AUGUST NEWS AND NOTES

It is hard to believe that we are in the final stretch of summer. It has been a busy one. The children and hopefully families seem to have enjoyed the time we spent on the Alphabet. It was so much fun for me to hear the stories from the children and parents each morning about the items they chose for Show & Share. It was also pretty impressive how many of the children recognized the beginning sounds of words and could easily name other words that began with the same sound as well as the letter the word started with. This skill can be practiced everyday with your child in everyday conversation simply by emphasizing the beginning sound of a word and asking them what letter makes that sound.

Some other activities that can be done at home to encourage letter recognition and Phonemic Awareness are: 1) search through old magazines for letters let the children cut them out then talk about words that start with the letter. Allow the children to glue it on a piece of paper then continue looking for pictures of items that start with the letter and cut them out and add them to the paper.2) take a walk through your neighborhood and talk about what you see. Ask your child what certain names of things start with, Tree? Clouds? House? Car? etc. 3) encourage your child to make birthday and thank you cards for family and friends. Have them help to write the words as much as they are capable.

Several of our friends have recently moved on to other programs, out of town, and even out of the country. Like always as some old friends move on, new friends join us. Please help me in welcoming our new friends.

As we finish up the last 2 weeks of August we will be focusing on some of our favorite books. Starting with “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” we had a great time making our own pancakes for breakfast and making a pancake picture on a paper plate. Some other stories that we will explore and expand on through cooking and other activities are “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, “Caps for Sale”, “Pete’s a Pizza” , and “Dragons Love Tacos”.