Important Dates for 2011

Thanks to many generous referrals, I have added Wednesday/Friday to my class schedule. I had planned originally to teach on Tuesday/Thursday only, but to keep class size small, I’m adding the additional days.

Tuesday/Thursday classes are full. I have three available spaces on Wednesday/Friday. Class size is limited to 8.

Open house: Wednesday, August 24 at 6 p.m.
First day for T/Th will be Thursday August 25 9:30-10:30 a.m.
First day for W/F will be Friday August 26 9:30-10:30 a.m.

Beginning the week of Tuesday August 30th, classes will be our regular schedule from 9 -12.

I'm looking forward to see you all!

Preschool 2011-2012

I am excited to offer enrollment for the 2011-2012 school year. Class size will be limited to 8 students with priority given to returning preschool students and their siblings.

Tuesday/Thursday
9 a.m. -12 p.m.
$80/month

Snack provided

One time $25 materials fee

Thank you for your support!
Megan Millington
Kurious Kiddies Preschool

Parent Letter

Dear Parents,

Much has been happening during the course of studying dinosaurs. Our egg hatched a lovely baby triceratops.

Here are a few pictures of our dino herd.

Happy Birthday to Bella!

I thought you might also like to see how high the ice cream cones are getting. Wow! Next week we'll be adding on . . . . And then there's the Digraph Express full of cargo (pink stickies have their names on them as we pass off a digraph).

We learned a lot about Leprechauns today. They are pranksters. One turned our milk and pancakes green before school even started. Jocelyn didn't catch one in her trap over night and while we were singing Happy Birthday to Bella, that same little man apparently went potty in our toilet and didn't flush his green pee! (I think that is the first time I ever wrote "pee." Please forgive me.) The kids asked me to take a picture, but I figured you have enough of an imagination to visualize it.

After reading several Saint Patrick's Day books, we decided to make a leprechaun trap. We KNOW one is somewhere in this house, so it's just a matter of the perfect trap. I think the kids did a good job coming up with the idea, I truly had not planned out what the trap would look like, how it would work, etc. They decorated this particular box with rainbows and clover, put shiny jewels in it and then laid a marshmallow trail. He can not possibly resist this trap!

Next week we will complete our study of dinosaurs with a dino dig as we learn about fossils. I hope you have enjoyed learning about this as much as we have. We've learned about dinosaurs that lived in the sea, on land, in cold and warm climates and, of course, we've all been dinosaurs. If you haven't heard it yet, ask your child about elasmosaurus.

You take a turtle and a snake
put them together
and what do they make?
an elasmosaurus, elasmosuarus,
the giant of the sea

Thank you for sending your little one each day. It is a delight to see them.

Megan Millington

Parent Letter

Dear Parents,

I'd like to congratulate two of our students in the Wed/Fri class for earning their Alphabet Crowns. Great job! And a Happy Birthday to London!

My teaching plan for February will include a variety of Valentine's Day crafts and learning projects, but the big news will be learning digraphs. (You may have called these consonant clusters while in school.) There are several high frequency digraphs that the students will encounter this month: th, ch, sh, ck, and wh will be our featured digraphs. I have small diamond shaped boxes that I will be awarding to each child as they learn these common digraphs and can read them in short vowel words. I call it the Digraph Diamond. Many a student has asked me "when do I get the diamond?" This month my friends!

Several of our students are progressing rapidly with their take home readers will be coming home over the next few weeks with their Blending Buttons.

I see many awards given out this month to encourage students to learn and to enjoy learning.

After Valentine's Day we will begin our Dinosaur Unit.

A note about Valentine's Day parties. We will be holding Valentine's Day Parties before Valentine's Day. Thursday the 10th and Friday the 11th.

T/Th Class List*
Emily
Kourtney
Bella
Christian
London

W/F Class List*
Ethan
Adam
Kate
Avery

*Noah has a Valentine for each student, he's practically the class pet. : ) Your student is welcome to bring one for Noah, but it's not expected.

There will not be school on Tuesday, Feb 15th. Tuesday students are welcome to attend Wednesday or Friday to make up the day. I apologize for the inconvenience. Noah has an outpatient procedure scheduled that day I will need to be with him at the hospital. Again, I am sorry for the schedule change but I cannot avoid it.

Looking forward to seeing you all this week!
Megan Millington

Parent Letter

Dear Moms and Dads,

I thought I'd share some super cute pictures of our little astronauts who explored our low gravity class room this week.

Aren't they just super cute? My oldest drew the NASA badges on these outfits.

I served them all freeze dried ice cream from the Kennedy Space Center, so if they came home talking about astronaut food, you know what they mean. We also have played heavily with rockets, a space buggy, the command nodule and the Lunar Lander in addition to watching film footage from the landing on the moon "before your parents were born." --

We continue to play the crater game, add, read and more. We've been working on writing and they are all much improved. Watch for their Space Journals to come home next week.

Next class we'll shoot balloon rockets!

Thank you all,
Megan Millington

Parent Letter

Dear Parents,

I hope your student is enjoying our journey through space. We have explored the idea of orbit: that the Moon orbits Earth and that there are planets and comets and space rocks that orbit the Sun. We made craters with balls of different densities and traveling from different trajectories and speeds of impact. It was messy fun! (Flour can be quite dusty.) We’ve talked about phases of the moon and learned about gravity.

We conducted an alien hunt with sight word craters. We took turns seeing if our little Martian was hiding in the “the” crater or “on” craters. We will continue this game throughout the month. I am sending home a paper today with all the sight words we’ll practice sounding out and becoming familiar with over the next few months. If you’d like to practice at home, great. Please just have fun with the page and encourage your student to color it.

I’m also sending home a fantastic, fun way to encourage your little one to look up at night. I saved this theme and activity in particular for January as it gets dark so early that I hope this will not affect bedtimes. : )

We will begin learning about Astronauts, NASA and constellations this week.

Thank you!

Megan Millington

Parent Letter

Dear Moms and Dads,

I hope you have enjoyed your Christmas vacation.

I wanted to remind you that we are returning to school this upcoming week. Our focus in January will be Stars, Planets and Astronauts. We'll learn about NASA, constellations, learn the names of planets in our Solar System and more. I hope your child will be as excited to discover as much as I am to teach it.

Tuesday/Thursday students will begin on Tuesday January 4th.
Wednesday/Friday students will begin on Wednesday January 5th.

Thank you and I look forward to seeing you and your student.

Megan Millington