 December 2016 Heath Extended Day 4/7 Newsletter What’s been happening in 4/7? The month of November was dedicated to the PROJECT BREAD HOLIDAY SPOONS PROJECT! The students did an outstanding job designing such artistic, creative, and unique spoons. The outpouring of compliments from parents, teachers, and peers was amazing! The students dedication and commitment was evident when “customers” asked questions about the project when purchasing spoons from the spoon store. Additionally, they did a fantastic job selling the spoons and working with the money given. They kept track of the money by counting it and having a tally sheet and crossed referenced at the end of each work shift. Students were given twenty minute time slots to work at the spoon store and learned the importance of being punctual to their job. We are so happy to announce that we raised over $200.00 and our donation was matched by Jordan’s Furniture! Thank you so much to all of the HEDP families and Heath faculty for your purchases and generous donations! We are so proud of the effort, commitment, and interest the students had in this project! A round of applause to all of them! What to look forward to in December The second week of December will be dedicated to COOKING. Students have signed up for one cooking activity of their choice that they will get to make (and enjoy)! Cooking ideas were gathered from student goals of learning how to make specific recipes. Recipes include: homemade strawberry cake, lasagna, homemade ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, and homemade marble cake. The third and fourth week of december will be dedicated to DIY gift making. Projects will include, sewing a bag to hold homemade peppermint bark, mason jar snowmen and reindeer, fleece scarf making, and a riced filled snowman sock craft. Students will sign up for an activity (or all four) during the two week period. Each activity will be offered twice so they will choose a time that works best for them! No School Monday, December 26th- Monday, January 2nd Early Release Days Tuesday, December 6th Wednesday, December 14th Wishing you all a very Happy Holiday Season and Wonderful New Year! Malaina, Emily, Brad and Zoe
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 December Newsletter
12/1/2016 New and Old
HELP WANTED DO YOU HAVE ANY EXTRA GLASS JARS? WE WILL BE LOOKING FOR ANY SIZE GLASS JARS (Like a VOSS WATER jar) TO HELP COMPLETE SOME UPCOMING PROJECTS, FEEL FREE TO SEND THEM ALONG WITH YOUR CHILDREN! THEY CAN DROP THEM OFF IN OUR HEDP ROOM AT ANY TIME DURING THE SCHOOL DAY. Reminder: Please remember to encourage your children to wear a jacket and warm clothes as we will continue to go outside most days. We ask that all of our 2 / 3 friends wear their jackets while outside but you can always email permission, or give verbal permission for your child to wear a jacket as they see fit. Thanks! Green Team  Looking back: Our Veteran’s Day project was a huge success. PreK and Kindergarten students donated over 1,200 pieces of candy to veterans and soldiers on active duty. They also decorated the bags to for the toiletries we donated (in addition to the scarves and gloves that the 2/3 classrooms made). HEDP donated over 200 bags to West Roxbury’s Veterans Hospital and all of our Extended Day teachers were able to visit and personally hand out the students bags. We also took part in our own election. Students were given privacy while voting and told not to tell others who they voted for as voting is private and “your choice.” Additionally, they were given the opportunity to choose which books to read that week through a vote. After we gave back to the veterans, we talked about ways we can give to others and our friends. We even made our own giving tree for the classroom! Students talked about what they were thankful for, and looking forward to, over our Thanksgiving break. Once back, we dove into our Letter Of The Week unit. As the school year progresses, our class will be learning about a new letter of the alphabet each week. We will discuss the letter, the sounds the letter makes and words that begin with that letter. So far, all of our activities have been based on the letter A. Lastly, we’ve been making animal keychains, we’ve created an “animal cleaning station” in our sensory table, and we’ve focused on games that foster creativity and develop our literacy skills. What is to come: Another month has flown by and our Letter Of The Week unit is off to a great start! December will be a fun and exciting month, filled with lots of activities. We will be continuing with our letters of the week, including the letters B and C. Butterflies and bugs will be will be coming home in the form of art and science activities. Letter C will be dedicated to cars and cooking. A result of which we will learn how wheels work and how to bake cookies. As we get closer we get to the holidays, we will be doing winter wonderland activities to help bring the snowy weather into our classroom. We are looking forward to a great month! Dates to note: Tuesday 12/6: Early Release Day Wednesday 12/14: Early Release Day 12/26-1/2: Winter Break Warm Wishes, Angelica, Christiane, Elene, & Caroline Pre-K Newsletter What we did in the month of November: November was dedicated to giving back and what we were thankful for! We learned about why we celebrate Veterans day and what happens on Election day. In a collaborative effort, all of Heath Extended Day came together and participated in donating to the West Roxbury Veteran’s hospital. PreK students decorated brown paper bags and filled them with Halloween candy and toiletries that families generously donated. The 2/3 Extended Day classrooms made scarves to put in the bags along with gloves. Our class also held a mock election where students were able to cast their votes on which books to read during Read Aloud and which activities to put out at Choice Time. We made our own voting booth and talked about how voting is your choice and how your voice can be heard. We made Bead Buddy snakes in art, using beads and yarn. This activity focused on a number of skills including counting, identifying patterns, sorting, and the use of fine motor skills. Right before thanksgiving we made 3-D turkeys in art out of construction paper and tye died coffee filters. Our class was even lucky enough to be invited to a 5th grades cardboard arcade presentation. There all the students were able to try out games that students had made and earn tickets or prizes! During the last week of November our Letter of the Week unit began. Every week a new letter or letters will be introduced. We will discuss the sound the letter makes and what words we find that letter in. We had an animal washing station in our sensory table, animal making with clay, and a alphabet page working on writing our uppercase and lowercase letters. What we are looking forward to in the month of December: To continue with our Letter of the Week unit in December we will be working with the letters B and C. B will be dedicated to butterflies and baking! We will learn about the life cycle of butterflies, symmetry in art, and addition. Some students have expressed interest in cars and cooking we are going to incorporate these interests into hands on activities as we explore words that begin with the letter C. With the first official day of winter landing on the 21st we plan on doing winter related activities. We will be building snowmen in math, using our senses to describe winter, and decorating our classroom with snowflakes. Dates to note: Tuesday 12/6: Early Release Day Wednesday 12/14: Early Release Day 12/26-1/2: Winter Break Warm Wishes, Angelica, Kelly, Christiane, Elene, & Caroline   Minion Newsletter December 2016 During the month of November the children were encouraged to acknowledge something they are grateful for in their lives by noting it on the November Calendar. Many of the children have both spelling and artistic goals that were accomplished by completing this daily exercise. The comic strips that the children created in October and shared in the month of November were so funny and imaginative. To celebrate and showcase this, each child will have a featured spot on the "Minion Comic" poster for one week during the remainder of the school year. The poster is hanging on the wall in the cafeteria. Come in and check it out! Furthermore, we had an opportunity take an active role in the Third Annual Veterans Day Community Service Project. This year the children in the classroom were given the responsibility of making scarves from polar fleece and decorating bags for current and former military members. We also worked together to collect donated candy. The children brought in the donations and mapped their progress on a graph on their way to surpassing their goal of 1000 pieces of candy. We ended up with a total of 1221 pieces, earning a special treat each day school was in session the second week of November. We were also fortune enough to have a special military personel come at speak with our program. The children enjoyed stories read aloud by our Outside Readers on Tuesday afternoons and celebrated a special meal with them on Tuesday, November 22nd. Finally, the children have proven to be a caring and sharing group of children and have decided to set a goal of achieving a special wish day by the second week of December. Throughout the month of December, the children will be working together on a series of winter themed crafts and celebrate the official start of the winter season on December 21st. We will be discussing some of things that we enjoy about winter and making paper snowflakes to add to our tree in anticipation of the coming snow. We will also be continuing to do team building activities and having whole group discussions and demonstrations about what it takes to form and maintain an effective team. Please make sure that as the weather changes that children are dressing appropriately because we always go outside to enjoy some fresh air. We would like to give a special thank you to the families that donated items to our classroom, as well as Commander Mack for sharing his experiences with the children in a memorable way. A couple of reminders this month… * Your child’s safety is one of our main priorities. To help us with this, please remember to sign your child out everyday. The sign out book will be located outside the cafeteria along with a board showing the location of the 1/2 Yellow class at that time. Tuesday, December 6th - Early Release Day Wednesday, December 14th - Early Release Day Monday, December 26-Monday January 2nd - No School – Winter Vacation Wish List Two 8x14 photo frames Clorox Wipes Rainbow looms bands  Happy December! After another exciting month for the Orange Tigers, the first grade team is ready to move into our next month’s activities! First and foremost, we would love to officially welcome Kelly as our newest team member. You may recognize her from around the school because Kelly started at H.E.D.P. in the Pre-K/K classroom. We are now lucky enough to have her join our group for the remainder of the year! We have a lot of fun activities planned for December as we enter winter time and the Holiday Season. We will dedicate each week this month to a different theme! We will focus on penguins, snow/winter, and a week devoted to learning about the many different holidays celebrated around the world in December. We encourage you to check out our calendar and see what projects your children will be working on. We are looking forward to a great month! Warm Wishes, Kelly, Krista and Tess Days to Note: Tuesday 12/6: Early Release Day Wednesday 12/14: Early Release Day 12/26-1/2: Winter Break  What has happened: October was filled with fall fun! We incorporated music into October with our “Five Little Pumpkins” song, I’m sure you’ve heard your child singing it. We made apple suncatchers, decorated acorns, and tasted apples. After tasting apples, each child chose their favorite and we charted it to show the most favored apple. PreK has been helping us decorate our classroom with butterflies and a beautiful friendship chain. We also observed the inside of a pumpkin; we discussed what we saw, smelt, and felt. We incorporated math with the pumpkin. We guessed how tall the pumpkin was using unifix cubes and, as well, we predicted how many lines were on the pumpkin. What is to come: With the upcoming Presidential Election we will be discussing how the voting process works. PreK will be able to vote on activities for choice time as well as casting votes on which book to read for read aloud. This allows them to be involved and have a choice in the activities put in their classroom. November will be about giving back! Our class will discuss how we can give back to others. We will be making cards for the veterans that will be put in bags that HEDP will bring to the West Roxbury Veterans Home. If anyone in your family is a veteran or is active in the armed forces please give us a picture of them to add to our Hall of Heroes display. Dates to note: Tuesday 11/8: No School- Election Day Friday 11/11: No School- Veterans Day Tuesday 11/15: Early Release Day Thursday 11/24: No School- Thanksgiving Wednesday 11/30: Early Release Day Warm Wishes, Angelica, Kelly, Christiane, & Caroline  Looking Back: This past month we welcomed fall by incorporating nature into our classroom in a variety of ways! We collected acorns to create adorable acorn necklaces, we decorated apple suncatchers that line our classroom windows, created a classroom acorn wreath, and crafted mosaic pumpkins. The kids (and teachers) all participated in an apple taste test and decided on our favorite between 4 apple types. We graphed our results and talked about which was the class favorite. Cortland apples won classroom majority, Macoun and Red Delicious tied for second, and McIntosh finished in last. Our field trip to the fire station was a great success. As we arrived at the station we got to experience the firefighters get a call and jump to action. When they returned, the kids got to climb aboard and explore the firetruck, as well as do Q&A with the firefighters. We ended off the month using our sense of touch, smell, and sight to investigate a pumpkin! On Halloween we dissolved candy pumpkins in different solvents and predicted which liquid would dissolve the candy fastest. It was a sight to see! Looking ahead: We have lots of exciting things planned for November! We will be starting off with an election day of our own, giving the kids a chance to experience what it’s like to vote for something that will impact them (much smaller scale in their case!). We will also focus on giving thanks and what it means to be kind to others. We will be making cards to go in the bags that HEDP is putting together to bring to the West Roxbury Veterans Home. As we move towards Thanksgiving we are going to discuss what we are grateful for and how we can show it through our words and actions. Looking forward to a great month! Dates to note: Tuesday 11/8: No School- Election Day Friday 11/11: No School-Veterans Day Wednesday 11/23: HEDP closes at 4:45 Thursday 11/24: No School-Thanksgiving  November Newsletter 11/1/2016New and Old
Today in History Highlights
Thanks! Green Team  Hello, from the Green Team- Fall has arrived and our team has many autumnal crafts and projects planned. Our team has really gotten used to our classroom and have been sharing some very interesting facts about their days and weekends during our daily shares. Some highlights from our “This Day in History” lessons for the month of September include the story of Greg Luganis in the 1988 Olympics, watching Ted Williams getting inducted into the Hall of Fame with the help of his .406 batting average, and learning about Roald Dahl’s short stories and the animations that followed. Ask your child what they know about “This Day in History”. We cannot wait to begin working with some of the kids on our team to help them achieve the goals they set for themselves this year. Some of the goals included building a tower out of recyclable material, making an ice-cream cake, building a moving robot and many others. We will be working throughout the year to help each child achieve his/her goal! Projects we will definitely complete this month include an October drawing challenge, pumpkin painting, pumpkin carving and using the pumpkin seeds to bake a snack for our team to enjoy. Check back in soon, 2/3 Green Josh and Nick  1st Grade Orange Tigers - October Newsletter Happy fall! We had a great first few weeks of school at HEDP, making play dough, leaf rubbing sharing about our summers, and getting to know our new students. We had a birthday bash and celebrated our summer birthdays. Everybody is currently working hard on their all about me poster. On rainy days we’ve had loads of fun playing kickball, musical chairs and watching Chicken Little. We are reading the Little Tree House Book series we’ve read about 2 books each week thus far. Throughout October, we will continue to meet with each student individually to come up with a goal for this year to be worked toward at extended day. In the past, we have seen goals that are skill-related, such as working on writing, as well as more fun things, like building the tallest marshmallow tower. We can’t wait to see what our students have in mind for this year! What to look forward to this month:
Please send in a small pumpkin for your child by Oct 21st. Thanks! Diana, Tess, Krista and Zoe  We cannot believe we have been in school for a month already! September was all about getting to know each other. We finished our “All About Me” books and played games that allowed us to learn facts about one another! We also learned about our classroom expectations and got settled into our routine. If you have not yet please send in a picture of your family for our family wall!
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