Keri and Emily's class' on our walking field trip to Hollins.  Look at what we saw:

Roanoke's First Recycling Center

        Hollins University's Community Garden  We got some great ideas for our own garden. 

                                                   A bonus, we got to pet the horses.

                                         The painted recycling collection cans were really neat!

                                            And artwork on Hollins campus was great too!

This Monday is a teacher work day so there is no school.  

We will be going on another field trip on Thursday, October 6th.  We will go with our "buddies" from RuthAnn's class next door.  We are heading to my farm in Wirtz and then to Booker T. Washington National Monument a few miles from my place.  We will compare present day farms from those of "yesteryear".    Please pack a heavy fruit break snack that day as we will be eating later than normal.  A water bottle will be helpful also.  We will be leaving school at 9 AM so don't be late.  It will be an all day field trip and we should be back around 2. 

We are getting into the swing of things.  Thank you to everyone for coming out to the gathering.  It was fun getting to know you and listening to your questions.  I am very fortunate to have such a great group of parents to go with my great group of kids.  
Thank you to everyone who remembered our attempt at having a "peanut free" Monday lunch.  It will just help us as we get together with our buddies.  If your child does have peanut butter, we will just remember to clean especially good and wash our hands after we eat. 
The kids would really love to do show-n-share and it was decided that we will do this on Friday mornings.  Please remember that we only want to bring in items that are not fragile and can be stored in the backpacks. 
If you have not already done so, please remember to send in a baby picture or two for our project.  We would also love to know birth weight and/or height.  We are charting our growth.  If you have a chance to talk with your child about times when they were little, that would be great.  Share with them details such as when they walked, talked and learned to ride a bike, etc.  We are creating a time line of our lives
and this info will help us. 
Thanks! 

Week 2

We made it!  Week one was a great beginning to what will be a wonderful school year.  I am very excited!  This week we have 2 events you will want to put on your calendar.  Thursday, September 15th at 7pm we will have our gathering.  We will meet in my classroom.  This is a quick informational meeting about the upcoming school year.  We have information to hand out for Fall Festival so don't miss it.  It lasts about a half hour and it is just for the adults.  On Friday, we will have our class skits outside at 10:30.  This should be a lot of fun! 

This week we will begin our assessments to see where everyone is.  This is done through watching them play, and learn.  We will see where they are at so that we know where to begin with our teaching. 

We are playing hard outside during our recess time.  When we come in, we are hot and sometimes sweaty.  So we are still using the air-conditioning to cool us off.  Some of us cool off faster than others and may want a sweatshirt to keep here at school to put on and take off.  If you have one that you can leave at school, that would be great.  They can leave it in their cubbies. 
Thanks for all you are doing to help us transition into our new school year! 

First Day!

I am sure most of you are very anxious to hear how the first day went......   It has been great!  We have made new friends, connected with old and learned something new about everyone.  We went to Spanish and to Music and had indoor recess and fruit break.  Hopefully the rain will go away soon and we can head outdoors again.  For those of you who have not yet done so, a change of clothes, a sweatshirt/jacket and rain boots are great things to bring in and leave in their cubbies.  We will be going outside in drizzles and we do play outside when it is wet.  It is nice to have dry clothes to change into if we get wet. 
Your child will bring a folder home nightly and any news items or work will be inside.  Please check this out.  I will try and post important information on this blog, so check it often.  Better yet, sign up to have emails sent to you when it is updated. 
Our themes this quarter will be growing and gardening, as well as Nursery Rhymes.  We will see what is required to grow, plant some seeds and monitor their growth and measure ourselves to track how tall we are growing.  We will also do some choral reading of Nursery Rhymes to start our reading. 
A big thank you to all who have brought in supplies.  We will be well stocked to start out the year.  If you have any questions that I can answer before gatherings, please feel free to stop by after school, or to email me.  You can reach me at kerij@communityschool.net    

A new year!!!!!!

Am I the only one with butterflies in my stomach?  As many times that I have had a first day, I still get excited and nervous about my first day.  I have prepared and am ready so that the first day will be fun, fresh and exciting!  I can not wait to see the smiling faces of all of the boys and girls.  That rush of first day energy fills the air.  I look forward to posting here to keep you informed about our days at Community School.  Check back for info from our first day as well as photos.