The weather, the kids, and the tidal treasures were all just grand this morning on our field trip to the beach. Your kids were so well behaved on the bus ride. They had brainstormed about the bus rules ahead of time, and I think I heard each one say thank you to Doug, our bus driver as they exited the bus at the end of the morning. They followed our rules about staying with their big buddy (adult chaperone) and their classmate buddy. They mostly followed the rules about ankle deep wading. And hunting under the seaweed for crabs was very rewarding! (All the boating was done on the sand, though it may appear otherwise.)

The kindness bucket

Hi Families,

Maybe you have heard that our class is focusing on kindness lately? We've read a couple of books that talk about everyone having an imaginary bucket that can be filled with drops of kindness. To represent this in class, we have a clear plastic vase that gets a glass bead (a.k.a. drop of kindness) dropped in when kids are seen being kind. After a week it's almost full! Which will earn a reward -- our graphics practice time done with shaving cream (instead of white boards and markers)! Here are some pictures of kindness being shared between classmates that warm my heart, maybe yours, too.

 I'd like to offer an article about family involvement in literacy to our pre-k families ... 

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/parent-involvement-in-early-literacy-erika-burton?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=enews%20050813%20remainder&utm_content=&spMailingID=6106915&spUserID=MjcyNTI3NDg5MjcS1&spJobID=73048720&spReportId=NzMwNDg3MjAS1

Hoping you will enjoy these pictures of our camping play theme. The kids are skilled at taking on roles (the mom, the brother, the dad, the ranger, the surfer, the lifeguard, the camp store clerk, etc.) using role speech and playing out scenarios -- just what we are looking for!

Recently, during PE, Ms McCauley has divided our class into 4 teams for a relay race and team building game. One by one, members of each team run to the other side of the gym, pick up a piece of foam, run back and tag the next person in line on their team. After all the foam has been collected, each team gets together and builds a structure out of it. So, it is a neat activity that gets our hearts beating, our voices cheering for our teammates, and then our brains thinking. Here are a few pictures of the results (along with pictures of the ever popular legos used during indoor recess.)