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FROM THE 2004-2005 ACADEMIC YEAR

MAY, 2005

Welcome Back! I hope you had a wonderful vacation, and are ready to enter the Hogarth Homestretch.  We only have 5 very busy weeks of school left, so this will be the last Newsletter of the 2004-2005 school year.  I will be spending the first few weeks of May taking Student Inventories from each child in anticipation of Parent Conference Day, Friday, May 27th.  If you’d like to schedule a conference, please call me at 679-2097 to arrange an appointment. 

Please mark the following scheduling notes on your calendar:

Wednesday, May 4th  — This is the last Sharing Day of the year.

Friday, May 27th  —  8 a.m. to 5 p.m. — Conference Day — No Kindergarten Class

Monday, May 30th  —  Memorial Day — No School

Wednesday, June 1st — Pizza Party and Last Day of School for Prekindergarten.

Friday, June 3rd  — 8:30 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. — Waffle Breakfast for Kindergartners and their siblings followed by Graduation.   The graduation ceremony will start at approximately 9 o’clock, and you are welcome to invite grandparents, favorite aunts and uncles, etc. to join us at that time.  Graduation has evolved into a very low-key affair that is most enjoyable for the children.  The children will sing several songs, and receive awards and diplomas.  School is over for the year immediately following graduation. 

This is the last week for Daily Messages.  I will be working individually with your children over the next few weeks collecting work samples and taking student inventories in anticipation of Parent Conferences.  As we approach the “winding down” point of the school year later this month, I will spend the last few weeks reviewing and reinforcing concepts covered this year, re-reading favorite stories, singing favorite songs, and getting ready to say goodbye. 

Thank you so much to Katelin, Brigid, Katie, Caitlin, Gillian, Dawson, Alyssa and Séan for bringing in snack.  Thank you to Zachary for bringing in a honeycomb to share.  It inspired an impromptu (and loads of fun!) lesson. Thank you to everyone for contributing yarn for our room weaving.  As you can see, it was a beauty!

This has been a wonderful year, and I appreciated having your children in class.  To those of you moving onto "big" school, I wish you all the best.  To those of you returning in the summer and fall, I look forward to continuing the adventure.  Thank you, again!

Project nature rocks!  We listened to a wonderful story.  We sang songs and danced.  We planted pretend gardens. We did a project.  We loved it!

We Finally Had Our 100 Day Party!      

APRIL, 2005

The Week of the Young Child is being celebrated April 3rd through 9th.  We are extending our celebration through April 15th, and have three special events planned.  Our first event is on Tuesday, April 5th.  Mary Doane will be bringing her Project Nature Program Whose Garden is It? based on the book of the same title written by Mary Ann Hoberman and illustrated by Jane Dyer.  (Scan down to see pictures from Mary's last visit in the February entry.)  The Project Nature website describes the program as follows:

The question, "Whose garden is it?" launches this rhyming romp, which touches on the intricate relationships between animals and plants, sun, soil, and water.  In this program we’ll sing "Mother Nature Delivers", a charming song about the goodness of the earth and all her creatures. We’ll "dance" a lively garden of our own and create a garden paradise with our hands.

Our second event goes from Monday, April 11th through Wednesday morning, April 13th when we create a piece of installation art by weaving the room.  Room weaving is a piece of soft sculpture that changes the classroom environment into a work of art.  Walking into the installation feels like walking into a painting.  Your child will need to bring one large ball of yarn in order to fully participate in the project.  You can send this in at any time in a bag labeled with your child’s name, and I’ll hold on to it until we weave.   Please do not send in skeins of yarn.  The yarn has to be rolled into a ball for your child to weave.  Plan to check out our progress each day after class, and please feel free to take pictures!  The project ends on that Wednesday morning when the kindergarten children disassemble the installation, which is almost as much fun as doing the weave.

Our third event is on Wednesday evening, April 13th at Hogarth when I present More than Madonna:  Picture Books that Reach, Teach, but Never Preach.  As an author and educator, I am discouraged by the number and quality of “celebrity” picture books published in recent years.  Spend some time with me while I talk about my favorite subject — children’s literature, specifically picture books.  Find out what I think makes an excellent picture book, and learn what to look for when selecting books for your own children.  Please RSVP so that I know how many people I can expect at this adults-only event, which runs from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on the 13th.  Thanks!

Parents who indicated that their child will be returning to Hogarth in the fall should complete and return the registration form for their child's class.  I have only one space left in the afternoon 3/4 year Prekindergarten program for the fall and will be turning people away when that position fills.  If your plans should change and your child will not be returning to Hogarth, please let me know immediately so that I can fill that spot.

Registration for our June Program is underway.  I am accepting only 8 children into this program, and registration will be done on a first-come, first-served basis.

Calendar Notes:

·          Your tuition payment is due Monday, April 4th as is the $6.00 fee for the Project Nature program. 

·          Sharing Day is Wednesday, April 6th.

·          Reminder that the Fremont School District Child Find is Saturday, April 9th.  Interested Fremont parents should call 895-2511 for an appointment.

·          On Thursday afternoon, April 14th at 1 o’clock, I will be reading my picture book Out and About at the Dairy Farm at the Philbrick-James Library in Deerfield.  The Friends of the Library invited me to do a reading as part of the library’s celebration of National Library Week.  It should be lots of fun, and I’d love to see some Hogarth kids in the audience. 

·          Spring Vacation is April 25th though 29th.

It’s Still Tax Time!  For your records, my tax identification number is 02-0433303.

Please be advised that Epping Elementary School has chickenpox among its children.  Anyone who is exposed to chickenpox and has not had it before has a very good chance of developing chickenpox.  It is most common in school-aged children.  If you have had chickenpox once, you may get second attacks.  Children who have had the varicella vaccine may still develop chickenpox.

What were we engaged with in March? 

·          Both classes had Sharing Day, worked with the computers each week on Technology Tuesday, and worked with Daily Messages each day.  

·          We began working extensively with rhyme in both classes.  One of the components of learning to read, is hearing the sounds within words.  Children learn to “break down” language when they learn to rhyme.  They learn that rhyming words have the same sound endings, but different beginning sounds.  Learning to rhyme helps children read words in “sound families” such as pet, set, wet, met, let and get.  Some of the children have already mastered rhyme, and this rhyme unit is fun reinforcement.  Other children will use this unit to acquire the important prereading skill of rhyming. 

·          We talked about the changing seasons in both classes, and did units on spring changes in the world around us. 

·          Children in both classes took turns playing the piano and singing with me on Piano Day.

·          Both classes completed a unit on weather in March.

·          Both classes made Easter Egg Hats.

·          Kindergarten children completed calendars for March, which included a graphing component for determining fair and foul weather days.

·          Kindergarten children did a group math project that consisted of using every Duplo block (large Legos) in the Duplo bucket (I have hundreds and hundreds of them) to build one megastructure.  This project required much advanced planning and cooperation in order for the children to successfully complete it. 

·          Kindergarten children memorized and recited a poem I wrote about the month of March.  They also memorized and recited Robert Frost’s poem Dust of Snow.  Recitation puts memorization into practice and helps children to be confident speakers.  Literature concepts covered in our Robert Frost unit included:  Robert Frost is one of America’s greatest poets.  He once lived in New Hampshire.

·          Kindergarten children reached 100 days in their countdown, and had their 100 Day Party.  The children made 100 Day Party Crowns, tossed a die 100 times and tried to predict the winning number, and arranged 50 M&M candies and 50 Fruit Loops cereal pieces in a pattern on a 100 Day grid placemat.  (See pictures above.)  We are adding a cube each day to the Unifix cube 10-sticks we used in counting up to the party, to see how many days there will be in the entire school year.

·          Kindergarten children are learning to hear and count syllables in words.  Children need to hear the parts of a word (the syllables) in order to notice the sounds that make up those parts.  Beginning readers often think a two-syllable word like “apple” is really two words.  When reading, they will often point to two different words when reading a two-syllable word.  Once children realize that each sound is not a separate word, but syllables within a word, they can hear the breaks in the word. 

·          Prekindergarten children did several letter searches in the Daily Message.  One day, for example, we went through and highlighted all the letter Mms in the message.    

·          Prekindergarten children playacted the song It’s Raining, It’s Pouring by pretending to be the snoring old man.  They also playacted the song Little Gray Pigeon.  In this song, the little pigeon walks around the pond, but keeps his feet dry in his little, red galoshes.  The children wore red marker caps (galoshes) on two fingers and pretended their hands were pigeons walking around the pond.

·          Prekindergarten children completed their March day tracker, and learned a song I wrote about March.  This song was written out on the day tracker rebus-style, and we worked with it throughout the month.  The day tracker also included a graphing component to determine fair and foul weather.

·          Prekindergarten children played Shoo Froggy.  In this game, the children pass a little frog from child to child, and chant the following:  Shoo Froggy, Shoo Froggy, shoo, shoo, shoo.  This green froggy stops at Y-O-U!   The child left holding the frog had to pay the Hogarth forfeit (you say boing, boing while cocking your head from side to side), and the game resumed until everybody had a chance to pay a forfeit.  (At this age, paying a forfeit is a good thing!)

·          Kindergarten stories and songs included:  Gold Fever;  Tanka Tanka Skunk;  Chicka Chicka 1-2-3;  Animals that Eat Other Animals;  Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of Kindergarten;  Good as Goldie;  Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato;  The Happy Day;  Too Loud Lily;  Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus;  “Stand Back,” said the Elephant, “I’m Going to Sneeze”;  Annie and the Wild Animals;  Goldie is Mad;  Old Turtle;  Tumble Bumble;  How I Became a Pirate.  ♫Name Game Song;  Clementine;  Doggy in the Window;  One Little Duck;  Funiculi, Funicula;  Skip to My Lou;  Lazy Mary;  Easter Bunny’s Feet;  I’m Just Wild About Mary;  Here Comes Peter Cottontail;  Daisy;  Munchkinland;  It’s Raining;  Little Gray Pigeon;  Pirate Song;  Li’l Liza Jane.

·          Prekindergarten stories and songs included:  Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?;  poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends — Ridiculous Rose, The Hat and Planet of Mars;  Napping House;  Quick as a Cricket;  Tanka Tanka Skunk;  The Jacket I Wear in the Snow;  Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato;  The Happy Day;  Too Loud Lily;  Peter Cottontail;  Goldie is Mad;  Good as Goldie;  Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.  ♫Doggy in the Window;  Clementine;  Easter Bunny’s Feet;  Here Comes Peter Cottontail;  It’s Raining;  Hear the Rain;  Little Gray Pigeon;  Li’l Liza Jane;  Whistle While You Work.

Many thanks to Katelin, Gillian, Caitlin, Alyssa, Frankie, Ben; Davin; Samantha, Eliza and Séan for sending in snacks last month.

Happy Spring!

MARCH, 2005

Thanks to Charlie, Caitlin, Katelin, Séan, Gillian, Eliza, Alyssa, Ben, Frankie, Brigid, Ryan and Katie for sending in snacks last month. Thanks to anyone else I may have inadvertently forgotten to thank!

Calendar Notes:  Picture day is Tuesday, March 22nd.

·    The Epping Child Find is Saturday, March 19th.  Epping parents will find an information sheet   attached.  Each town usually conducts its own Child Find.  When I receive information from   surrounding towns, I will let residents know at that time.

February Hogarth business included: 

·    Valentine’s parties in both classes.  We played the games Who’s Missing and Drop the Clothespin. 

·    Both classes had February and March sharing days as well as computer time each Tuesday.  Both classes worked with messages each week.  I developed a matching game using clothespins for the numbers 1 through 5 which both classes loved.  We played it several times a week last month. 

·    Kindergarten children completed their February calendars, and memorized another calendar-related rebus poem.  Prekindergarten children completed their February day trackers, and memorized a calendar-related rebus poem.  I started a weather unit in both classes to track lamb days and lion days throughout the month of March.  This ties in with the old saying about March.  The children are learning what aspects of weather determine its ferocity or mildness.

·    Kindergarten children completed a unit on the North and South Poles.  Thank you to Frankie for bringing in his talking globe to enhance our studies.  We completed a unit on presidents Lincoln and Washington.  We completed a unit on fiction and nonfiction, and started a unit on rhyme.  We started a unit on Robert Frost by studying Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.  We are continuing the unit into March by studying Dust of Snow.

·    Prekindergarten children completed a unit on jungle animals.  They completed a unit on President George W. Bush.

·    Both classes watched the portions of the movie Sound of Music featuring the songs Do-Re-Mi and My Favorite Things.  Kindergarten children watched the portion of The Wizard of Oz featuring the song Munchkinland.

·    Kindergarten stories and songs included:  The Big Red Barn;  Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening;  Winter Rabbit;  Millions of Snowflakes;  North Pole South Pole;  Mouse’s First Valentine;  The Valentines Bears;  Abraham Lincoln;  Tigers;  Elephants;  Snow Plows;  George Washington;  Abe Lincoln’s Hat;  Snail;  How I Became a Pirate;  I’m Mighty!;  Story of Ferdinand.  ♫  Do-Re-Mi;  My Favorite Things;  Munchkinland;  Be My Valentine;  Star Spangled Banner;  Yankee Doodle;  Happy Wanderer;  Blow the Man Down;  Sing a Song of Sixpence;  Old King Cole.

·    Prekindergarten stores and songs included:  Quicksand;  Winter Rabbit;  Millions of Snowflakes;  Big Cats;  The Valentines Bears;  It’s Valentine’s Day;  Mouse’s First Valentine;  Tigers;  Elephants;  Snow Plows;  George Bush;  Tanka Tanka Skunk.  ♫Do-Re-Mi;  My Favorite Things;  Where is Thumbkin?;  Be My Valentine;  If You’re Happy and You Know It.

      FEBRUARY, 2005  

We had another wonderful 

Project Nature Program!

    Calendar Notes: 

·          Wednesday, 2/2 — Sharing Day

·          Monday, 2/7 — Tuition is Due

·          Monday, 2/14 — Valentine’s Party  (2/15 if 2/14 is a snow day)

·          Monday, 2/21 through Friday 2/25 — Winter Vacation

Thank you to  Alyssa, Séan, Frankie, Katie and Gillian for bringing in snack.  It was yummy!  Thanks also to Gillian for donating a puzzle to the Hogarth puzzle collection.  

Both Classes  worked with the Daily Message, worked with the computers on Technology Tuesday, and enjoyed our annual Toy Sharing Day.  Both classes also enjoyed Mary Doane’s Project Nature presentation What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?

Kindergarten Children completed Calendars for January and learned a bit about Martin Luther King, Jr.  They continue to mark off days toward our 100 Day Party (how many days have passed and how many days are left).  They completed January calendars, which included a rebus poem that each child was able to “read” by months end.  They also memorized their January poem, 5 Sturdy Trees.  I formally introduced the children to writing lower case letters, and to reading words in the AT family — cat, hat, rat, etc.  We are counting to 100 by 1s and 10s, and to 20 by 2s. 

Kindergarten Stories and Songs included:  Stella, Queen of the Snow; White Snow, Bright Snow; Flip & Flop; Snow Dance; Don’t Wake Up the Bear; Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King; Ice Cream Bear; Snow Bear; A Little Bit of Winter; Snow is Falling; All You Need for a Snowman; Frozen Noses; Shoveling Snow. ♫Let it Snow; When I’m 64; Funiculu, Funicula; Happy Wanderer; Frosty the Snowman; Munchkinland; Aa You’re Adorable; Did You Ever See a Lassie?; Gillian’s Birthday Songs; Do, Re, Mi.

Prekindergarten Children continued their countdown to our 100 Book Party. The playacted the poem 5 Sturdy Trees which reinforced counting 5 objects and sequencing. We worked on upper case letter recognition with alphabet flip charts. We studied Animals on the Farm including: (a) what animals may be found on a farm; (b) what do these animals produce; (c) what sounds do these animals make; (d) how are certain animals alike and different (cows/horses and goats/sheep) (e) which animals were their favorites.  We made human graphs to determine the favorite animals.  (The children stood in rows according to their preferences)

Prekindergarten Stories and Songs Included:  The Missing Mitten Mystery; All You Need for a Snowman; Copy Me, Copycub; Flip and Flop; Penguin Pete & Pat; The Big Red Barn; Snow Bear; 6 Snowy Sheep; Green Eggs & Ham;  ♫Hello and Goodbye Songs; Did You Ever See a Lassie; Do, Re, Mi (we also watched that portion of The Sound of Music); Aa You’re Adorable; Old McDonald.

Other News — I’m happy to report that I was contracted by Gareth Stevens Publishing to write a book about the state of Georgia for their second grade series Portraits of the States.  Click here to visit my publisher online.

JANUARY, 2005

Happy New Year!  I hope your holidays were lovely, and that 2005 holds wonderful things for us all. 

Our annual Toy Sharing Day is Wednesday, January 5th.  (Wednesday, January 12th if the 5th is a snow day.)  This once-a-year event is always a crowd pleaser!  Please help your child to select a toy he or she is willing to let the other children play with during free time.  I suggest you steer your little one away from toys with lots of little parts, or toys that lend themselves to “wild” play.   We want the children to have a fun free-play time, not a wild free-for-all time!  Thanks!

January is review month.  Our regular daily activities will be suspended for the first two weeks of January while I take Student Inventories.  I’ll work individually with each child to obtain formal work samples, as well as assess math and literacy development.

Calendar Reminders --

·     Tuesday, January 4th —  Mary Doane is bringing her Project Nature program What Do You Do With a Tail? to Hogarth.

·     Friday, January 14th — Parent Conferences are being scheduled every 20 minutes from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00  p.m.  Please call me at 679-2097 to schedule a conference appointment.  Kindergarten will not meet that day. 

·     Monday, January 17th — No School —  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

·     Wednesday, January 26th  — No Afternoon Class — See the next paragraph for make-up information.

·     The December 8th ice cancellations will be made up as follows: Kindergarten will meet Thursday, January 13th until 2:30 p.m.  Please plan to send a bag lunch.  (Nothing that needs to be heated, peeled or prepared in any way, please.)  Prekindergarten children will attend 2 Thursday or Friday morning sessions of their choice from 8:30 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. to make-up the ice day and the upcoming January 26th cancellation.  I have space for 5 additional children in the morning class, so please call to be certain the dates you are looking for are still available.  You can make up these classes anytime between now and the end of the school year.  (I found a new person to sand my driveway, so ice cancellations shouldn’t happen again.  Also, you may notice the garbage pail full of sand in its own nifty holder at the bottom of the ramp.  This will go a long way to keeping the driveway passable.  Many thanks to Joe DiPalermo for setting me up with the sand pail!)

It’s Tax Time!  For your records, my tax identification number is 02-0433303.

Registration for 2005-2006 has already begun.   Feel free to call with any questions.

Thank You to Séan, Dawson, Katie, Frankie, Brooke, Ben, Eliza, Charlie, Katelin, Noah and Zachary for bringing in snack.  Thanks to anyone I may have inadvertently forgotten to thank!

Both Classes participated in a number of “seasonal” activities last month, and enjoyed exchanging cards and playing the Who’s Missing? game at our Christmas parties.  The children had shared reading experiences with several Christmas-related rhymes and fingerplays I printed out on Big Sheets.  Both classes watched The Night Before Christmas video.

Both Classes  worked with the Daily Message, worked with the computers on Technology Tuesday, and had Sharing Day.  We played several patterning games and learned a Reindeer Chant to teach the children the names of Santa’s reindeer.  Memorization skills are an important learning tool, and these little memorization exercises made for a good, solid introduction to the art of memorization.  

Both Classes made bats for the Hogarth Hibernation Station.  They will bring their bats home in the spring, but in the meantime the bats are hibernating in the “batroom” for the winter.  Kindergarten children watched the video Stellaluna which is about a little bat who is separated from her mother.  

Both Classes spent lots of time working on math concepts through dice play last month.  They are enjoying these games so much that we will continue working with dice throughout the rest of our school year.  These dice games strengthen counting skills and pattern recognition.  Pattern is the underlying theme of mathematics.  Dice games help children to recognize number patterns in the arrangements of dots on the dice, where they learn to visually grasp number patterns without having to count individual dots. 

Kindergarten Children completed calendars for December.  They continue to mark off days toward our 100 Day Party (how many days have passed and how many days are left), and are happily anticipating the party.  The children took part in a critical examination project.  I have 3 copies of The Night Before Christmas, each illustrated by a different artist.  We read each book, comparing and contrasting the 2nd and 3rd with the one(s) coming before.  Two of the books ended with Santa saying, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”  One of the books ended with him saying, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”  The children had lots of fun guessing which ending was coming up in each book.  The children voted to determine the favorite illustrations.  This is the fourth year we’ve done this project, and the third year Corinne Malvern’s illustrations won.  

Kindergarten Songs and Stories included:  Mele Kalikimaka;  Jingle Bells;  We Wish You a Merry Christmas;  Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town;  Rudolph;  Deck the Halls;  S-A-N-T-A;  Birthday Songs for Brooke;  three versions of The Night Before Christmas;  Moosletoe;  Get Dressed, Santa!;  Get Well, Santa;   Harold  at the North Pole;  A New Improved Santa;  No Roses for Harry!; How the Grinch Stole Christmas;  The Polar Express; and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Prekindergarten Children continued their countdown to our 100 Book Party. I worked 1-on-1 with the children with the Alphaboard matching upper and lower case letters.  They watched Maurice Sendak’s Little Bear’s Winter Tales video which tied in with a unit I presented on Traditions.      

Prekindergarten Songs and Stories included:  Mele Kalikimaka;  Rudolph;  Jingle Bells; Deck the Halls;  We Wish You A Merry Christmas; S-A-N-T-A; Birthday Songs for Chase and Darby;  Careful, Santa!; Teddy’s Snowy Day;  Dogs (Read by Katie.  Thanks, Katie!);  The Night Before Christmas;  How the Grinch Stole Christmas;  Get Well, Santa; Wake Up, Santa!.

DECEMBER, 2004

**This Just In On Tuesday, 12/7/04** 

Because of the inclement weather, the Project Nature programs scheduled today for both classes have been rescheduled to Tuesday, January 4th.

Happy Holidays!  I hope you enjoy all the wonderful family moments this month brings!

Christmas Parties for both classes will be held on Tuesday, December 14th.  (Wednesday, December 15th if Tuesday is a snow day.)  I need 3 people from each class to send in party snack.  (Please remember not to send in cakes, cupcakes, or heavily frosted treats.)  The children DO NOT exchange gifts, but they do give a card to their Christmas Card Buddies.  Your child should bring a Christmas Card to the party on the 14th to give to this person.  This card can be homemade or store bought, whichever you and your child choose.  If you have the card ready before the 14th and want to send it in early, please feel free to do so.  (That way, you won’t forget on party day!)  (Please let me know if anybody celebrates Hanukkah.  Thank you!)

Calendar Notes: 

·          Wednesday, 12/1  — Sharing Day. The next Sharing Day will be on Wednesday, January 5th, when we have our traditional After Christmas Toy Sharing Day.

·          Monday, 12/6   — Tuition is due.

·          Tuesday, 12/7  — Mary Doane is bringing her Project Nature program What Do You Do With a Tail? to Hogarth.  RESCHEDULED TO 1/4/05

·          Tuesday, 12/14   — Christmas Parties

·          12/20 to 12/31  — No School — Holiday Break

Thank You to Alyssa, Sam, Katelin, Brook and Séan for bringing in snack to share last month.  It was yummy! 

Last month we worked with four weekly messages.  Kindergarten mystery kids were Séan, Dawson, Brooke and Katelin.  Prekindergarten mystery kids were Cooper, Tyler, Samantha and Brigid. Brainteasers for both classes were: Vote for President; Name Your Favorite — Dogs or Cats (included a graphing activity);  Would You Rather Dig in the Sand or Dig in the Snow? (included a graphing activity);  and Name Something For Which You Are Thankful. 

Both classes had Technology Tuesday and Sharing Day.  Both classes learned about the history of Thanksgiving.  The children made turkeys to decorate the windows at Hogarth, and on the last day before Thanksgiving break, they used those turkeys to decorate a Thankful Hat while listening to Native American music.

I presented a unit on Hibernation to both classes.  The children made a Hibernation Station for bats which we will place in the bat(h)room where the bats will hibernate until spring.

Both classes played The Copycat Game where they observed me doing multiple actions and then repeated them.  For example, I might play a note on the piano, rap twice on the blackboard, and then put a green dinosaur on the bench.  A child would then try to duplicate my actions.  I did 3 actions for the 4/5 year olds to duplicate, and 2 actions for the 3/4 year olds.  The 3/4 year olds played a Copycat Word Game where individual children repeated groups of 3 unrelated words.  These types of games are excellent for sharpening listening and memory skills.

I took the Copycat Theme and used it in many ways last month.  I worked 1-on-1 with the 4/5 year olds doing  Copycat Alphabet Cards and Copycat 1 to 10 Cards.  The 3/4 year olds enjoyed playing the Mirror Game where they copycat actions at the same time I’m doing them.  (Pantomime brushing hair and teeth, etc.)

I presented a unit on Political Elections to both classes to tie in with the Presidential Election.  To make the concept of electing a leader meaningful, I had two of the dolls campaign to be President of the Babies.  They gave speeches and presented their platforms for the children’s consideration.  The blond baby promised to see that all the babies had warm blankets.  The bald baby promised to provide good food for the babies to eat.  In the end, the children voted the blond baby President of the Babies.  The bald baby gave a concession speech and promised to work closely with the new President for the good of all the babies.  The blond baby promised to be a good President.  The children LOVED the process, and it made the real-world campaign and election make more sense.  The final tally for our mock Presidential election was 11 for Kerry, 9 for Bush, and 3 for Nader.  I did not discuss political philosophies with the children, and told them to talk with you at home about these candidates.  I had a Scholastic teaching poster for the election with pictures of a donkey, elephant and mouse (for the independent candidate).  I put a picture of Kerry under the donkey, Bush under the elephant, and Nader under the mouse.  I’m pretty sure that most of the children voted for their favorite animal, which might explain the 3 Nader votes!

What else have we been engaged in at Hogarth this past month?

4/5 Year Olds began working with a monthly calendar, and completed a calendar for the month of November. Monthly calendars highlight children’s birthdays, holidays of the month, and include a rebus poem or song that the children know (or will learn that month).  November’s rebus song was It’s Fun to Pick Potatoes, and the children used yellow and orange crayons to highlight different words, increasing the readability of the rebus piece.  November’s calendar also featured an ABAB pattern of a Pilgrim boy and a Wampanoag girl. Each day, they traced the number for the day, and determined which day of the week it was.  4/5 Year Olds learned about Veterans’ Day.  They did a Word Search using words in the Daily Message.  They practiced writing letters Aa through Ii. I presented the concept of reading critically through a “study” of the author/illustrator team Don and Audrey Wood, my absolute favorite picture book team.  We read their books Quick As a Cricket, King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub, Jubal’s Wish, Heckedy Peg, The Napping House, and Silly Sally.  We read Silly Sally last, which was written and illustrated by Audrey Wood alone, and the children knew immediately that it was very different from the others.

3/4 Year Olds did lots of activities requiring cutting with scissors last month, an important fine motor skill.  I used our puppy and hamster puppets in a skit about Thanksgiving and a skit about name-calling (prompted by a classroom incident).  We worked on the alphabet through the song Aa Alligators All Around and the flash cards that go with this song.

Stories and Songs.  4/5 Year Old Stories — Goldie and the 3 Bears;  Woodrow, The White House Mouse;  Emily’s Dance Class; The Very First Thanksgiving; Squanto; Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks; Off to Plymouth Rock;  Feeling Thankful; A Plump and Perky Turkey; The Pilgrims’ First Thanksgiving; 1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Pilgrims; Verdi;  Jubal’s Wish;  King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub; Quick as a Cricket; The Napping House;  Flying Bats!;  Bats;  Silly Sally. 4/5 Year Old Songs —  Birthday Songs for Dawson.; It’s Fun to Pick Potatoes;  Happy Wanderer;  You Say Tomato; Old Mr. Turkey; Over the River and Through the Woods; I’m Just Wild About Mary;  Bicycle Built for Two; Take Me Out to the Ballgame;   Prekindergarten Stories — The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything;  Woodrow, The White House Mouse;  Baby Bird; The Flea’s Sneeze;  Lost!; Thank You, Thanksgiving; Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks; The Very First Thanksgiving; Thanksgiving Day; Flying Bats!; 1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Pilgrims.  Prekindergarten Songs —  Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes; Old Mr. Turkey; Aa Alligators All Around;  Over the River and Through the Woods;  I’m Just Wild About Mary;  Bicycle Built for Two; Hello Song; Goodbye Song.

Here’s a sneak peak at one of the songs we’ll be learning in both classes this month.  (Folks who were here last year are sure to recognize it right away!)  It’s Mele Kalikimaka by R. Alex Anderson.   To hear the melody, visit www.melekalikimaka.com -- enjoy! 

♫Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say, on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day.

That's the island greeting that we send to you from the land where palm trees sway.

Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright,

The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night.

   Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way, to say "Merry Christmas to you."♫ 

  HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

NOVEMBER, 2004

Mary Doane’s Wild About Turtle’s program was fabulous! In the days before Mary visited, I presented a unit on turtles to both classes. Mary’s program included stories, singing, sculpting and a visit with three real turtles.   Mary will be back on December 7th to present What Do You Do With a Tail?  The cost for this program is $6.00 per child, which you can include in your December payment. What else have we been engaged in at Hogarth this past month?

·          Both classes enjoyed their first Sharing Day.  Each child had an opportunity to talk through the microphone and field questions about his or her sharing.  Sharing Day is this Wednesday, November 3rd.  

·          Both classes had computer time on Technology Tuesday each week last month.

·          Dawson brought a baby Eclectus bird to visit the morning students.  Dawson’s mom gave a presentation that included the care and feeding of baby Eclectus birds and gender-typing Eclectus birds.  The children were able to gently pat the bird, and Mrs. Wilson banded the bird during the visit.  Many thanks to Dawson and his mom for a wonderful visit!

·          A fire safety and prevention program was presented to both classes.

·          Both classes enjoyed a Halloween Party.  Morning children played the party game Who’s Missing? Afternoon children played What’s Different.  Thanks so much to Dawson, Brooke, Frankie, Zachary, Brigid, Sam, Katie, Gillian, Chase and Jacob for bringing in party snacks and party favors.  And a special thanks to Brigid’s mom, Mrs. Auclair, for taking pictures of the afternoon party and making CDs for everybody. We were all very surprised and happy to receive them!

·          A classroom hygiene program was presented to both classes.  We learned how to sneeze and cough into the crooks of our elbows, which puts the germs in Germ Jail.  Although covering your mouth with your hand when you cough or sneeze has historically been taught as the polite way to catch a sneeze or cough, it is also a very effective way to spread germs around the environment.  We also had intensive hand-washing lessons which included playacting proper hand-washing techniques while we sang the Hand-washing Song.  Our step-by-step hand-washing lesson included:  (1) Turn on the warm water (I have a mixing valve on the hot water faucet so it’s always lukewarm.  The children need only turn on this faucet to wash their hands.)  (2) Wet hands under the running water.  (3)  Pump one squirt of soap into the palm. Do not put your hands back under the water yet.  (4) Lather up hands while singing the Hand-washing Song.  Do not put your hands back under the water yet.  (5)  Sing the song again.  (6)  Rinse your hands under the running water.  (7)  Dry your hands with paper towels.  (8)  Turn the water off with your paper towels.  (9)  Put your paper towels in the trash.  (10)  Be proud that you are such a good hand-washer!  Please help your child to learn the Germ Jail and hand-washing techniques we are teaching at Hogarth.  We’ll all stay healthier if you do!

·          Our playground is officially open!  The children absolutely love climbing on and playing in the clubhouse, digging in the huge sandbox, and shooting hoops.  We’re going to enjoy it until the weather turns too frosty, so I suggest you dress your children in comfortable play clothes good for reaching and climbing or kneeling and digging.  

·          Literacy Activities.  (1) We worked with three weekly messages in the month of October.  Morning mystery kids were Alyssa, Ben, and Eliza.  Afternoon mystery kids were Noah, Jacob and Ryan.  Brainteasers for both classes were:  Name Your Classmates;  Who Is Your Favorite Dog  — Mary or Daisy?  (It was Daisy.);  and, Which Is Your Favorite Fruit — Apples or Cherries?  (It was cherries.)  Brainteasers are often followed up with a graphing activity, as we did with the Mary/Daisy and Apples/Cherries brainteasers.  (2)  Both classes used “big sheets” for the action rhymes 1 Little Skeleton, 3 Little Ghosts, 5 Little Pumpkins, Jolly Wolly Pumpkin Face; Apple Picking, and 5 Little Doggies. They also worked with the “big sheet” for the song It’s Fun to Pick Potatoes. Through these “big sheets” we worked with rhyme, memorization, and reading rebus words.  They also allow me to model the left-to-right, top-to-bottom reading progression.  (3)   Both classes worked with Alpha Boxes to learn letter sounds and/or letter recognition.  (4)  Morning children worked on story sequence with Humpty Dumpty flannel board pieces.  (5)  Afternoon children worked with our A-Z Alphabet Pocket Chart to find their first initials and discover the picture word that went with it.

·          Math Activities.  (1)  Morning children continue working each day with a 100 grid (counting forward to 100) and a 100 chart (counting backward to 1 from 100).  They’ve completed 36 squares.  (2)  Afternoon children continue working with a 100 grid chart, turning a number over for each book we read in class.  They’ve completed 24 sections.  (3)  Both classes worked on quantifying up to 5 objects through several different fingerplays and actions rhymes.  (4)  Morning children worked on patterning the shapes circle, triangle and square with flannel board pieces.  They also worked on quantifying 5 objects using 5 flannel board pumpkin pieces to complement the fingerplay 5 Little Pumpkins.  (6)  Morning children worked on positional words first, second, third and last through a concentration-type game.

·          Morning Children read:  Fire! Fire!;  A Dolphin is Not a Fish;  I Am Fire;  Christopher Columbus;  Humpty Dumpty;  Little Boy Blue;  Are You My Mother?;  The Little Scarecrow Boy;  Dinofours:  It’s Fire Drill Day;  5 Little Pumpkins;  Fall Changes;  Baloney, Henry P.;  A Wolf at the Door;  Runaway Pumpkin;  Peanut Butter Rhino;  Dinofours:  Halloween;  The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.  Morning Children sang:  I’m Just Wild About Mary;  Bicycle Built for Two;  I’ve Been Working on the Railroad;  Séan’s Birthday Songs;  Winnie the Pooh;  The Band Played On;  Funiculi, Funicula;  It’s Fun to Pick Potatoes;  The Happy Wanderer.

·          Afternoon Children read:  Fresh Fall Leaves, I Am Fire;  Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?;  Mouse’s First Day of School;  Are You My Mother?;  Dinofours:  It’s Fire Drill Day;  The Teeny Tiny Ghost;  The Biggest Leaf Pile;  Goodnight, Gorilla (we watched the video, as well);  Peanut Butter Rhino;  Dinofours:  Halloween.  Afternoon Children sang:  The Hello Song;  The Goodbye Song;  It’s Fun to Pick Potatoes;  Cooper’s Birthday Songs;  Following the Leader;  You Can Fly.

·          Many Thanks to:  Alyssa, Séan, Katelin, Cooper, and Gillian for bringing in snack.  It was very yummy!  Thanks to Eliza for sharing her Peter and the Wolf and Annie Get Your Gun videos with her classmates.  I know I’m still singing Doin’ What Comes Naturally!  Thanks to anybody I may have inadvertently forgotten to thank!

·         Calendar Notes.  Please mark the following dates and adjustments on your calendar.

Monday, 11/1 — Tuition is due.

Wednesday, 11/3 — SHARING DAY

Thursday, 11/11 — No School — Veterans’ Day

Wednesday, 11/24 to Friday, 11/26 — No School — Thanksgiving Break

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!

OCTOBER, 2004

Our first month of school is behind us, and the rest of the year is an empty book waiting to be written.  Your children continue to transition from “home kid” to “school kid” and everyone is making new friends.  What else have we been engaged in at Hogarth this past month? 

·     Collecting Work Samples and Conducting Inventories.  I will finish this up over the next week or two.

·     Following Directions.  Children must be able to follow directions in order to work independently and successfully in school.  They need to focus on what is being said, and follow through appropriately.  We work each day to develop this ability through group games, work sheets, or in 1 on 1 teacher/student activities.  We are working on 1-step directions (i.e. color the sun purple), and will increase the number of steps and degree of difficulty as the year progresses.  The example I gave of the purple sun is more difficult than it appears.  Children often hear only “color the sun”, and immediately pick up a yellow crayon and start coloring without regard to the color specified.  As with any skill, practice increases accuracy, and the children will be getting lots of practice in following directions this school year.

·     Literacy Activities.  (1)  Many of the children are learning to write their names independently.  All of the children are learning where to situate their names on work papers.  At this early point in the school year, I usually write in their names with yellow highlighter for them to trace.  This is a “scaffolded” activity, in which I provide direct support to help a student achieve success.  As a student becomes more accomplished, I gradually remove the “scaffolding”.  (2)  Both classes have been working on identifying letters and letter sounds with Alpha Boxes.

·     Math Activities.  (1)  Morning children are working each day with a 100 grid (counting forward to 100) and a 100 chart (counting backward to 1 from 100), and are looking forward to a party on the 100th day of school.  The grid and chart with follow-up activities will teach and reinforce identification of numbers 1 to 100, quantifying 1 to 100, counting to 100 by 1s and 10s, following and extending patterns.  (2)  Afternoon children are planning a party for the day we read our 100th book.  We’re keeping track of books read with a 100 chart which I am using as a teaching aid to teach numbers 1 to 100.  (3)  Morning children worked on ABAB patterns using dinosaur counters and humans. 

Both Classes worked with the balance beam and had computer time on Technology Tuesday.

·     Both classes also worked with linking chains, an activity that promotes cooperation, fine motor skills, counting and quantifying numbers, and patterning.

·     Morning children are memorizing the days of the week and the songs Aa Alligators All Around and Aa You’re Adorable.  Once learned, these songs will figure heavily in our literacy curriculum this year.

·     Songs and Stories.  My brother Arthur, who is a musician, is starting a new recording business called Thumbprint Productions and he has graciously agreed to record a CD of the children singing at some point this fall or early this winter.  Both classes are working on the songs Down by the Station and In and Out the Window for the Hogarth CD.  Morning children read Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?;  The Very Hungry Caterpillar;  Let’s Go on a Bear Hunt;  Alligators All Around;  William’s Doll;  The Tickle Octopus;  Iron Horses;  The Little Engine That Could;  Froggy Goes to School;  Grow, Flower, Grow;  Creepy Creatures;  Caps for Sale;  Farmer Duck;  The Story of James;  All About Turtles;  Drip, Drop;  Nuts to You;  Spiders.  Morning Children sang In and Out the Window;  Down by the Station;  and The Band Played On.  Afternoon children read Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?;  “More! More! More!” Said the Baby;  No, David!;  If You Were My Bunny;  I Stink!;  Grow, Flower, Grow;  Caps for Sale;  Big Dog, Little Dog;  Farmer Duck;  All About Turtles;  Nuts to You.  Afternoon children sang birthday songs to Jacob. 

·     Calendar Notes.  Please mark the following dates and adjustments on your calendar.

Monday, October 4th — Tuition is due.

Monday, October 4th — Project Nature presentation WILD ABOUT TURTLES. 

Wednesday, October 6th — SHARING DAY

Monday, October 11th — No School — Columbus Day

Wednesday, October 27th — HALLOWEEN PARTY

·     Thank you to Alyssa, Jacob, Brooke, Katie, Eliza, Sam and Séan for bringing in snack.  It was yummy!  And “thank you” to anybody I should have thanked but forgot.

SEPTEMBER, 2004

The children appear to be adjusting to the classroom routine, and everyone seems happy to be at Hogarth.  I call that a successful beginning!  The children have been making friends, exploring the classroom, listening to stories, singing songs, playing learning games, working on literacy and math skills, and getting used to putting pencil to paper.   

I will spend a good part of the next few weeks taking student inventories by formally assessing each child’s knowledge of letters, numbers, shapes, colors, etc.  I’ll also collect work samples which we will use to gauge development against samples I plan to take in January and May. 

Book Order Forms from Scholastic Book Clubs will be sent home every 4 to 6 weeks.  You may pay with either cash, or checks made payable to Scholastic Book Clubs.  This month’s book orders are due on Wednesday the 15th.

Sharing Day, which is similar to Show and Tell, is the first Wednesday of each month.  This makes Wednesday, October 6th our first Sharing Day of the year.  Your children are welcome to bring just about anything that interests them to share with their friends.  I ask that you help your little ones to select their sharing, and talk about what they plan to tell their classmates.  (What it is.  Why they selected it.  Where did they get it.)  The following limits are placed on what may be brought to school:  no toys and no living creatures.  If your child wants to share photographs, please help him or her select one or two special pictures.  Please do not send in an entire photo album. Please help your child to abide by the "no toys" rule, which encompasses every kind of toy you can think of, including stuffed animals and Beanie Babies.  Let your child know that the January Sharing Day is always Toy Sharing Day, which makes it a very special event.

Speaking of toys, please remember that your child is not allowed to bring toys from home to school. The reasons for this are:  (a) children are often “territorial” with their own toys and not willing to share, and (b) the chances are huge that the toy will get lost among the Hogarth toys or broken.  This does not apply to a comfort item, such as a favorite stuffed animal, that your child wants to tuck in his or her backpack.

 I am very excited to be bringing Mary Doane from Project Nature back to Hogarth with a series of hands-on science programs that help children gain a sense of relationship with the earth and its creatures.  I am also planning field trips for both classes to pick apples at Apple Annie in Brentwood.  Details of these special events will appear in a future newsletter.

I will be sending along an email with digital pictures of your child at work over the next week or so.  These pictures will be a wonderful way to strengthen the home-school connection, and should prove to be a terrific way for you to start a dialogue with your child about what he or she does at school.  If you don’t receive a picture, please drop me an email to be sure I have the right address.

GENTLE REMINDERS:  Tuition is due on the first Monday of each month through April, and your second payment should have been received on the 13th.  Also, please remember that pick-up time is 11:20 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. for the morning class.  Kathie and I have only 20 minutes for lunch, and we need that time to recharge our batteries.  Pick-up time is 2:20 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. for the afternoon class, and since we schedule our appointments and errands for after school, we need you to be on time as well. 

Well, we’re off and running!  Here’s to a marvelous school year filled with wonder, discovery, and joy.  

SUMMER 2004

The summer students are hard at work putting together exhibits for our Children's Museum.  We will visit Children's Metamorphosis in Londonderry and the SEE Science Center in Manchester to see how the "professionals" have arranged their exhibits.

This is our 25th anniversary year, and we have something special planned.  Keep your eyes on Hogarth over the last few weeks of summer.  You'll see our brand new playground spring up on the front lawn!

FROM THE 2003-2004 ACADEMIC YEAR  

MAY, 2004  

I hope you had a wonderful vacation, and are ready to enter the Hogarth Homestretch.  We only have 5 very busy weeks of school left, so this will be the last Newsletter of the 2003-2004 school year.  I will be spending the first few weeks of May taking Student Inventories from each child in anticipation of Parent Conference Day, Friday, May 28th.  If you’d like to schedule a conference, please call me at 679-2097 to arrange an appointment. 

Please mark the following scheduling notes on your calendar:

Wednesday, May 5th  — This is the last Sharing Day of the year.

Tuesday, May 11th — Mary Doane is bringing her Project Nature program Desert Voices to Hogarth.  Desert Voices is an introduction to the creatures of the desert and their lives, homes, and places in the desert world. 

Friday, May 28th  —  8 a.m. to 5 p.m. — Conference Day — No Kindergarten Class

Monday, May 31st  —  Memorial Day — No School

Wednesday, June 2nd — Pizza Party and Last Day of School for Prekindergarten.

Friday, June 6th  — 8:30 a.m. until approximately 10:00 a.m. — Waffle Breakfast for Kindergartners and their siblings followed by Graduation.   The graduation ceremony will start at approximately 9 o’clock, and you are welcome to invite grandparents, favorite aunts and uncles, etc. to join us at that time.  Graduation has evolved into a very low-key affair that is most enjoyable for the children.  The children will sing several songs, and receive awards and diplomas.  School is over for the year immediately following graduation. 

I will be working individually with your children over the next few weeks collecting work samples and taking student inventories in anticipation of Parent Conferences.  As we approach the “winding down” point of the school year later this month, I will spend the last few weeks reviewing and reinforcing concepts covered this year, re-reading favorite stories, singing favorite songs, and getting ready to say goodbye. 

Thank you so much to Katelin, Matthew, Katie, Eliza, Margaret, Michaela, and Gillian for bringing in snack.  Thank you to Katie for donating a set of children’s CDs to our musical library, thank you to Alyssa for bringing in her Goldilocks tape to share.  I had told the children my own special version of Goldilocks, and Alyssa brought her tape in the next day for us to enjoy.  Thanks to Frankie for bringing in Easter goodie bags for his classmates.  Thank you to Séan for bringing in his very cool, very big spider to decorate the room weaving.  It was a beauty! Thanks to anyone else I may have forgotten, and most importantly, thanks to all of you for your faith in me and Hogarth.  This has been a wonderful year, and I appreciated having your children in class. To those of you moving onto "big" school, I wish you all the best.  To those of you returning in the summer and fall, I look forward to continuing the adventure.  Thank you, again! 

APRIL, 2004

The Week of the Young Child is being celebrated April 18th to 24th.  We will be weaving the room that week, and your child will need to bring 1 large ball of yarn in order to fully participate in the project.  You can send this in at any time in a bag labeled with your child’s name, and I’ll hold on to it until we weave.   Please do not send in skeins of yarn, as the yarn must be rolled into a ball for your child to weave.  Plan to check out our progress each day after class, and please feel free to take pictures!

Calendar Notes:

·          Sharing Day is Wednesday, April 7th.

·          Spring Vacation is April 25th though 30th.

Thanks to Gillian, Margaret, Eliza, Dominic, Katie, and Alyssa for bringing in snack.  Thanks to Dominic and Alyssa for donating several vintage children’s record albums to our musical library.  They’re terrific!

What were we engaged in last month?

Both classes welcomed in Spring by making Spring mosaics.  We talked at length about the changes happening in the world around us as the seasons changed.

Technology Tuesday continues to be a huge hit with both classes. Each child has a chance to work with Mrs. Lamparelli playing a learning game on one of the computers.  The child then moves to the other computer to work with me on keyboarding skills and a specific academic lesson.  (These lessons are self-explanatory, as your child brings home a print-out of the work done each week.)  

Kindergarten children completed their March calendars, and memorized another calendar-related rebus poem.  Prekindergarten children completed their March day trackers, and memorized another calendar-related rebus poem/song.  The rebus poems on these calendars and the accompanying Big Sheets provide a daily shared reading experience for children in both classes.  Both classes continued the shared reading experience at storytime when we read the big books Big Sarah’s Little Boots, and Pecos Bill.  Pecos Bill was a particular favorite, especially with the kindergartners, and inspired us to learn the cowboy songs Whoopee Ti Yi Yo, Git Along Little Dogies and Old Paint in kindergarten.

Both classes learned the songs Hole in the Bottom of the Sea and My Hand on my Head.  These songs are written in a cumulative fashion (as in The House that Jack Built), and have been an excellent and fun way for your child to sharpen his or her memory and sequencing skills.

Kindergarten children are learning about money — penny, nickel, dime, quarter and dollar.  They began memorizing a chant I wrote specifically to teach money concepts called Money is Full of Cents.

Kindergarten children used Venn Diagrams in both literacy and math-related activities.  The Venn Diagram is made up of two or more overlapping circles. It is often used in mathematics to show relationships between sets. In language arts instruction, Venn Diagrams are useful for examining similarities and differences in characters, stories, poems, etc.

Eliza and Michaela made a long paper chain under which their kindergarten classmates happily danced the limbo.  Kindergarten children continued working on an Animal Alphabet book, and completed pages Hh Horse through Oo Octopus last month.

Kindergarten children followed up the reading of the stories Good Night, Gorilla and How Do Dinosaur’s Say Good Night? by watching the videos.

Prekindergarten children especially enjoyed observing the weather last month for “lamb or lion” days.  The graphing activity that accompanied these observations was the source of much debate over which type of weather would win.

Prekindergarten children made mini-books for the letters A, B-C-D, E, and F-G-H.  These books supplement hands-on letter work, and vowels are given their own books because of the variety of sounds vowels make.

Prekindergarten children continued counting down to their 100 Book Party.

Kindergarten Songs Included:  Coming ‘Round the Mountain;  Purple Lilacs; Hole in the Bottom of the Sea;  Doggie in the Window;  My Hand on my Head;  Old Paint;  Whoopee Ti Yi Yo;  Birthday Songs for Matthew and Margaret.

Kindergarten Stories Included:  Horses;  Snow Day;  Peter’s Chair;  The Triplets;  Big Dog, Little Dog;  Penguin’s Special Delivery;  Mama, Do You Love Me?;  Big Sarah’s Little Boots;  Katy No-Pocket;  Pecos Bill; Good Night, Gorilla;  How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?; 100 Hungry Ants; Bread and Jam for Francis;  Bedtime for Francis;  Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin;  Green Wilma.

Prekindergarten Songs Included:  March in New Hampshire;  Purple Lilacs;  Hole in the Bottom of the Sea;  My Hand on my Head.

Prekindergarten Stories Included:  The Tortoise and the Jack Rabbit;  Snow Day;  Barn Yard Dance;  Peter’s Chair;  I Stink!;  Big Sarah’s Little Boots;  The Grumpy Bunnies;  Pecos Bill;  A Treeful of Pigs;  Froggy Gets Dressed;  Come Along, Daisy;  Green Wilma;  My Room.

MARCH, 2004

Thanks so much for your concern over my broken arm.  With physical therapy, I'll hopefully be 100% back in the swing of things by early spring.  This newsletter is going to be a bit short, because I can only type for brief periods of time, and I don’t want to push myself while I’m healing.  Thanks to Mrs. DiPalermo for jumping in and helping out the day I broke my arm, and thanks to Mrs. Goulet for being “on-call” this past month.  A special thank you goes to Mrs. Lamparelli, who has been going above and beyond.  I could never have gotten through these weeks as a “leftie” without her!

Thanks to Michaela, Katie, Gillian, Matthew, Vanessa, Séan, Dominic, Alyssa, Frankie and Sam for bringing in snack.  Thanks to all my kindergarten parents for sending in snack and supplies for our 100 Day Party.  Thanks to anyone else I may have inadvertently forgotten to thank!

Calendar Notes: Picture day is Tuesday, March 9th.

All things considered, February was a wonderful month.  I appeared on Nancy Keane’s Concord, NH cable TV show Kids Book Beat, and talked about my book Out and About at the Dairy Farm.  I participated in a discussion with the five other authors in the Out and About Series, and hope to obtain a copy of the tape for airing on Epping’s cable network.  Hogarth business included: 

·     Valentine’s Parties in both classes.  The kindergarten children celebrated the 100th day of school with a party filled with 100-related activities. 

·     Both classes had February and March Sharing Days, and I need to thank Séanie for letting his friends play the Bug Book Counting Game he brought to share.  It was a huge hit with the children.  I also need to thank Dominic and Alyssa for inspiring us to try our hands at “Chinese writing” on  sharing day — the children loved it.

·     With the acquisition of 2 computers last month, I have added Technology Tuesday to the curriculum.  Because I believe that learning to use the computer is not on the top of the list of things a preschooler/kindergartner needs to know, and because most of the children have access to computers at home, the computers are only available on Tuesdays.  This will help to maintain interest, and make the use of the computers a special event.  It also is helping to develop your preschoolers knowledge of the days of the week, and to develop their sense of time.

·     Kindergarten children completed their February calendars, and memorized another calendar-related rebus poem.  Prekindergarten children completed their February day trackers, and memorized another calendar-related rebus poem.

·     Kindergarten children are working on an Animal Alphabet book, and have completed pages Aa Ant through Gg Goldfish. 

·      Kindergarten children are playing a literacy game I developed called Chip It.  It consists of a game board with pictures of objects, or pictures of the Hogarth kindergarten children.  A child draws a card from a pile with the name of one of the objects (or one of the children) on it.  They have to figure out what the card says, and then cover the picture with a chip.

·     Both classes read stories and sang songs each day.

FEBRUARY, 2004

Thank you to  Gillian, Dominic, Alyssa, Jackson, Katie and Sam for bringing in snack.  It was yummy!  Thank you to Margaret for donating Mr. Lion, the Song Hamster and the Problem Solving Puppy, puppets which have become a happy part of the Hogarth family.  Mr. Lion introduces our story each day at story time, and often asks follow-up questions or leads the post-story discussion.  Mr. Lion has done wonders for some of the students who had difficulty listening to stories.  The Song Hamster teaches the words to new songs, and she has become quite the crowd pleaser as well.  The Problem Solving Puppy’s duties include mediating disputes, and generally helping find solutions to problems that may arise during play time.  I’m happy to say, that due to lack of conflict, he hasn’t yet had to come off his perch on the piano!

Calendar Notes: 

February 10 -- Valentine's Party

February 23 through 27 -- Winter Vacation

March 9 -- Picture day

Kindergarten Children completed Calendars for January, learned a bit about Martin Luther King, Jr., and enjoyed our annual Toy Sharing day.  They continue to mark off days toward our 100 Day Party (how many days have passed and how many days are left), and sang 76 Trombones  and watched that portion of the movie The Music Man when we reached day number 76.  They completed January calendars, which included a rebus poem that each child was able to “read” by

months end.  I formally introduced the children to writing lower case letters, and to the concept of “silent e” and the “ing” sound at the end of words.  We are counting to 60 by 5s, and once this is mastered, will start working with telling time.  We started a unit entitled Keep Your Body Healthy, which will go through the end of February.  We ended the first week of the unit with a manual dexterity experiment in which the children had to perform a number of fine motor tasks, first with complete mobility, and then with the thumb immobilized.  By the end of the experiment, they had a great appreciation for their thumbs!  Because of Student Inventories, we had only one message last month.  The mystery kid was Frankie, and the brainteaser was Name Your Favorite Sport, which tied in with the Healthy Body unit.  We are working with an Animal Alphabet bulletin board display, which is an introduction to an alphabet book the children will start working on this week. 

Kindergarten Stories:  The Missing Mitten Mystery;  Ice Cream Bear;  The Big Snow;  Winter Rabbit;  Audrey and Barbara;  Two Eggs;  Olivia;  Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King;  Annie and the Wild Animals;  All About Owls;  Snow Day;  Snow Dance;  What’s Inside Your Body (read over the course of 4 days);  The Human Body;  and Little Raccoon Catches a Cold. 

Kindergarten Songs included:  Following the Leader and You Can Fly from Peter Pan;  Brandon A.’s birthday songs;  76 Trombones;  Funiculi, Funicular;  Happy Wanderer;  Lullaby League;  Let It Snow;  Aa Alligators All Around;  Aa You’re Adorable;  and moving to The Coconut Song and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. Music this month also included free playtime exploration of the xylophone.

Prekindergarten Children continued working with our 100 grid heart poster, filling in one section for each book we read in class.  They started working with a Day Tracker, which is an early calendar activity.  The January day tracker included a rebus story about hibernation. They worked with an alphabet maze poster which reinforced upper case letter recognition and alphabetical order.  We played a letter recognition game on the blackboard called Eagle Eye, in which the children had to find specific letters of the alphabet.  They enjoyed our annual Toy Sharing day.  We completed a unit entitled Keep Your Body Healthy.  The unit ended with an experiment that showed how helpful the ridges on the fingertips are. The children picked up dimes first with their bare fingertips, and then with scotch tape affixed to the tips of their thumbs and index fingers.  Because of Student Inventories, we had only one message last month.  The mystery kid was Bruce, and the brainteaser was Name Your Favorite Sport, which tied in with the Healthy Body unit.        

Prekindergarten Stories:  The Missing Mitten Mystery;  Winter Rabbit;  Ice Cream Bear;  Audrey and Barbara;  Two Eggs;  Olivia;  The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big, Hungry Bear;  Snow Day;  The Human Body;  Little Raccoon Catches a Cold;  Let’s Find Out About the Human Body.

Prekindergarten Songs included:  Following the Leader from Peter Pan;  birthday songs for Alyssa, Nicole, Jackson, and Gillian;  If You’re Happy and You Know It;  Little White Duck;  Doggy in the Window;  and moving to Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

JANUARY, 2004

Happy New Year!  I hope your holidays were lovely, and that 2004 holds wonderful things for us all.

Our annual Toy Sharing Day is Wednesday, January 7th.  (Wednesday, January 14th if the 7th is a snow day.)  This once-a-year event is always a crowd pleaser!  Please help your child to select a toy he or she is willing to let the other children play with during free time. 

January is review month.  Our regular daily activities will be suspended for the first two weeks of January while I take Student Inventories.  I’ll work individually with each child to obtain formal work samples, as well as assess math and literacy development.

Calendar Reminders -- Parent Conferences are being scheduled every 20 minutes from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00  p.m. on Friday, January 16th.  Please call me at 679-2097 to schedule a conference appointment.  Kindergarten will not meet that day.  There is no school on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Monday, January 19th.

Registration for 2004-2005 has already begun.  Call Andrea to secure your child's spot for next year.

Thank You to Dominic, Alyssa and Gillian for bringing in snack.  to Brandon A., Frankie, Gillian, Nicole, Sam and Katelin for bringing in party snack and party favors for their friends.  I’ll Always Love You.  Dominic for sharing his father’s Natalie Cole CD with the song Route 66 on it when we reached day number 66 in our 100 day countdown.  We all got quite a kick out of it!  (If you don’t know the song, there’s a huge pun in that last sentence.)  Dominic, who is taking piano lessons, brought in his piano book and played Christmas Carols for his friends.  We were all very impressed!  Thanks, Dominic!

Both Classes participated in a number of “seasonal” activities last month, and enjoyed exchanging cards and playing the Ball Toss game at our Christmas parties.  The children worked with index cards with the letters N-A-T-S-A written on them. They would order the cards properly to spell the word SANTA, or hide one and play tell the missing letter.  The children took turns playacting being Santa and performing the Santa duties in a specific sequence — down the chimney, fill the stockings, eat snack, leave the presents, go back up the chimney.  Any Santa who went down the chimney and straight to the snack table without filling the stockings first was immediately set straight by his or her colleagues! The children had shared reading experiences with several Christmas-related rhymes and fingerplays  printed out on Big Sheets.  Mary Doane’s Project Nature winter woods mystery program was fabulous! Her presentation included reading the story Stranger in the Woods, sculpting a “stranger” with clay, and singing the songs Stranger in the Woods; Big, Beautiful Planet; Save the Animals; and The Goodbye Song.  FYI, the “stranger” in the story was a snowman built by children and decorated with food for the forest creatures to eat.  Mary will be back on May 11th to present Desert Voices, an introduction to the creatures of the desert and their lives, homes, and places in the desert world.   Prekindergarten children will join their kindergarten colleagues for class that morning.  Both classes continued to work with the Daily Message, had Sharing Day, and had Fire Drills.

Kindergarten Children completed calendars for December.  They continue to mark off days toward our 100 Day Party (how many days have passed and how many days are left), and learned the Beatles’ song When I’m 64 when we reached day number 64.  The children took part in a critical examination project.  I have 3 copies of The Night Before Christmas, each illustrated by a different artist.  We read each book, comparing and contrasting the 2nd and 3rd with the one(s) coming before.  Two of the books ended with Santa saying, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”  One of the books ended with him saying, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”  The children had lots of fun guessing which ending was coming up in each book.  The children voted by secret ballot to determine the favorite illustrations.  This is the third year we’ve done this project, and the first year Jan Brett’s illustrations won.  (Corinne Malvern’s illustrations won the first two years.)  We worked with initial consonant sounds for the letters S-R-T-C-H-B-G-M and started working formally with vowel sounds for A-E-I-O-U in December.  We played the dice game Musical Chair Addition.  In this game, a child rolls a die, and takes the corresponding amount of Unifix Cubes.  After each round, the children compare their Unifix Cube sticks, and sit in a row of chairs, with the child having the most cubes sitting in the first chair, and the rest lining up next to him or her according to the number of cubes in their Unifix sticks.  We played several rounds, and the children had to reorder the line after each round.  The children made and extended a fish pattern on the floor that went around the entire room.  (I have over 500 fish, so this was a major undertaking!)

Kindergarten Songs and Stories included:  Mele Kalikimaka;  Jingle Bells;  We Wish You a Merry Christmas;  Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town;  Rudolph;  Deck the Halls;  S-A-N-T-A;  When I’m 64; Route 66;  three versions of The Night Before Christmas;  Harold  at the North Pole;  Stranger in the Woods;  A New Improved Santa;  No Roses for Harry!;  Christmas Kitten;  Careful, Santa!;  The Christmas Promise;  How the Grinch Stole Christmas;  The Polar Express; and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Prekindergarten Children continued working with our 100 grid heart poster, filling in one section for each book we read in class.  They played the dice game Roll and Clap. In this game, a child rolls a die, and then claps out the number rolled.       

Prekindergarten Songs and Stories included:  Mele Kalikimaka;  Rudolph;  Jingle Bells; Deck the Halls;  We Wish You A Merry Christmas; S-A-N-T-A; No Roses for Harry!; Careful, Santa!;  I’ll Always Love You;  Christmas Kitten;  Teddy’s Snowy Day;  Owl Babies;  Stranger in the Woods;  The Night Before Christmas.

DECEMBER, 2003

Happy Holidays!  I hope you enjoy all the wonderful family moments this month brings!

Christmas Parties for both classes will be held on Monday, December 15th.  (Wednesday, December 17th if Monday is a snow day.)  I need 3 people from each class to send in party snack.  The children DO NOT exchange gifts, but they do give a card to their Christmas Card Buddies.  Next week, your child will pick a friend’s name from a hat to be his or her Christmas Card Buddy.  Your child should bring a Christmas Card to the party on the 15th to give to this person.  This card can be homemade or store bought, whichever you and your child choose.  If you have the card ready before the 15th and want to send it in early, please feel free to do so.  (That way, you won’t forget on party day!)

Calendar Notes: 

•           Monday, 12/1  —Tuition is due.

•           Wednesday, 12/3  — Sharing Day. The next Sharing Day will be on Wednesday, January 7th, when we have our traditional After Christmas Toy Sharing Day.

•           Monday, 12/15   — Christmas Parties

•           Tuesday, 12/16  — Mary Doane is bringing her Project Nature program Stranger in the Woods to Hogarth.  Prekindergarten children will join their kindergarten colleagues for class that day, and they should be dropped off at 9:00 a.m. and picked up at 11:30 a.m. 

•           12/22 to 1/2  — No School — Holiday Break

Thank You to Eliza, Brandon M., Michaela and Katie for bringing in snack to share last month.  It was yummy!  Thanks also to Katie for bringing in turkey feathers to share with her classmates.  They made great props for our turkey songs!

Last month we had a fabulous visit with picture book author Kathleen Deady.  (Click here and scroll down to see pictures of Mrs. Deady’s visit.)  In kindergarten, Mrs. Deady read her work-in-progress, the nonfiction book COUNT THOSE SPOTS!  This terrific book teaches early math concepts through dice play.  The children played several dice games Mrs. Deady is developing to go along with her book, and judging from the reactions of the children, she has another winner on her hands.  We had time at the end of class for Mrs. Deady to read her rhyming HarperCollins picture book IT’S TIME to the children, who were enchanted with this gentle barnyard story.   Mrs. Deady chose to read IT’S TIME to the prekindergarten children that afternoon.  She followed up her reading with a flannel board activity, in which the children took turns sequencing the animals that appeared in the story. They also identified tape-recorded farm animal sounds.  Mrs. Deady has promised a return visit in the Spring, when her next rhyming picture book, THROUGH THE YEAR, is released by Carolrhoda Publishing.  

We worked with four weekly messages.  Kindergarten mystery kids were Matthew, Brandon M., Frankie and Brandon A.  Prekindergarten mystery kids were Séan, Katie, Vanessa and Jackson. Brainteasers for both classes were: Name Your Favorite Fruit; Name Your Favorite Vegetable; Pick Your Favorite Dog; Tell What You Are Thankful For.

Both Classes spent lots of time working on math concepts through dice play last month.  They are enjoying these games so much that we will continue working with dice throughout the rest of our school year.  These dice games strengthen counting skills and pattern recognition.  Pattern is the underlying theme of mathematics, and dice games help children to recognize number patterns in the arrangements of dots on the dice. Children learn to visually grasp number patterns without having to count individual dots.  We will begin working with two dice this month, with the children using the second die to “add on” to the number rolled on the first die.  

The children in both classes voted jointly for the favorite dog by coloring a space on a graph under a particular dog.  The choices were Boxer, Dalmatian, Golden Retriever, Poodle, or Rat Terrier.  The Rat Terrier won!  (This is my dog Mary’s breed!)  What else have we been engaged in at Hogarth this past month?

Kindergarten Children worked on identifying, and then creating their own, ABAB patterns.  For example, we used different colored bread tabs and arranged them in a pattern of red—blue—red—blue—red, which the children then extended without losing the pattern.  We did people ABAB patterns (boy—girl—boy—girl) and made patterns during snack using Trix cereal. 

The kindergarten children also began working with a monthly calendar, and completed a calendar for the month of November. Monthly calendars highlight children’s birthdays, holidays of the month, and include a rebus poem or song that the children know (or will learn that month).  November’s rebus song was It’s Fun to Pick Potatoes, and the children used yellow and orange crayons to highlight different words, increasing the readability of the rebus piece.  November’s calendar also featured an ABAB pattern of a Pilgrim boy and a Wampanoag girl. Each day, they traced the number for the day, and determined which day of the week it was.  

The children are becoming quite proficient at “reading” the daily message.  For the last November message, I wrote a crazy-mixed-up-message with slight changes to the usually-repetitive portions of the text.  The children loved figuring out what it said, and want a crazy-mixed-up-message every week.  I promised we’d do another one sometime soon.  

Kindergarten children also played letter dice bingo, made Friendship Wreaths, and finger-painted turkeys.  We had popcorn for snack (a food served at the first Thanksgiving) the last day of school before Thanksgiving.  The children ate this snack like all polite Pilgrim children would have eaten — standing up, wearing hats, and not speaking until addressed by an adult.  They were very serious about being true to Pilgrim manners and customs, and were also very cute in the newspapers hats Mrs. Lamparelli made and they decorated.  (Thanks, Mrs. Lamparelli!)

Prekindergarten Children welcomed three new friends into their ranks.  We were very happy to have Gillian, Sam and Bruce join us last month, and all of the “old” friends are helping the “new” friends to learn classroom routines and feel a part of the group.  

Prekindergarten children worked with basic ABAB patterns using Unifix cubes;  playacted the song Mr. Duck and Mr. Turkey;  had jigsaw puzzle day where they worked in groups on 50-piece puzzles;  made Friendship Wreaths;  finger-painted turkeys;  watched the video Goodnight Gorilla after reading the story;  human-graphed their favorite dog from the story Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks; and took turns playing the song Winnie the Pooh on the piano with me. 

Stories and Songs.  Kindergarten Stories — Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf; Shy Scarecrow Goes to School; Dear Mrs. LaRue;  I Stink!; Anno’s Counting Book; Count Those Spots!; It’s Time; Honda and Fabian; The Flea’s Sneeze; The Biggest Leaf Pile; Life of Numbers; An Extraordinary Egg; The Very First Thanksgiving; Squanto;  A Plump and Perky Turkey; The Pilgrims’ First Thanksgiving; Huggly’s Thanksgiving. Kindergarten Songs —  Birthday Songs for Brandon M.; Funiculi, Funicula; Little Red Leaves;  It’s Fun to Pick Potatoes;  Happy Wanderer;  Aa Alligators All Around;  Aa You’re Adorable;  Who Can Climb the Apple Tree?;  Jack Frost; You Say Tomato; Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’;  The Turkeys Ran Away; Mr. Duck and Mr. Turkey;  Old Mr. Turkey; The Lullaby League from The Wizard of Oz.  We also watched this portion of the movie The Wizard of Oz.  Prekindergarten Stories — Red Lead, Yellow Leaf; Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks; Panda Bear, Panda Bear What Do You See?; It’s Time; Count Those Spots!; Hondo and Fabian; Where the Wild Things Are; The Very First Thanksgiving; Thanksgiving Cats; Thanksgiving Day; Goodnight Gorilla.  Prekindergarten Songs —  Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes; The Turkeys Ran Away; Mr. Duck and Mr. Turkey;  Old Mr. Turkey; Aa Alligators All Around;  Little White Duck;  Little Red Leaves;  Who Can Climb the Apple Tree? 

Here’s a sneak peak at one of the songs we’ll be learning in both classes this month.  (Folks who were here last year are sure to recognize it right away!)  It’s Mele Kalikimaka by R. Alex Anderson.  To hear the melody, visit www.melekalikimaka.com. 

♫Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say, 

On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day.

That's the island greeting that we send to you 

From the land where palm trees sway.

Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright,

The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night.

   Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way, 

To say "Merry Christmas to you."♫  

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

NOVEMBER, 2003

New Hampshire picture book author Kathy Deady  will visit kindergarten and prekindergarten on Monday, November 10th to read her work-in-progress.  Kathy is putting the finishing touches on a nonfiction book that teaches early math concepts through dice play, and she wants to take it for a “test run” with her target audience.  Kathy will also read her picture book IT’S TIME,  illustrated by Jill Newton and published in 2002 by HarperCollins. 

Kathy is the author of more than 30 books for young readers.  To learn more about Kathy and her work, visit her on the web at www.kathleendeady.com.  If you want to read about my wonderful critique group, click here.

Mary Doane’s sea turtle program was fabulous! In the days before Mary visited, I presented a unit on turtles to both classes. Mary’s program included reading the story Follow the Moon and singing the songs Big, Beautiful Planet, Save the Animals, and The Goodbye Song.  Mary will be back on December 16th to present Stranger in the Woods, a winter woods mystery.  The cost for this program is $6.00 per child, which you can include in your December payment.  Prekindergarten children will join their kindergarten colleagues for class on the days Mary visits.  On December 16th, prekindergarten children should be dropped off at 9:00 a.m. and picked up at 11:30 a.m. 

Our trip to the Children’s Museum was wonderful.  Thanks to all our parent drivers and chaperones.  What else have we been engaged in at Hogarth this past month?

·     Both classes enjoyed their first Sharing Day.  Each child had an opportunity to talk through the microphone and field questions about his or her sharing. 

·     A fire safety and prevention program was presented to both classes, and the children had their first fire drill.  We will conduct fire drills periodically throughout the rest of the school year.  Kindergarten children watched Michaela’s Stop, Drop and Roll video.  Thanks, Michaela!

·     Both classes enjoyed a Halloween Party.  Kindergarten children played the party games Pass the Frog and Who’s Missing? Prekindergarten children played Pass the Frog and Drop the Clothespin.  Both classes listened to the Spooky Sounds portion of the record Adventures in Sound.  Thanks so much to Frankie, Emily and Katie for bringing in party favors and snack, and to Michaela, Séan, Nicole, and Vanessa for bringing in party snack.  It was yummy!

·     Thanks to Katie, Brandon M., Michaela and Séan for bringing in snack last month.  It was yummy!

·     Kindergarten children and prekindergarten children met twice for class.  It was during one of these joint classes that the children made the Favorite Season graph that hangs on the door.  The children also playacted the action rhyme 5 Sturdy Trees together, and watched and sang along with our Oliver and Company Singalong Video.  (Thanks to Mrs. Lamparelli for donating this to the Hogarth video collection!)  We read the book Harold and the Purple Crayon, watched the video of Harold and the Purple Crayon, and did a follow-up worksheet during our second joint class. 

·     Kindergarten children set up a year-long observation of two pine trees outside the school.  My neighbors pine, which sheds its needles, and my pine, which stays evergreen.

Literacy Activities.  (1) We worked with four weekly messages in the month of October.  Kindergarten mystery kids were Brandon A., Dominic, Michaela, and Eliza.  Prekindergarten mystery kids were Alyssa, Nicole, Katelin, and Emily.  Brainteasers for both classes were:  Name Your Favorite Animal;  What’s Your Favorite Season (followed up by the graph hanging on the school door);  Tell One Thing You Know About Turtles (which tied in with Mary Doane’s visit);  Tell What You Are Going To Be For Halloween.  (2)  Both classes used “big sheets” for the action rhymes 1 Little Skeleton and 3 Little Ghosts to work with rhyme, memorization, reading rebus words, and to model the left-to-right, top-to-bottom reading progression.  (3)   Both classes read the book and watched the video of Chicka Chicka  Boom Boom.  Kindergarten children read the book and watched the video of Trashy Town, which worked into our unit on AT family words.  (4)  Kindergarten children worked on the H letter sound, the blend TR, and punctuation marks (.) (?) and (!). 

Math Activities.  (1)  Kindergarten children continue working each day with a 100 grid (counting forward to 100) and a 100 chart (counting backward to 1 from 100).  They’ve completed 41 squares.  (2)  Prekindergarten children began working with a 100 grid heart poster, filling in one section for each book we read in class.  They’ve completed 7 sections, and are looking forward to a party on the day we read our 100th book.  (3)  Prekindergarten children made a human graph to answer the question which is the favorite, ice cream or cookies.  (4)  Both classes worked on quantifying up to 5 objects through several different fingerplays and actions rhymes, and counting up to 23 through the song Who Can Climb the Apple Tree? 

Stories and Songs.  Kindergarten Stories — Chicka Chicka Boom Boom;  Trashy Town;  Story of Ferdinand;  I Am Fire;  Trees;  A Tree Is Nice;  Christopher Columbus;  Fall Leaves Change Colors;  Squirrels;  It’s Pumpkin Time;  All About Turtles;  Duck on a Bike;  Harold and the Purple Crayon;  Dinofours It’s Halloween;  Runaway Pumpkin;  Inside a House That is Haunted;  Arthur’s Halloween;  Huggly’s Halloween.  Kindergarten Songs — Funiculi, Funicula; Little Red Leaves;  It’s Fun to Pick Potatoes;  Teddy Bears’ Picnic;  Happy Wanderer;  Aa Alligators All Around;  Aa You’re Adorable;  Doggie in the Window;  Who Can Climb the Apple Tree?;  76 Trombones;  Jack Frost;  Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’;  Three Blind Mice;  This Old Man;  I Love You;  Halloween Witches;  The Night of Halloween;  Little Jack Pumpkin Face.  Prekindergarten Stories — Chicka Chicka Boom Boom;  I Am Fire;  I’m Going to be a Firefighter;  A Tree is Nice;  What Color is It?;  All About Turtles;  Duck on a Bike;  Runaway Pumpkin;  Woo! The Not-So-Scary Ghost;  Inside a House That is Haunted.  Prekindergarten Songs —  Birthday Songs for Séan and Vanessa;  Aa Alligators All Around;  Little White Duck;  Doggie in the Window;  Little Red Leaves;  Three Blind Mice;  This Old Man;  I Love You;  Who Can Climb the Apple Tree?;  Halloween Witches;  The Night of Halloween.  Both Classes played Name That Tune several times.

I’m planning for a good portion of our upcoming lessons to revolve around the rapidly approaching holidays, and want to be sure that everyone’s traditions are included.  If you celebrate Hanukkah in your home, please let me know.  If you do not celebrate Christmas, please let me know.  If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume you celebrate a traditional-style Christmas in your home.  Because Hogarth is not a religiously-based school, I will not teach the religious aspects of any of the upcoming holidays.  I leave that to you.  

OCTOBER, 2003

Our apple picking trip to Apple Annie’s was wonderful!   Thanks to all our parent drivers and chaperones.  What else were we engaged in at Hogarth this past month? 

Collecting Work Samples and Conducting Inventories. 

Following Directions.  Children must be able to follow directions in order to work independently and successfully in school.  They need to focus on what is being said, and follow through appropriately.  We work each day to develop this ability through group games such as Bingo, work sheets, or in 1 on 1 teacher/student activities.  We are working on 1-step directions (i.e. color the sun purple), and will increase the number of steps and degree of difficulty as the year progresses.  The example I gave of the purple sun is more difficult than it appears.  Children often hear only “color the sun”, and immediately pick up a yellow crayon and start coloring without regard to the color specified.  As with any skill, practice increases accuracy, and the children will be getting lots of practice in following directions this school year. 

Literacy Activities.  (1)  Many of the children are learning to write their names independently.  All of the children are learning where to situate their names on work papers.  At this early point in the school year, I usually write a child's name with yellow highlighter for him or her to trace.  This is a “scaffolded” activity, in which I provide direct support to help a student achieve success.  As a student becomes more accomplished, I gradually remove the “scaffolding”.  (2)  During group times, I am using “big sheets” of songs, poems, and fingerplays to work with rhyme and to model the left-to-right, top-to-bottom reading progression.  (3)  Morning Children are memorizing the days of the week, months of the year, Pledge of Allegiance, the poem Barberries, and several apple-related and fall-related fingerplays.   Afternoon Children are memorizing the same apple and fall fingerplays.  (4)  Morning Children worked on AT family words.  (5)  Morning and afternoon children are now working with each day with The Message. 

Math Activities.  (1)  The apple fingerplays referenced above also work across the curriculum in math as they reinforce counting to 5 and quantifying 5 objects.  (2)  Morning Children are working each day with a 100 grid (counting forward to 100) and a 100 chart (counting backward to 1 from 100).  They’ve completed 25 squares, and are looking forward to a party on the 100th day of school.  The grid and chart with follow-up activities will teach and reinforce identification of numbers 1 to 100, quantifying 1 to 100, counting to 100 by 1s and 10s, following and extending patterns.  (3)  All children are working on position concepts top, bottom, middle, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and last, and reinforcing memory through a matching game.  (4)  All children are working on patterning through several flannel board activities.

Stories and Songs.  Kindergarten Stories — Before the Storm;  If the Dinosaurs Came Back;  Barnyard Dance;  Friends;  Teddy Bears’ Picnic;  Summertime;  Fall Changes;  Fall is Not Easy;  Millions of Cats;  Zoo Looking;  Dappled Apples;  Picking Apples and Pumpkins;  Out and About at the Apple Orchard;  The Apple Pie Tree;  Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.  Kindergarten Songs — I’ve Been Working on the Railroad;  Funiculi, Funicula; Little Red Leaves;  It’s Fun to Pick Potatoes;  Teddy Bears’ Picnic;  Happy Wanderer;  Aa Alligators All Around;  Aa You’re Adorable;  Doggie in the Window;  Who Can Climb the Apple Tree?;  76 Trombones.  (We watched the 76 Trombones portion of the video The Music Man.  We also watched The Happy Wanderer portion of Michaela’s Barney video.  Thanks, Michaela!)  Prekindergarten Stories — Big Red Barn;  If the Dinosaurs Came Back;  Barnyard Dance;  Blueberries for Sal (also watched the video of this story);  We Love Fall;  Fall is Not Easy;  Dappled Apples;  Apples, Apples, Apples;  Out and About at the Apple Orchard.  Prekindergarten Songs — Aa Alligators All Around;  Little White Duck;  Doggie in the Window;  Little Red Leaves;  Who Can Climb the Apple Tree?

Thank You to Vanessa, Katie, Dominic and Alyssa for bringing in snack.  It was yummy!  Thanks to Dominic for bringing in his fall book Fall is Not Easy for us to read.  It was perfect!  Thanks to Michaela for bringing in her Barney video with The Happy Wanderer on it.  The kids loved singing our new song with Barney and Friends!  

SEPTEMBER, 2003

The children appear to be adjusting to the classroom routine, and everyone seems happy to be at Hogarth.  I call that a successful beginning!  The children have been making friends, exploring the classroom, listening to stories, singing songs, playing learning games, working on literacy and math skills, and getting used to putting pencil to paper.  

Kindergarten children are working with words in the AT family (cat, bat, rat, etc.), learning the Pledge of Allegiance, counting down to a 100 Day Party, recording the weather at the start of each class, and learning the days of the week and the months of the year.  They’ve learned the songs Skip to My Lou, Little Gray Pigeon, Alligators All Around, Aa You’re Adorable, Today Is Monday, Who Stole the Cookie?, Comin’ Round the Mountain, Red River Valley, and Oats, Peas and Beans.  We read the stories Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?;  Don’t Eat the Teacher;  Drip, Drop;  Friends at School;  Today Is Monday;  Owl Babies;  The Kinderkittens;  Stellaluna; and Don’t Need Friends.  

Prekindergarten Children have been engaged in following directions activities and games, enjoyed taking turns playing the piano with me, played games to learn everyone’s names, and done many prewriting activities.  They’ve learned the songs Down by the Station, Bingo, 5 Little Monkeys, In and Out the Window, and Did You Ever See a Lassie?  We read the stories Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?;  Don’t Eat the Teacher;  No, David!;  Owl Babies; and The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big, Hungry Bear.

I will spend a good part of the next few weeks taking student inventories by formally assessing each child’s knowledge of letters, numbers, shapes, colors, etc.  I’ll also collect work samples which we will use to gauge development against samples I plan to take in January and May. 

Book Order Forms from Scholastic Book Clubs will be sent home every 4 to 6 weeks.  You may pay with either cash, or checks made payable to Scholastic Book Clubs.  This month’s book orders are due in by Wednesday, September 17th.

Sharing Day, which is similar to Show and Tell, is the first Wednesday of each month.  This makes Wednesday, October 1st our first Sharing Day of the year.  Your children are welcome to bring just about anything that interests them to share with their friends.  I ask that you help your little ones to select their sharing, and talk about what they plan to tell their classmates. 

I am very excited to be bringing Mary Doane from Project Nature back to Hogarth with a series of hands-on science programs that help children gain a sense of relationship with the earth and its creatures.  The Earthtales series is a marvelous alternative to traditional field trips, and I’ve scheduled three programs for both classes to experience together.  Each program in the Earthtales series is a striking blend of music, storytelling, dramatic arts, creative movement, puppetry, and open-ended visual arts activities.  Mary’s first visit is scheduled for Tuesday, October 21st when she’ll present Follow the Moon to both kindergarten and prekindergarten.  Mary says, “This deeply moving story about friendship and a young boy’s profound bond with nature will touch children and educators alike.  In this program we’ll learn about sea turtles and hear the story, Follow the Moon.  We’ll sing a song about these elegant ocean creatures.  We’ll pretend we’re tiny sea turtles and discover how it feels to find our way to the sea.  Finally, we’ll create an ocean scene using chalk and beach sand and then use our fingerprints to make tiny turtles.”  Each program costs $6.00 per student, and you can simply add $6.00 to your next October tuition payment for your child’s first program.  Mary will be back on December 16th to present Stranger in the Woods, a winter woods mystery, and again on May 11th to present Desert Voices, an introduction to the creatures of the desert and their lives, homes, and places in the desert world.  Prekindergarten children will join their kindergarten colleagues for class on the days Mary visits.  On October 21st, Prekindergarten children should be dropped off at 9:00 a.m. and picked up at 11:30 a.m. 

I will be scheduling an October apple picking field trip to Apple Annie in Brentwood, and will send home details as soon as they are available.

In Staff News, Mrs. Lamparelli and I spent Saturday, September 13th becoming recertified in First Aid and Infant and Child CPR.  We’ll be attending an award-winning child guidance workshop Tuesday evening, September 16th called 1-2-3 Magic, where we learn new techniques to teach the children to manage their own behavior.   

I'm happy to announce that a teaching game I developed is being published in the October/November issue of The Mailbox - The Idea Magazine for Teachers.  The game Yes or No is an excellent "filler" game for transition times.  I present simple statements, such as "Cinderella wore slippers made of wood," followed by the phrase "Yes or no?"  Students give a thumbs up for yes, or a thumbs down for no.  You can adapt this game to keep your little ones occupied in everyday situations, such as standing in a checkout line or sitting in a waiting room. 

If you have an e-mail address and haven’t received pictures of your child at work or play at Hogarth, please pass your e-mail address along to me so I can share digital pictures of your child with you.  These pictures will be a wonderful way to strengthen the home-school connection, and should prove to be a terrific way for you to start a dialogue with your child about what he or she does at school.

Well, we’re off and running!  Here’s to a marvelous school year filled with wonder, discovery, and joy.  

FROM THE 2002-2003 ACADEMIC YEAR  

SUMMER 2003

The Hogarth School Museum

Children attending Hogarth's Summer Program will spend their 4 week session as  museum curators, creating exhibits that represent their lives.  They will plan and oversee the acquisition, arrangement, cataloguing, maintenance and exhibition of their personal collections.  They also may research topics or items relevant to their collections.  

The collections will consist of pieces that define the essence and represent the spirit of each child.  The collection will answer the question, Who is this unique person?  To that end, each child will bring 10 items to school  that best define his or her life — where s/he is now, where s/he is going, and what brings him or her joy.  These might be photographs, books, a favorite toy, or whatever else s/he feels is necessary to answer that question.

In conjunction with their duties as curators, each child will be authoring a companion book to his or her collection.

The museum will be open for a private "invitation only" showing on Friday, August 15th from 9:45 a.m. until 10:15 a.m., at which time the children will conduct guided tours of their collections, and autograph their books, which will be on sale at the exhibition.   

MAY/JUNE, 2003

Summer Programs -- We've added a summer session to our 2003 calendar.  Click here for details.

Announcements -- I’m happy to announce that I participated in judging First Grade entries in the Reading Rainbow Young Authors and Illustrators contest at Channel 11 in Durham.  This is the second year I’ve been invited to judge, and it is one of the highlights of Spring for me! 

I’m also happy to announce that Mrs. Lamparelli and I have been invited to participate in a Ladders to Literacy Preschool Curriculum training on May 10th.  Ladders to Literacy is an experimental curriculum designed to enhance preschoolers' print and book awareness, awareness of the difference between phonemes and words, and oral language knowledge.

On Tuesday, May 27th I will be conducting a focus group for the Epping Better Schools Initiative examining ways to improve the outcomes for Epping Middle High School Students.  The group will meet at the SAU building on Main Street from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and all Epping Hogarth parents are invited to attend. 

My book is in!  Many of you inquired about buying my book Out and About at the Dairy Farm.  I recently received the shipment I ordered, and would be happy to send home an autographed copy of my book for your child.  If you are interested, please let me know.

Calendar Reminders -- 

Tuesday, May 6th — Mary Doane is bringing her Project Nature programs A Snake in the House to Kindergarten, and The Great Kapok Tree to Prekindergarten.  Please include $5.00 along with your next tuition payment to cover your child’s cost for Ma ry’s visit.

Wednesday, May 7th  — This is the last Sharing Day of the year.

Thursday, May 8th  — Prekindergarten meets from noon to 2:30 p.m. to make up the 12/18 cancellation due to illness.

Friday, May 9th  —  Kindergarten meets until 2:30 p.m. to make up the 12/18 cancellation due to illness.

Thursday, May 15th  —  Prekindergarten meets from noon to 2:30 p.m. to make up the 2/3 cancellation.

Thursday, May 22nd  —  Kindergarten meets until 2:30 p.m. to make up the 2/3 cancellation.

Friday, May 22nd  —  8 a.m. to 5 p.m. — Conference Day — No Kindergarten Class

Monday, May 26th  —  Memorial Day — No School

Thursday, May 29th  — Kindergarten Field Trip to Fecteau’s Country Store.  The children are earning pennies for good deeds, and they will spend their earnings at Fecteau’s on the 29th.

Wednesday, June 4th — Pizza Party and Last Day of School for Prekindergarten.  Please include $2.00 for the Pizza Party in your next tuition payment.  Thank you!   

Thursday, June 5th —  Kindergarten meets until 2:30 p.m. to compensate for excessive snow days.

Friday, June 6th  — 8:30 a.m. until approximately 10:00 a.m. — Waffle Breakfast for Kindergartners and their siblings followed by Graduation.   The graduation ceremony will start at approximately 9 o’clock, and you are welcome to invite grandparents, favorite aunts and uncles, etc. to join us at that time.   Graduation has evolved into a very low-key affair that is most enjoyable for the children.  The children will sing several songs, and receive awards and diplomas.  School is over for the year immediately following graduation.  Please include $2.00 for the Waffle Breakfast in your next tuition payment.  Thank you!

Make-Up Day Note:  There is no other compensation for children unable to attend any of the make-up days.  Kindergarten children will need to bring a lunch on make-up days.  Please pack foods that your child is able to handle on his or her own.  Please do not send foods that need to be heated or prepared.  Thank you!

APRIL, 2003

Announcements -- I am happy to announce that I was awarded a full tuition scholarship to attend the 19th annual Highlights Foundation Children's Writers Workshops at Chautauqua from July 12th through July 19th.  Click here to learn more about Chautauqua.

Calendar Reminders -- Spring vacation is scheduled for April 21st through April 25th.  Sharing day is Wednesday, April 2nd.  Picture Pick-Up Day is Wednesday, April 9th.  Plan to meet with the photographer between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. to go through your child's proofs and select your pictures.

MARCH, 2003

Summer Programs -- We've added a summer session to our 2003 calendar.  Click here for details.

Calendar Reminders -- Picture day is scheduled for Tuesday, March 4th.  Sharing day is Wednesday, March 5th.  Spring is scheduled to begin Friday, March 21st!!

FEBRUARY, 2003

Valentine's Parties for both classes are scheduled for Tuesday, February 11th, or Wednesday, February 12th if Tuesday is a snow day.  Your child will be exchanging Valentine's cards with his or her classmates.

Calendar Reminders -- Sharing day is February 5th.  February vacation is scheduled for February 24th through February 28th.

Out and About at the Dairy Farm, my first picture book, was released in late December by Picture Window Books under the name Andy Murphy.  It's available on-line at Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or by special order at any bookstore.  Many thanks to Selectwoman Susan McGeough, a former Hogarth parent, for giving it a stellar review on EPTV during the January 27th Board of Selectmen Meeting! 

JANUARY, 2003

Our annual Toy Sharing Day is Wednesday, January 8th.  This once-a-year event is always a crowd pleaser!  Please help your child to select a toy he or she is willing to let the other children play with during free time.  

January is review month.  Our regular daily activities will be suspended for the first two weeks of January while I take Student Inventories.  I will work individually with each child to obtain formal work samples, as well as assess math and literacy development.

Calendar Reminders -- Parent Conferences will be held Friday, January 17th from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Please call to schedule a conference appointment.  Kindergarten will not meet that day.  There is no school on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Monday, January 20th.

DECEMBER, 2002

Project Nature is coming to kindergarten!  Mary Doane is bringing her Project Nature program Washing the Willow Tree Loon to kindergarten on Tuesday, December 3rd.  Mary's October visit was wonderfully successful, and I'm certain this program will be a most valuable experience for the children as well.

I'm pleased to announce that my licensing specialist from the State of New Hampshire made an unannounced monitoring visit the Friday before Thanksgiving and found no critical violations.  She looked through my records, visited a bit with the children, and commented enthusiastically on my music program.  (She happened to catch the children spontaneously singing along to the Oklahoma CD while they were playing.)

Calendar Reminders -- There is no school from Monday, December 23rd through Friday, January 3rd.  Happy Holidays!

NOVEMBER, 2002

Snow season is just around the corner!  Please send in a pair of basic, closed slippers with soles that cover your child's entire foot for your child to keep at school until spring.  

Snow Day Policy --  When the Epping public school announces  a school closing on Channel 9 or the local radio stations, Hogarth will be closed as well.  If Epping has a delayed opening, morning kindergarten is cancelled, but afternoon prekindergarten will meet at the regular time.  Hogarth does not announce closings, and snow days are not made up.

Calendar Reminders -- There is no school on Veterans' Day, Monday, November 11th.  Thanksgiving Break is scheduled from Wednesday, November 27th through Friday, November 29th.

OCTOBER, 2002

Project Nature is coming to Hogarth!  I am very excited to be bringing Mary Doane from Project Nature back to Hogarth with a series of hands-on science programs that help children gain a sense of relationship with the earth and its creatures.  The Earthtales series is a marvelous alternative to traditional field trips, and I've scheduled three programs for kindergarten and two for prekindergarten.  Each program in the Earthtales series is a striking blend of music, storytelling, dramatic arts, creative movement, puppetry, and open-ended visual arts activities.  Mary's first visits are scheduled for Wednesday, October 9th when she'll present The Whales' Song to kindergarten in the morning, and Wild About Turtles to prekindergarten in the afternoon.  Mary will be back on December 3rd to present Washing the Willow Tree Loon to kindergarten, and again on Ma y 6th with A Snake in the House for kindergarten and The Great Kapok Tree for prekindergarten.  With the exception of Wild About Turtles, each program is based on a children's picture book.  I'm confident your children are going to be thrilled with these programs, and come home bubbling with enthusiasm for the Earthtales series!

October is Fire Safety Awareness Month at Hogarth.  Your children will participate in the first of many fire drills, and learn age-appropriate ways to prevent fire and protect themselves from fire.

Calendar Reminders -- There is no school on Monday, October 14th, Columbus Day.  Halloween parties for both classes are scheduled for Wednesday, October 30th.

SEPTEMBER, 2002

Welcome to Hogarth!  All of the children appear to be adjusting nicely to the classroom routine, and everyone seems happy to be here.  I call that success!   What will we be engaged in at Hogarth this coming month?  

Collecting Work Samples and Conducting Inventories.  I will work individually with each child to determine the level of development the child is operating at.

Following Directions.  Children must be able to follow directions in order to work independently and successfully in school.  They need to focus on what is being said, and then follow through without assistance.  We will work each day to develop this ability through one-on-one teacher/student activities, appropriate work sheets, and group games.  We will start with 1-step directions (i.e. color the sun purple), and will increase the number of steps and degree of difficulty as the year progresses.  The example I gave of the purple sun is more difficult than it appears.  Children often hear only “color the sun”, and immediately pick up a yellow crayon and start coloring without regard to the color specified.  As with any skill, practice increases accuracy, and the children will be getting lots of practice in following directions this school year.                                   

Literacy Activities.  (1)  Many of the children will learn to write their names independently.  All of the children will learn where to situate their names on work papers.  At this early point in the school year, I often write the names of younger children with yellow highlighter for them to trace.  This is a “scaffolded” activity, in which I provide direct support to help a student achieve success.  As a student becomes more accomplished, I gradually remove the “scaffolding”.  (2)  During group times, I will use “big sheets” of songs, poems, and fingerplays to model the left-to-right, top-to-bottom reading progression.  (3)  Morning Children will memorize the days of the week, months of the year, Pledge of Allegiance, the poem Barberries, and several apple-related fingerplays.   Afternoon Children will memorize the same apple fingerplays.  (4)  Morning Children will work on beginning consonant letter sounds through the Dictionary Game, where I describe words for them to guess.  (5)  Afternoon Children will have writing time each day to specifically follow-up the days song, story, or other activity we may engage in during class.

Math Activities.  (1)  The apple fingerplays referenced above also work across the curriculum in math as they reinforce counting to 5 and quantifying 5 objects.  (2)  Morning Children will work with a 100 days grid, and anticipate a party to be held on the 100th day of school.  Throughout this 100 day period, this grid with follow-up activities will teach and reinforce identification of numbers 1 to 100, quantifying 1 to 100, counting to 100 by 1s and 10s, following and extending patterns.  (3)  Afternoon Children will complete a “Count 10 Days” chart  which will help teach and reinforce identification of numbers 1 to 10, counting 1 to 10, quantifying 1 to 10, recognizing shapes, following and extending patterns.  (4)  All children will work on position concepts top, bottom, middle, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and last, and reinforce memory through  matching games.

Miscellaneous Lessons  

Hygiene Unit.  We try hard to make school a healthy place to be, and will talk at length about good and bad hygiene.   We will teach the proper way to blow ones nose, catch a cough or sneeze in the crook of the elbow rather than the palm of the hand, the importance of not putting fingers in ones nose or mouth, and the proper way to wash and dry hands.  The children must wash their hands after toileting, before snack, after blowing their noses, and after putting fingers in their mouths or noses.  If you have a nose picker or finger sucker, please help us to help your child break his or her habit. 

THINGS TO KNOW

Book Order Forms from Scholastic Book Clubs will be sent home every 6 weeks or so.  You may order from both the Firefly Book Club for Preschoolers and the See Saw Book Club for Kindergarten/First Grade.  Checks should be made payable to Scholastic Book Clubs, and you need only write one check for your entire order, regardless of how many clubs you order from. 

Sharing Day is the first Wednesday of each month starting in October.  Your child is invited to bring something that interests him to school to show to his friends. Please help your child to select her sharing, and keep in mind that things adults find ordinary are often extremely interesting to children. Photographs of family members, pets or a child’s home are always of interest. (Please don’t send in an entire photo album, just 1 or 2 carefully selected pictures.) Children are welcome to bring in a favorite book and tell us about the story, but please don’t promise that we’ll be able to read it at school. If 10 other children bring in books, we simply wouldn’t have time to get through them all! Please do not send in living creatures, precious items, items made of glass or other breakable material, or toys.   

OLD NEWS FROM THE 2001-2002 ACADEMIC YEAR

Prekindergarten Children were treated to a pizza party on Wednesday, June 12th, the last day of class.  A joyous celebration followed the consumption of several pizzas.

Kindergarten Children enjoyed a pancake breakfast, followed by graduation on Friday, June 14th.  They sang a number of songs, including their Class Song.

2002 Class Song

to the tune of Doggie In The Window

H-O-G-A-R-T-H spells Hogarth,

The school where we all became pals.

Each day we have jobs, and we have lessons,

For all of the guys and the gals.

We check out the date, and read the message,

Then work on our task for the day.

We always sings songs, and have a story.

Then eat snack, do pledge, then we play.

Our Adam’s at work with little Legos,

With Brandon and Evan and Dan,

They’re trying to find all the Police cards.

Why don’t you go lend them a hand?

Moriah is sitting in the big chair,

With Shalee as they look at books.

Minette’s in the kitchen with dear Adri,

Those girls are incredible cooks.

Dear Abby is singing in a carrot

Like it was a real microphone.

Sometimes she might use the green cucumber,

Or maybe the pink ice cream cone.

There’s Joseph. He’s building with the big blocks,

And Jessica works with them, too.

They’ve dumped all the fish, and little people,

And play with their buddy Matthew.

Sweet Emily plays with darling Holly,

Pretending that each is a pup.

They’re yipping and barking round the classroom.

Would someone please quiet them up!

The time has arrived for us to leave now,

To say, Au revoir and Adieu.

So long, Mrs. Kathy Lamparelli,

And old Mrs. Mur-urphy, too.

We’ll never forget our time at Hogarth,

And all of the things that we did.

This isn’t the end, it’s a beginning,

As we join the ranks of big kids!  

Andrea attended the New Hampshire Association for the Education of Young Children's annual conference in Manchester on April 27th.  She participated in workshops on language and speech development, mathematics development, and bookmaking.

Andrea was asked to judge kindergarten level entries in Channel 11's annual Reading Rainbow contest, which she did on April 15th.

Fabulous Frogs -- On Tuesday, April 30th FABULOUS FROGS came to Hogarth.   Many thanks to Hogarth parent Karen Marshall for bringing in her frogs, and creating such a wonderfully engaging and informative presentation for the children. 

Wild About Turtles -- On Tuesday, April 16th the Project Nature program WILD ABOUT TURTLES  came to Hogarth.  The event included hands-on projects, singing, puppetry, stories, and a visit from some real turtles.     

Author Diane Mayr visited Hogarth in the fall of 2001.  She read her book Littlebat's Halloween Story, and presented an original bat action-rhyme to both classes and several parents in attendance.  Diane is planning future visits to share more of her work with the children.  Read on for reviews of Diane's latest book.

"A charming story of a young bat that loves to listen to stories at the library." -- School Library Journal

"Peering out from a hole in the ceiling, Littlebat loves listening to the librarian reading to children below.  But he's too far away to make out the pictures, and his mother warns him that it's too dangerous to show himself.  Will he ever be able to see them up close?  'You must wait for changes,' says his mother mysteriously.  So Littlebat waits, as the seasons, the bulletin board displays, and the leaves all change.  At last comes a storytime where the rapt young listeners are in costume, a jack-o-lantern glows atop a shelf, and one small bat hanging over the librarian's head just seems part of the decor.  Children who delight in sharing stories will find a kindred spirit here, and with plenty of clear visual cues both inside and outside the airy children's library to mark passing seasons and holidays, this is a natural candidate for thematic programs as well as Halloween story hours." -- Booklist

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