didn't let the week off get us down.   Even though it was already November we carved our pumpkin after the students voted on the shape of the jack o'lantern's eyes and nose.   Next, while the students were outside on the playground I made a "Haunted House" for them.  Using our freshly carved jack o'lantern, and all of the ghosts they made earlier, our work cubby in the classroom was now a spooky space.  I left the lights off and played some Halloween music on the ipad and said, "BOO!".   Happy (belated) Halloween!

October Fun

 As promised, October sure was a busy month!  Early in the month we teamed up with the PTA's Beautification Committee and helped Amy Burns plant some bulbs outside our courtyard door.  We uncovered a number of earthworms when we were planting.  It was fun to get dirty digging in the dirt.  We can't wait to see how beautiful our courtyard will be when the colorful flowers bloom this spring.

Later in the month our room moms helped us learn about the artist Georges Seurat during an Art Goes to School lesson when we made our own "dot" painting.   I hope you enjoyed the children's pumpkin dot paintings and look forward to more Art Goes to School activities.

It's just not fall without warm apple crisp and the boys and girls were excellent cooks during our very first baking activity.   We used an allergy friendly recipe to make apple crisp from scratch!   The students enjoyed the process more than the product, but everyone seemed to like the ice cream that went on top.  Thanks to all the adults that participated, we could not have done it without your support!

We made the news....

Last month, Orange Police Department DARE Officer, John Acquino visited
Mrs. White’s AM pre-k class at Mary L. Tracy School as a “Mystery Reader”.
Officer Acquino read the students the award winning book, Officer Buckle and
Gloria by Peggy Rathmann. In addition to reading the story, Officer Acquino
spoke to the boys and girls about how to stay safe at school and at home. The
students really enjoyed his visit and the Junior Police Officer Badges he brought!

B is for Boo!

 I cannot believe September is over!  It was an awesome month.  I am so proud of the boys and girls as all the students continue to settle nicely into school routines.  Last month we were busy in pre-k making new friends, learning rules and routines and also learning about the letters A and B. We've also spent time talking about the colors red and yellow.  Now we're talking about the letter C and this week we've moved on to the color blue. 

Thanks to Mrs. Murray, Officer Aquino and Teagan's Mom for reading to us.  We love having mystery readers visit!  I am currently scheduling readers for November and December. 

We have a lot planned for this month.  We are going to visit our neighbors at the firehouse.  Our first "Art Goes to School" lesson is planned, we have mystery readers scheduled, we are going to be doing some baking and then there is Halloween.   The AM pre-k class is going to having a little party and a parade on Tuesday October 30th.  We'll be starting with a special activity, a special snack at 9 and then parading at 10.    Families are welcome to participate.  The kindergarten students will have their parade on Wednesday October 31st at 10:00.    Any questions about anything please do not hesitate to contact me (awhite@orange-ed.org). 

Update

My friends are all really adjusting nicely to school.  We continue to review the class rules and we are especially working on listening to the teacher and keeping our hands and feet to ourselves.  I have posted a link to our rules on Mrs. White's web page on the Mary L. Tracy website for you to reference and even to review with your child. 

We are starting to talk about the color yellow and the letter B, so yesterday I brought in  some bananas for snack. I felt it would be an appropriate change from our snack offering of crackers, goldfish and pretzels.  They were a huge hit!  I will continue to bring in different fruits (hopefully once a week) and we will talk about healthy snacks and provide opportunities for students to try new foods. 

On a separate note, I am looking for a room parent.  Cindy Visnic kindly offered to be one and I would like to have one more to help with Art Goes to School, class parties and any field trips we may have.  Please contact me if you are interested.  

Mrs. Murray was our first Mystery Reader  last week.  She read us a book about the Pledge of Allegiance.  We have another one scheduled for Friday.  I wonder who it will be!

**Don't forget picture day is Thursday September 20th.** 

What's up?

A few reminders:

• If you haven't already sent in a change of clothes for your child, please do so ASAP.
• Please, please send a family picture in for our family tree.  If it's easier to send in a picture of Mom and Dad and a separate picture of the kids - that's okay too!
• Please be timely in drop-off and pick-up of students.  I know it's hard, but we have a limited period of time between AM and PM classes and several staff members that need to be relieved so they can go to lunch.  
• Sneakers are the best footwear for the playground.
• Thank you for your interest in being a mystery reader, I will be making a schedule soon:)

Here is what we've been up to the past couple weeks of school....

We are getting to know each other, learning classroom routines and we've been having LOTS of fun on the MLT playground!  We had our first fire drill of the year (and it was kind of a long one too).  The students were great!  We did the Hokey Pokey with Elmo.  We celebrated a friend's birthday!  We are using a lot of Red materials and working on finding our name AND we're going to be talking more about the alphabet starting with the letter A.    Thank you for sharing your child with us!

Our Family Tree

 In our classroom we have a "family tree".  I have my family picture up and I am hoping each child will come to school with a picture of their family for our tree. 

Safety First!

Safety is very important at Mary L. Tracy School.   Our first fire drill of the year has been re-scheduled for  early September.  As one would expect, the fire alarm is very loud but the drill traditionally lasts only a few moments.  Our safe place outside is very close to the playground, providing an excellent opportunity to transition to discussing playground safety.   Please remind children that having these kinds of drills are part of what we do to make sure they stay safe. 

Important Information

Our exceptional preschool staff is looking forward to a fantastic year with your child and your family!  Below is just some information that we thought would be helpful as we start the 2012-2013 school year.

***Mark your calendars***

Mary L. Tracy Open House is 

Wednesday September 5th at 7 pm.

• AM pre-k class starts at 8:30.  Our staff will meet children at the Dr. Seuss mural in the hallway across from the cafeteria.   
•  PM pre-k starts at 12:00.  Our staff will meet children in the school lobby at that time.  
• The students have snack daily that we provide.  We are asking for a $30 snack donation for the year from each family to help with snack and cooking costs. 
• Please provide a complete change of clothes for your child (pants, shirt, socks and underwear) to remain at school.  It is helpful if each clothing item is labeled in a bag that is also labeled with your child's name. 
• Please label outerwear (coats, hats, etc.). 
• The children play outside everyday weather permitting.  Please dress your child accordingly.  Note:  Flip-flops are not allowed.
• Please notify the office (203-891-8028) if your child will be absent. 

 

Welcome to Pre-K!