Hello!  March is finally here! Like the saying ”March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.”  I hope to see a tiny bit of spring-like weather and less of winter weather.

We will begin the month with one of our favorite authors, Dr. Seuss. We will read many Dr. Seuss stories and celebrate his birthday. The children will participate in some fun art projects, activities, songs, poems and play. On Tuesday, March 2nd we will have The Cat in the Hat Day.  Wear stripes!  On Wednesday, March 3rd we will have Wacky Wednesday! It will be a wacky, backwards, mixed up day. I will dress up in a crazy way and I invite the children to do so as well!  How wacky can you be?

During the week of March 8th -12th we will have pet week. We will learn about animals and which are good to have for pets. We will learn the responsibilities of caring for a pet and what a veterinarian’s job entails. We will talk about what is needed to care for a pet and create a pet store in the class room.
 
A St. Patrick’s Day celebration will take place during the week of March 15th - 19th.  Can we catch that leprechaun as we hunt for his pot of gold? And of course the 17th will be green day!We will have lots of green activities, green clothing and maybe even a green snack!

Music, Music, Everywhere! Making Music will be the theme for the week of March 22nd - 26th. We will make instruments, listen to many different types of music and have fun dancing in many different ways! At the end of this week, we will spend time coloring eggs in preparation for our annual egg hunt.  The children will have fun looking for hidden eggs all around the school!

We will also continue the study of our letters. This month’s letters will be L, Z, and N.  I will have puppets, stories, activities and games to aid in recognitions of these new letters.

Our Spring Break is March 29th - April 2nd, there will be no school!

Hello Spring, goodbye winter.
Best Wishes,

Miss Jessica

As March begins we find ourselves enjoying lots of silly Dr. Seuss rhymes and nonsense words in celebration of Dr. Seuss’ 106th birthday anniversary. Wednesday 3/3, we will have a mixed -up, wacky day, reading the story of Wacky Wednesday!  Children are invited to dress up in any mixed up, backwards, crazy way they desire! We will enjoy Cat in the Hat Day on Thursday, 3/4, and we invite all the children to wear stripes. Next we will discover what kinds of animals might make good pets and what we need to do to be good pet owners. We will find out who has pets and graph what we learn. During the weeks of 3/16-19, we will focus on discovering what an island is. We will learn a wee bit about Ireland and on Wednesday March17, all are invited to wear green for St. Patrick’s Day.  We will enjoy lots of green shamrock art projects and stories of tricky leprechauns! 

Rhythm fills our days, and we will actively look for and create all the wild and soothing beats our Music is Everywhere week brings to us. We will enjoy hearing quest artists share their talents and we will produce lots of music from instruments we create.

Finally, on Monday and Tuesday 3/29 and 3/30, we will have lots of fun coloring and finding hidden eggs!  Preschool is Closed Wednesday March 31st through Friday April 2nd.

During our circle times, the children have lots of opportunity to work on their expressive and receptive language skills through the weather, calendar and special sharing activities we enjoy each day. They also have plenty of opportunities to work on pre-reading skills at circle as we enjoy songs and stories together. We “read” the illustrations, modeling interpreting skills; we predict what might happen next, we sequence events, we summarize, and we evaluate the story (fiction/non-fiction; liked /disliked, etc.).  We are noticing the children’s attention spans are lengthening, and respect for one another’s opinions is evident in their attentive listening.

We hope you have noticed that the children now consistently recognize their name in print.  Many can also read their friends names! It is such a joy to watch the children discover that all those lines, circles and squiggles have meaning. The children continue to “sign in” each morning, hanging their name on our attendance board. Making cards to exchange on Valentine’s Day seems to us to be a celebration not only of good friends but also the unlocking of this great mystery- printed language!

Thank you for all that you do to support First Steps in learning!

Ginny