Back to School Night

Last night was Back to School Night at Aidan's school.  Because we both wanted to go, we decided to take Aidan with us.  No problem.  He was able to play with the toys in his classroom while we listened to the teachers talk.  And we got to see how good he is at playing quietly, putting things away, washing his hands without being told.  Little stinker!  I knew he could do those things!!!

We received a packet of information outlining all of the things Aidan, and his classmates, will be learning this year.  It is amazing!!! 

For the remainder of September, the teachers will continue as is in order to fully assess where each child is on the learning curve.  They have a set goal of where the children all need to be by the end of the year and this process helps them determine what needs to be done to get there.

In October, the STAR program will begin with the Interactive White Board.  During the all class Circle Times, the children will be working on Spanish, Technology, Arts, and Recreation.  I'm not really clear yet on how this all works, but apparantly, it helps and encourages children to learn while actually doing it.  More on that as I learn more.

November and December will continue with the same routine, but in January. . .Tada!!!  The children will begin the Kindergarten Club.  They each get a shirt that they will be encouraged to wear on Fridays.  The children will begin the process of learning to read, doing some light homework, write (on their own) in a journal, and fine tune skills that are necessary for Kindergarten in Loudoun County.  The idea is to make this a fun learning time and to help prepare the children for the big transition to Public School and Kindergarten.  Hard to believe my little guy will be heading to Big Boy school next year!!!

The reading program sounds awesome.  The children will begin learning to read the Bob Books in January.  And we will be given a list of common sight words to help work with them on at home.  As they complete a book, they then have to be able to recognize the words, which are on a picture of a turtle in segments (I'll take a picture of one when we start this).  Once a child completes the Turtle, he or she may then move on to the next book and set of words.  The completed books come home so that we can continue reading it with the child.  This program will continue into mid-June when they will graduate out of Pre-K and then they will have fun all summer.

The teachers have a lot of fun things planned to help encourage the children--movies, ice cream days, silly shirt and sock day, etc.  The children have to earn the fun things by good behavior and completing the learning tasks.  If they do so, they are allotted a certain number of marbles each day--they can lose them and earn them back--the marbles are then placed into a jar and when the jar is full, the children, as a group, get the fun thing.  Pretty great concept and helps encourage the children to work together to be better!

And so, tomorrow is show and share day. . .the letter B and I am special are the themes. . .hmmmm. . .what will Aidan take to school to show and share. . .A Bucket Truck perhaps?????