I hope everyone is having a great week! I have several updates to share with our families....
SUPPLY PICK-UP Our next supply pickup will be this coming Monday, October 12th. I will put the packets outside around 7:30 and take them in when I leave (which has typically been between 4:30-5:00). Please let me know if you are unable to make it and I will make arrangements to get this to you! NO LARGE GROUP NEXT WEEK Next week (week of 10/12) we will not have lessons posted on Thursday 10/15 or Friday 10/16 as those are scheduled "No School" days for HCSD. With that, we will not have our typical Zoom sessions that occur on Thursdays and Fridays. There will be no large group and I will be adjusting our letter of the week/number of the week schedule to accommodate not having one next week. WINTER FUNDRAISER In your child's next pickup packet you will find information about our winter fundraiser. Please let me know if you have any questions after looking over the information included. SCHOLASTIC On October 1st I submitted all Scholastic book orders that had been placed online. Once we receive the shipment I will place those items in your child's next pickup. PRESCHOOL LEARNING MODES/ INFO TO CONSIDER During a September 2020 board meeting, our Director of Pupil Services, Debbie Cochran, gave a presentation about our at-risk population and plans for an increased attendance rate for those students. Preschool students were among those listed in this population. What that means is that our preschooler students with IEPs that are attending for in-person instruction will continue to do so unless the district goes into a level 4 (purple). If the district went to level 4, all students would then continue via e-Learning. This week, our peers returned to in-person instruction and are operating based on the current district level. Currently, our district is operating in level 2 (orange) which means that our peers are on a hybrid schedule while our IEP students continue to come everyday. I communicate this information to help give clarity as you think about plans for the remainder of the school year. I know it is early, but I also know that these decisions can take time and I want you to have all the information as I am aware of it. CONFERENCES Our preschool is holding conference day/night on Monday, November 2nd. We will be having all of our conferences via Zoom. This year is a bit different since we are able to talk so often during sessions with your children. It is totally up to you and your family if you would like to have a conference time. My "agenda" during our conferences will most likely look like this... -Go over preschool student report (this will be given to you prior to conferences, and is the same format as last year) -Talk about plans for next semester (online or not), if that decision has not already been communicated -Talk about plans for next year and what transitioning to kindergarten will look like (if applicable) -Any other concerns you may have To help me schedule and prepare for conferences, please fill out this quick form to tell me your preferences, thank you! forms.gle/qAPiXSapbzWawpZT8 PRESERVING PROJECTS Beginning with our next pickup, I will be putting a large Ziploc bag in our pickup box labeled "TO BE LAMINATED". As we create things throughout the year, I understand that some families wish to save these items for keepsake purposes. If there is anything that you would like for us to laminate, please just put it in the bag and we will run it through, then return it to you with the following pickup. Please note that only flat items can go through the laminator (ex: a project with googly eyes or other attachments will not do well in the laminator). Please also make sure that your child's name is someone on or attached to any items that you wish to have laminated.
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I hope everyone is having a good week! I don't know about you, but I need to remind myself to take deep breaths while navigating the new territory of online learning. If you haven't yet, or just need another...please take a deep breath. We are in this together. :) i would like to start by sharing a little bit of personal news with our families. I am blessed to be 16 weeks pregnant with a due date of March 8th. This week, my husband and I were able to hear a beautiful little heartbeat for the first time. This will be our first child and we are so looking forward to the adventure. My pregnancy is one of the main reasons that I requested to be our school's online teacher. I feel blessed that this was an option for me and that I am able to keep myself as healthy as possible to I share this with our families in an effort to be transparent and open with everyone.
Small Group For our small group this week, we used the wait card to practice waiting. Please feel free to utilize those cards if you feel that they will help you at home! You can use them and have your child hold them to indicate that he/she needs to wait, or you can place them on an item to indicate that they need to wait to use it (the item is "waiting"). Large Group This week for large group, your child is invited to bring with them something that begins with our letter of the week, letter L. This could be a toy, a picture, etc. Continuing on, our large group themes will be centered around our letter of the week. A schedule our our letters of the week can be found on the letterbox page. Just as a reminder, if your child has a Zoom time with a therapist, please join with the therapist's meeting information. I will often pop into those meetings to observe and co-treat. I hope that this makes this less confusing! Starting this Monday, each family will be receiving an email from our classroom assistant, Lynnette Schmidt. The email will contain information about what will be needed (if anything) for various therapy activities as well as our small group and large group Zooms. It may also contain information such as: -a request to return any school items that have been lent out and your child no longer needs -a reminder of your child's Zoom schedule -a google form (online survey) to check on how various IEP objectives are going at home Our hope is that by condensing this information into one email rather than separate ones from different therapists/teachers that it will make things less overwhelming. This week we will be working to create an additional module in the Canvas app for Zoom information. This is something we are creating based on parent feedback. Ideally, you will be able to click on the Zoom link for the individual teacher/therapist and it will link you to the Zoom app. If you have not yet sent in a picture of your child or if they have not yet sent in a drawing of themselves I would love to have that! I would love to send home a picture roster of our class so that our veggies can better learn the names of their friends! I will also add any self-drawings to our question of the day forms! Thank you for another great week! You all are amazing! SMALL GROUPS THIS WEEK For our small group meetings this week, please have your child bring some playdough with him/her to the meeting. We will be practicing to roll a "snake" as a preliminary to beginning our letters of the week. LARGE GROUP THIS WEEK This week for our large group meeting, your child is encouraged to bring a photo of his/her family. It could be a picture of your whole family, or it could be a picture of just one or two people. We will share about the photos during our meeting. OTHER NEWS As I am learning some of our kiddos, I feel that meeting their IEP goals may be best served through co-treating with another therapist. That being said, there are also some of our little veggies that I do feel I still need that one on one time with in order to work on their individual goals and address assessments. I would like to minimize the amount of Zoom time as much as I can for families while still meeting the needs of the child. Here is the updated schedule (also updated on our "zoom" page). If you notice that a time scheduled for your child is to meet with me is at the same time as one of his/her therapy times, please do not worry! I am aware of this! For that time, please join the particular therapist's Zoom meeting and I will be popping in to that meeting to co-treat and/or observe.
There are 2 more schedule-related items I would like to communicate: 1) The pepper group is scheduled to meet on Tuesday at 9:30, NOT Thursday. I apologize about the mistake sent home on the "Student Login Information" sheet. 2) Your child only needs to attend one of the large group meetings per week. Some children benefit from repeated practice so that is why I have previously communicated the "and/or" statement. Please do not add more pressure on yourself/your family to attend more than one! If your child has received any school items within the past few weeks that are in addition to the regular packet (such as a sand timer, weighted materials, tongs, etc.) please do not worry about returning those until asked. We are keeping a log at school as to what is sent home and will make sure to ask for the items back when needed. If your child has received any personalized "menu" charts, schedules, or behavior systems we will not be asking for those back. They are yours. :) Finally, along with our packets this week, Mrs. Schmidt put together a packet of Scholastic flyers that we receive. If you desire to purchase any books through scholastic, you can use my online class code to do so via the Scholastic website (https://clubs.scholastic.com/home). Our online code is LKJYZ. I will submit purchases on the 1st of each month and when the order is received, I will put the items is your child's next packet for pickup. Have a great week! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!! It was gorgeous outside! I don’t know about you, but last week was certainly a week full of learning for me. Here is some of what I learned…
This week for our large group sessions, I would like to invite your child to share something that he/she likes to eat or drink. If they have a snack at home that they can show to friends that would be great! They are welcome to munch during our call of course. :) We will begin our small group sessions this week. For this week’s small group, we will be working on the concepts of “in” and “out”. Your child does not need to bring anything extra with him/her to our small group this week. As mentioned above, YouTube has been presenting some problems. When working with our technology department last week to find a solution, the path led us to begin using Canvas and embed the videos there. I have set up a course in Canvas for our class titled, “HPS - Voigt - PreK” and added each student to the course. I will continue to present the lesson format on our classroom webpage as before; however, this is mostly because our peer students are also accessing the daily lessons. If you are not using a district device for our daily lessons then you should be able to view all of the YouTube links without entering Canvas. Below is an instructional video on how to get started with Canvas and where to find everything (please view on a non-district device). |