August 18-22

Dear Parents,

Welcome to your children!  I am very happy to be working with

 them this year.  We will be exploring our way through the year

 with different topics to discover. We will start the year learning

 about each other and ourselves with our topic All About Us, and Our School.

 In September we will be learning about Families, Communities, Apples, Harvest,

 and Fall. Each Thursday your child will bring home the Thursday Note from the school, and a newsletter from me; I also post the newsletter on our class web page at www.stmcyclones.org.  I hope everyone gets a chance to sign up for ways to volunteer or help out in Kindergarten.  If not, just let me know how you can help out.  Any help is greatly appreciated!

Snacks—As in preschool, the children have a snack time during the day.  We ask that you provide two large boxes, Costco sizes, of a snack for them at the beginning of the assigned month. Some suggestions are as follows. (animal crackers, pretzels, vanilla wafers, graham crackers, graham sticks, Teddy Grahams, or dry cereal – Cheerios, Fruit Cheerios, Trix, etc.) Please be aware that there are children with food allergies.  If your child is allergic to something please let me know. We don’t want anything scary happening.

Snack Schedule

August- I will provide snack

September- Jude Putz, Cloe Boozer, and Colin Gaebler

October-, Brandon Thompson, Aiden Field and Isabella Aquino

November- Lauren Boxx and Reese Nussbeck

December-Alana Lamley and Benjamin Meiners

January- Adam Marsh, Trenton Nash, and Molly O’Kane

February- Andreanna Edwards and Hayden Thilges

March- Pilar Hanes and Alexander Bell

April- Anna Donnelly and Jacob Gonzalez

May- John Murphy and Grant Nicholson

June- I will provide snack

Heart 2 Heart

The Heart 2 Heart program is our service program.  It is run by Michelle McInerney, one of our parents. We encourage each family to choose one or more service projects to do to help our children learn about how fortunate they are, and that as a child of God it is our duty to serve others. We will also do some service projects in class. You can reach her for questions at: pmcinerney@kc.rr.com

Recess—We are depending on you to help us keep our children safe on the playground.  A teacher goes out for each recess, so we need two parent helpers to help us watch the children outside. We ask that you do not bring other children with you to play. We also ask that you watch the area that we assign to you, and please don’t plan to chat with us or another parent at this time. We can chat at another time: we want to make our playground as safe as possible.

Birthdays- Let’s celebrate! Your child may bring treats** in for his/her birthday if you wish. Children whose birthday, like mine, is in the summer may bring treats** on their half birthday if you wish.  Please do not send birthday invites to school unless you intend to invite the entire kindergarten to the party. This causes unintentional hurt feelings.   **Please do not send cupcakes, they are very messy on carpet.  Please do not send treat bags, the party should be outside of school.

Rest Time-Our brains are still rapidly building connections at this age so it is very important that they have a rest time. If your child doesn’t normally sleep she/he may quietly look at a book.  They will not be allowed to get up or switch books, that way no one else is disturbed.  We also work in our journals at our rest place.  We will not use rest mats this year, please send your child with a beach towel or similar sized blanket to lie upon.  It will go back and forth in the back pack.  They may also bring a “blankie” or small stuffed toy to rest with, but all must fit in the backpack.

Book Orders- Reading is extremely important in developing language skills as well as reading skills. Please read to your child every night. I always read to my daughters before bedtime each night. It helped them settle down and helped them learn to read too. I will send home book order forms each month for your convenience. If you wish to order from them please send the order (with the check written to the book club) in a sealed envelope with your child’s name, my name, and book order written on the front.

Spirit Days- The first Friday of each month is a spirit day. They also have Spirit Days on selected holidays such as Halloween and Valentine’s Day. Please see the handbook regarding what is appropriate attire.

Again welcome to your children, I am looking forward to getting to know each one of them.

Thank You,

Mrs. Kilgore