Parent Letter

Dear Parents,

This week your child will continue to learn about germs--following up on our experiment conducted last week. We rubbed a peeled potato with our hands after our outside recess/snack time, washed our hands and then rubbed our clean hands on another peeled potato. We will explore the differences in each potato (sealed in a plastic baggie) and later this week we will attempt to wash a piece of clothing with and without soap to show that hurrying up and just getting our hands wet doesn't really get us clean! It is my hope that we can all be motivated to keep as clean as possible and enjoy less illness in our class in the coming months.

This week's primary focus is Safety. I highly recommend a book for your home library titled "Not Everyone Is Nice" --Helping Children Learn Caution with Strangers by Frederick Alimonti and Ann Tedesco, Ph.D. (Available at Amazon.com) This book likens the beauty of a sea anemone to that of a friendly looking stranger handing out candy. The anemone uses its beauty to trick the fish and catch it. We will read this book along with "Don't Talk to Strangers" and "Your Body Belongs to You." I've used these in my home for years with my children. They are easy to understand and offer fantastic illustrations. We've used these books for family night discussions and for general reading because they don't scare the daylights out of the child while tackling a very serious topic.

This week will also find your child beginning to work on common letters of the alphabet that they'll see in many short vowel words: n, m, c, r, f, b, d, g s, t, and j. We will cover these letters over the next few weeks and start some basic testing to see where each child's abilities lie.

My strongest suggestions at this early point in our school year would be to emphasize at home the importance of sitting when we are sitting and playing with us when we are all playing together. In a word: focus. Keeping focused will be an invaluable took for your child and some of the easiest games to play at home would be Mother May I and Red Light, Green Light to help them build concentration skills.

Your children are a delight to be with. Their enthusiasm, smiles and willingness to participiate are absolutely darling.

Thank you for your support!
Megan Millington