It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Dear Wood Acres families,

We hope this email finds you rested and full of joy and warmth from a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with family and friends! We loved celebrating with you during our Thanksgiving feast. We LOVED having you in our classroom!

As the final helpings of Thanksgiving dinner are eaten and the holiday shopping has begun, we set our sights on the month of December and all of the festivities to come. While many of us celebrate the tradition of Christmas in our homes, it is important for us as teachers to introduce to the child some of the other holidays observed during this special time of the year. The Wood Acres school prides itself on embracing cultures and customs from all over the world in an effort to cultivate a diverse family of students, teachers, and staff. Over the next three weeks, we will be introducing your children to both the holiday of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. We will also be working on learning a few songs to sing at our holiday party. This month is going to be an exciting and full-filled time of learning in the three’s!

Our theme of the week is “The Elf on the Shelf.” We will introduce this as an elf who moves throughout our class with his magic. For creativity, we will create Elf headbands and Elf feet. We also welcomed our Elf on the Shelf into our classroom. The children were excited to find him stuck in the tree! The children also gave him a name (Liam) He’s a magical elf who helps us teach the class to be kind to our friends. The more we are kind the more magic power he gets.

This week’s unit of study is transitioning from eight into nine. The children will add the number nine to their number book and create nine street signs. In large group, we will continue to work on identifying the numbers as we play “l SPY” the number nine.

This week in Investigator Club, we will introduce a new character to the children. We will meet Manny Salamander. Manny Salamander enjoys sports and interacting with the children during outside time. The children are looking forward to exploring with Manny as we build our gross motor skills on the playground. We will also work on the following:

Reading Readiness: (left to right)
The objective is to understand directionality and participate in an investigation. Think about it, and discuss what happened.

Music/Movement: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
The objective is to follow directions and identify body parts.

Oral Language: Sharing Chair
The objective is to have confidence in ability and pride in accomplishments.

Friendly reminders:

Fun Friday is silly sock day. Wear your silliest socks to school.

We would like to welcome Mrs. Denius (Ava’s mother) as our reader. We look forward to having her as part of our fun Friday and well as listening to some of Ava’s favorite books.

Holiday book exchange: We would like to do a book exchange amongst the students and we are asking if you can you to kindly bring in a wrapped book for your child to exchange by December 18th. If for some reason you are unable to provide a book, please let us know and we would be more than happy to provide one for your child.

Our holiday party is approaching soon. Please save the time and date – December 20th at 10:30. We are looking forward to celebrating our winter party with you.

Please note: We close at 5:30 on Monday, December 9th for our staff party. Also, we have early dismissal is on Friday, December 20th at 12:45.

Winter break is December 23rd through January 3rd. We will resume class back on January 6th.

Happy Birthday to Canden and Kate. May all your wishes come true

Have a good weekend
Ms. Orsano Mrs. Thomas