Hello families and welcome back to our semimonthly group newsletter. This week, we are going to give a couple of housekeeping points, followed by a share about our emerging name curriculum, and ending with a family assignment, so make sure you read to the end!

Housekeeping

-As the weather cools down and children start wearing layers to school, please make sure to put jackets, sweaters, etc. in the blue drawstring bag on their hook. This is to keep things neat on the hooks and help the children know where they can always find their outside layers.

-To help with independence, we ask that you send your child to school in shoes they can take on and off on their own. Shoes with laces can be frustrating and they have to wait for a teacher to help them.

Curriculum

Learning the letters of your name is a wonderful entry point into literacy work. Of course, we want to learn the letters that spell our own names! All over the classroom, teachers have up names: on their hooks, on their mailboxes, and on their drinking cups. They are also seeing their names every morning on the sign in sheets.

Me into We

Each morning for almost two weeks, we would spell two names out together and add them to our big list. We started with Nicole and Kristina and the children made connections almost immediately!

. As we added names, the children took note of frequently occurring letters like A, E, and N. Some children were also thinking about how many syllables were in their name.

We are thrilled with how much potential we see for emergent curriculum in simply spelling our names together.

During our teaching team meeting, we made a idea map to think about the different directions we could go in with letters. We see many entry points to further literacy, math, science, geography, social emotional learning, and more! This map is posted in the classroom, next to our schedule board. Please feel free to take a peek the next time you’re in the room.

One way we have already seen names come into the classroom has been through our new policy of “wait lists.” When we had water colors out, there were not enough spots at the table for everyone who wanted to paint. Teachers suggested that children write their name down on a piece of paper so they could play with something else while they waited. This was a big success and now we have a great way to keep track of activities that gives them an organic reason to practice writing their names.

Questions to ask your child:

What letters are in your name?

Do you know how to spell any of your friends’ names?

How many syllables/claps does ________ have in it?

Family Assignment

You made it to the fun part! We would love to hear how you chose your child’s name. Please send in a short video explaining how your family decided on your Yellow Room child’s name. We have done this in years past and it is always lovely to see the pride in faces when their video is played. We will play these during meeting as they come in through the week. You can email the files and let Nicole know if you’re having tech issues.