What a fantastic two weeks we have just had!  Last week we had such a blast celebrating Valentine’s Day.  We created many works of art, practiced writing and placing letters in our classroom mailbox and sorted our personal valentines for our friends.  The children have really been working hard to write their names when they come to school.  Most of the children are beginning to make purposeful symbols and recognize the shapes of the letters in their names.  It is so exciting to watch as they begin to be able to write their names with teacher support.  Please continue to foster this very important life skill at home.  Try writing your child’s name on a large piece of paper and have them trace it with different writing utensils, play dough, cereal, or other small items found in the house.  Give them a glob of shaving cream on the tabletop or in a cookie sheet and let them form letters and numbers with their pointer finger.  The possibilities are endless when helping your child develop beginning writing skills.

This week we learned all about pets.  Thank you very much for sending in pictures and samples of your pet’s food.  We have made a class book that the children will be able to look at next week.  Our dramatic play area was transformed into a pet shop this week.  The children had such fun pretending to purchase animals, walking pets around the classroom and taking care of the pets.  We have added three new gold fish to our classroom aquarium.  Earlier in the week the children were able to guess what animal would be joining our class in the aquarium.  We also created a chart showing which animals are our favorite pets.  We made a list of pets and then each child was able to share and make a tally mark next to their favorite pet.  Pet week was a huge success!