Scholastic Pajama Drive

The 8th-Annual Great Bedtime Story Pajama Drive

Dear Parents,

It’s time for the annual Scholastic Reading Club Great Bedtime Story Pajama Drive benefitting Pajama Program, a nonprofit organization that provides new pajamas and books to children in need—especially those living in group homes, shelters, foster care, and orphanages.  

Since 2009, caring classrooms across the country have risen to the challenge and donated nearly 400,000 pairs of new pajamas. The Scholastic Reading Club has more than matched those numbers with nearly 900,000 new books donated directly to Pajama Program headquarters, where they are then distributed across the country by Pajama Program.

Our school wants to be part of this drive so that we can help make a better bedtime for these children. Together we can help the Great Bedtime Story Pajama Drive reach even more kids with pj’s and books.

If you and your child are able to participate, please have your child bring in a new pair of pajamas to school by___December 9, 2016.

Here are some simple guidelines for the pajamas:

• Pajamas must be brand-new.
• Pajamas in all sizes are needed—from newborn to adult.
• Pajamas must be in complete sets or nightgowns.
• Pajamas in children’s sizes must be manufactured as pajamas—this ensures that they are flame-retardant and safe.

Thank you for helping us share the gift of a good night’s sleep and a sweet bedtime story.

The BECC Staff

If you have any questions please contact, Katie Roofe at roofe@bpsk12.org

PS: You can find out more about the drive and the program at: scholastic.com/pjdrive

Unit 2 Friends

No School on:

November 8th

November 10th

November 11th

November 24th

November 25th

We are beginning our next unit (Friends). In this unit, students will be talking about friendship, how to be a good friend, and ways to resolve conflicts with friends.  We will work on this unit through November and December with some Gingerbread Man stories read along the way in December.

Theme Concepts:

• A friend is someone we like and want to spend time with.  Friends like to do things together.  They enjoy each other’s company.
• We can have more than one good friend, and we might like to do some things with one friend and other things with other friends.
• Friends usually share with and help one another.
• Friends may have arguments and get mad at one another.  Usually, friends work out their problems and continue to be friends.
• We can make new friends and also keep old friends.

Key Vocabulary will include:

Friends

Party

Lemonade

Pinata

Pizza

Dough

Envelope

Listen

Share

Compromise

October 31 - November 4

Books for the week:

Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza) by Philemon Sturges

A Letter To Amy by Ezra Jack Keats

Small Groups:

- Counting Dinosaurs

- Alphabet Memory

- Matching letter tiles to friendship vocabulary

Choice time: Choice Time will remain for 2 weeks given the November Calendar.

Art Table: Coloring

Library Area: Books about friends

Dramatic Play: Setting Up a Grocery Store - Students are busy making signs for the items on the shelves. When the get to 'play' they will first create a grocery list by selecting 3-4 items and writing down the names of those items.

Rug Toy: Rescue Heroes

Blocks - Open

Math Table - Puzzles

Literacy Table - Letter Matching

Sand Table - Looking for letters

November 7 -11

Books for the week:

Matthew and Tilly by Rebecca C. Jones

Small Groups:

• Grocery Store Counting and Coloring
• - Friendship Bracelets

October 24

Special Event:  October Soiree. We will celebrate Autumn with special activities.  The children are welcome to wear a special shirt, dress or costume on Thursday, October 27th.

Our Stories for this week include:

Possum's Moon                                                                   

The Button Box   - Just like in this story, we used my grandmother's button box to explore a variety of buttons.  Then we began to sort them by color, size, texture etc.                                                                         

Harvest Party

Handwriting -

Snipping Orange Paper to glue on to a pumpkin

Coloring Book pages

Small Groups - 

Letter Tracing on Pumpkins

Lacing Pumpkins

Roll a Jack O Lantern

Choice Time:
Dramatic Play - Playing Dress Up

Rug - Playing with large trucks
Art - Painting Corduroy and Decorating Pumpkins
Sensory - Sorting foam pieces - letters and numbers
Math Center - Making necklaces with beads.  Children will select a card and add the correct number of beads.

Magna Doodles

Cardboard Blocks

Writing Center - Coloring pages

Music
Way down Yonder in the Pumpkin Patch

Big Pumpkin

Preschool Life Skill 2 - When I give you an instruction, do it right away.  We will continue to work on response to name in conjunction with this new life skill.

Back to School Night - We will have our back to school night tomorrow - on Tuesday, October 18th from 6:30-7:30.  I will give an overview of our classroom curriculum and expectations then parents are welcome to explore the classroom.  This night is for parents only, please.

We will continue our first unit of Family through the month of October. In this unit, students will be exploring and talking about families and the many different ways family members relate to and help one another.

Theme Concepts:

• Family members have role names (mother, father, sister, brother, etc)
• Some family members live together, some live in other places but are still family members.
• Grown-ups in a family take care of children. Younger children need more care. Older children can help take care of younger brothers and sisters.
• Families do things together that are fun.

Our Stories for this week include:
Whistle for Willie - Ezra Jack Keats     

Corduroy - Don Freeman

Handwriting -

Creative Creatures - adding googly eyes and pipe cleaners to playdough balls

Pop Tubes - working on hand strength

Coloring Book pages

Small Groups - 

Corduroy Buttons Math Book

Rhyming Words

Picture Matching/Beginning Sounds

Choice Time:
Dramatic Play - We are creating the Lucky Duck toy store.  On Tuesday, the Lucky Duck friends will be deciding on a name and creating signs for our store.  Students will take turns shopping and using the cash register to buy toys from our toy store just like Lisa in Corduroy.

Rug - Playing with toys from the toy store
Art - Painting Corduroy
Sensory - Sorting foam pieces - letters and numbers
Math Center - Shape sorters

Writing Center - Coloring pages

Music
Way down Yonder in the Pumpkin Patch

Big Pumpkin

Preschool Life Skill 2 - When I give you an instruction, do it right away.  We will continue to work on response to name in conjunction with this new life skill.

October 11

We will continue our first unit of Family through the month of October. In this unit, students will be exploring and talking about families and the many different ways family members relate to and help one another.

Theme Concepts:

• Family members have role names (mother, father, sister, brother, etc)
• Some family members live together, some live in other places but are still family members.
• Grown-ups in a family take care of children. Younger children need more care. Older children can help take care of younger brothers and sisters.
• Families do things together that are fun.

Our Stories for this week include:
Whistle for Willie - Ezra Jack Keats     

Corduroy - Don Freeman

Handwriting -

Isolating a finger to make pumpkins on a vine

Working on our coloring book of colors

Small Groups - 

How many ducks in the pond? -

How can I help my family? - Picking chores students can do at home

Sorting Pumpkins by size

Choice Time:
Dramatic Play - Kitchen
Rug - Big Car ramps
Art - Painting pumpkins
Sensory - Finding pumpkins in the hay
Math Center - Pattern blocks
Literacy Center - Talking about our families and making our family trees

Writing Center - Writing Vocab words

Music
Way down Yonder in the Pumpkin Patch

Preschool Life Skill 2 - When I give you an instruction, do it right away.  We will continue to work on response to name in conjunction with this new life skill.

Back to School Night - We will have our back to school night on Tuesday, October 18th from 6:30-7:30.  I will give an overview of our classroom curriculum and expectations then parents are welcome to explore the classroom.  This night is for parents only, please.


As always please contact me with any questions or concerns, via email, note or phone call.  I look forward to getting to know your children and the great year ahead.

Columbus Day

Monday, October 10th  - No School on Columbus Day


Acorns, Acorns All around!

The Lucky Ducks today had a blast playing with acorns.  They enjoyed rolling them down the slide, collecting them, counting them, comparing which ones had more yellow and which ones had more brown.  Given their interest in acorns, we will be adding stories about acorns into our week as well as singing the song "I'm a nut."  Please check out our playground pictures with acorns.

October 2nd

October 3

We will continue our first unit of Family through the month of October. In this unit, students will be exploring and talking about families and the many different ways family members relate to and help one another.

Theme Concepts:

• Family members have role names (mother, father, sister, brother, etc)
• Some family members live together, some live in other places but are still family members.
• Grown-ups in a family take care of children. Younger children need more care. Older children can help take care of younger brothers and sisters.
• Families do things together that are fun.

Our Stories for this week include:
Peter's Chair - Ezra Jack Keats

Noisy Nora - Rosemary Wells

Handwriting -

Making a fall picture using cotton tipped applicators

Working on our coloring book of colors

Small Groups - 

Playing Memory with paint chips

Book Browsing - Students will look for specific pictures, words and/or lettersPositional Book
Size Sorting

Choice Time:
Dramatic Play - Taking care of babies
Rug - Legos
Art - Marble painting leaves and acorns
Sensory - Bean Table
Math Center - Adding apples to match the number on the apple tree
Literacy Center - Rhyming Cards

Writing Center - Writing Vocab words
Easel - Painting Leaves and Pumpkins

Music
Head Shoulders, Wheels on the Bus, If Your Happy and You Know It

Preschool Homework - For our first unit, please send in 3-5 pictures of your family by Thursday, October 6th.   We will be using them to create a project about family in our classroom.  We will be cutting and laminating the pictures before they are returned to you.

Back to School Night - We will have our back to school night on Tuesday, October 18th from 6:30-7:30.  I will give an overview of our classroom curriculum and expectations then parents are welcome to explore the classroom.  This night is for parents only, please.


As always please contact me with any questions or concerns, via email, note or phone call.  I look forward to getting to know your children and the great year ahead.