RPDS ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER

e-RPDS March 2019

Letter from the Director

Dear Redeemer Community,

I know the Redeemer teachers would agree that, because of our students' genuine spirit, we get to witness many "fly on the wall" moments. A couple weeks ago it was just after 3:00, and I had two students in my office. Charlie's dad was running a little late, and Joey's parents were having their parent teacher conference a day early.

Charlie, the Kindergarten Star of the Week, had a bag of treasures that he had brought in to show his classmates. While they were waiting, he began to share them with Joey. Sorting through the items, they settled in on my couch to look through Charlie's super hero book.

While flipping through the book Charlie proceeded to tell Joey that he was "getting pretty good at reading because he had learned how to sound out words" and wanted to teach her to do the same. He began by saying, "B-a-t - do you know what that spells?"

Charlie paused. Joey scrunched up her face. Charlie quickly added, "That's ok. I'll give it to you. It spells bat."

Then he looked up at me and said, "Mrs. Knott, it's not really that important that she knows how to read. She's only three." They continued to read and chat and enjoy one another's company.

As most of you know, I have three sons. When they were little we had a saying in our house. "Big kids look out for little kids." We see that happen a lot at Redeemer. While Charlie certainly didn't teach Joey to read that afternoon, through his kindness, he taught her something else. It was heartwarming!

Happy Spring Break!

Best regards,

Mary

Classroom Updates:

Mrs. Barta's Pre-first:

ROAR, ROAR, Dinosaur! The Pre-first children have turned into

paleontologists and have become experts on dinosaurs. We have compared a variety of dinosaurs, measured dinosaurs, read dinosaur books, studied dinosaur fossils, painted dinosaurs and written and illustrated our very own dinosaur journals. If you need to know anything about a dinosaur, ask a pre-first expert!In Language Arts, we have been working on accuracy, fluency and automaticity with independent and group reading. We have learned all about blends in words and are know learning about closed syllables and Bossy R words. In Math, we continue working on our skip counting
skills, tally marks, place value and graphing. After the break, we will revisit the concept of money and time.Have a wonderful spring break with your family!

Mrs. Smith's & Mrs. Vandenberg's Kindergartens:

Kindergarten is all about the dinosaurs! We are finishing a twoweek unit on our study of dinosaurs. We learned everything from what the dinosaurs ate, to how they looked, and what might have happened to them. The students were very good paleontologists and learned and shared a lot of information. We are discussing how to recall details from a story and beginning, middle, and end of a story. While reading to your child, please remember to ask them to make predictions about the story and talk about what happened in the beginning, middle, and end. In language arts, we are working on sounding out words and also on "Magic e". This means that we are sounding out words with "e" on the end. Your child should be able to tell you how Magic e gives the vowel all of its power and is left with no sound. The vowel is transformed to say its own name. In math, we are beginning to learn about the money and how much value each coin has. Your child can play with coins and tell you how much each is worth. We encourage you to teach your child about saving, spending, and giving money. We hope you have a restful, healthy, and fun spring break! We can't wait to see your children when they return.

Mrs. Arrup & Mrs. Baker's Pre-k:

Pre K is cruising through the alphabet! We had fun with the letter S by sewing seashells, sequencing, writing in shaving cream and using patterns to make snakes. This week we counted twenty letters we have worked on so far!!!! How appropriate to be on our twentieth letter during letter "Tt" week. We will be creating turtles with different textures, counting turtles and talking about our teeth and taste. As we work on our daily projects, we reinforce counting, positional words and writing skills; all prerequisites for kindergarten next year! We hope you all have a restful, healthy and fun spring break!

Mrs. Loeb & Mrs. Vahedi's Pre-k:

Mrs. Loeb and Mrs. Vahedi's pre-k have been looking at snakes and turtles, sequencing and leprechauns, winter, and hopefully the beginning of spring! We have followed a set of clues to hunt for a pot of gold (and found it!) complete with 'color of the rainbow' candies as a little treat! There were also gold coins in Science; our leprechaun has been busy! And we have been tip-toeing around our classroom in search of letters and numbers. Although we are ready to shed our coats, the forty- degree mornings remind us to keep our winter clothes for just a little while longer! We loved our Sundaes and 'tea' bread for the letters "S" and "T" but we all wonder what we will cook for "U"! Have a wonderful Spring Break!

Mrs. Schroeder & Miss Ball's 3s:

The 5 day 3s are ready for spring! The kids have been loving the warmer temperatures and are ready to say goodbye to winter. We have been working on our transportation unit. This is a fun one for them. We have been playing riddle games, making planes, trains and automobiles! We have enjoyed learning about how fast different forms of transportation can go. We also love to drive our train down the tracks while learning how to walk in a line. Friday we will be heading for a trip to Italy! Once we arrive, we will be having a Spaghetti snack! The kids are very excited for this trip. We've been learning lots of facts about Italy as well as coloring the flag. We continue to work on our letters and are finishing up the alphabet. We have been playing some color games, learning some new songs, and working with some new puzzles. We hope you all have a great break and look forward to spring!

Mrs. Hooper & Mrs. Grieve's 3s:

Your children enjoyed our exciting and active 5 Senses Unit! This is always a favorite as it includes many fun activities that use our senses. Last week we concentrated on taste, sight and touch. Salty, sweet, sour and crunchy treats were tasted on Thursday.... The children could hardly wait for it to be their turn to "taste test." Our class now understands how our SENSES all work in "harmony" so that we can experience and enjoy all that is around us each day! "TRANSPORTATION" is the new big word in the 3 Day 3's! Our discussions this week have been about, "Things That Go." We have had fun exploring things that " transport" on the water, in the air, on the roads and even on the rails. The children's creations include cars, planes, traffic lights and soon a school bus. Today the children all passed their "Driver's Test" (on bikes) and went home with their photo Maryland licenses. We have some finger plays and rhyming to go along with this unit. PURPLE DIAMONDS are our color and shape for March; soon we will have some purple marble painted kites "soaring" in our classroom! Little Miss Muffet is our nursery rhyme this month and we will add this page to our year long nursery rhyme book! Have a wonderful Spring break with your little ones. We look forward to some consistently warmer temperatures when we return , so that your children can enjoy some creative outdoor play. Thank you all for attending conference day..... It's always a joy for us to share your child's growth and progress!

Mrs. Astley & Mrs. Knott's 2s:

March came in like a Lion...so lets hope that it goes out like a Lamb! The weather has been cold and snowy but also sunny and windy, and the two's have enjoyed it all! This month we have focused on weather, Dr. Seuss, the colors Black, white, and gray plus the rectangle. I hope you enjoyed seeing your children in their Hot Air Balloons and the picture of The Cat in the Hat's hat. We have read quite a few Dr. Seuss' books during circle time! We have some great listeners in this class. They really do love that time together of sharing and learning. I hope that you all enjoy your Spring Break and can't wait to jump in Spring when we return.

Mrs. Wyatt & Mrs. Zuidema's 2s:

W The Wyatt/Zuidema/Yanega Twos are learning a lot in the month of March. Our shape is the rectangle, our colors are black, white, and grey, and our themes are Dr. Seuss, St. Patrick's Day, and the weather. We had a good time helping the fox match his socks, and if you get a chance to check out our cubbies, you will see that it is a "Great Day for Up." When we come back from our break, we will start our unit on the weather. This week we will say goodbye to our friend, Mrs. Yanega. We will miss spending our mornings with her, but we are looking forward to welcoming back Mrs. Zuidema! We hope everyone enjoys a fantastic spring break. As always, we thank you for sharing your children with us.

Lunch Bunch:

L unch Bunch is roaring into spring! We are ready for warm weather and more outside activities coming up this season. With all of the beautiful weather comes rain, mud and dirt! Please make sure that we have a seasonally appropriate change of clothing for your child's cubby. We are as always working to keep the children out of the mud, but the mud still finds the children. We are planning on doing spring themed art projects and continuing to offer exploratory and process experiences and projects for the children throughout the rest of the month. Some of the themes include Spring, Easter and St. Patricks Day. Examples of these types of projects are bubble wrap painting, scrapper painting, and crumpled paper art. We also have planned several experiments involving things such as peeps and plastic cups. As always thank you for sending your children to Lunch Bunch, we enjoy them each and every day!

Mrs. Blair's Art:

It's all about Process Art in the art room! Process art focuses on the process as opposed to the product or outcome.
Mother Nature has helped us to make gorgeous process art these past few weeks as we all worked collaboratively to create the most fabulous collection of painted sticks. It was such an engaging and creative project and everyone was very invested in the process of layering color on our beautiful fallen branches.We have also painted leaves and created chalk and mono prints. We painted an observational drawing (drawing what we see) of an Iris. Using magnifying glasses, we became "art detectives" looking for clues to all of the details we would paint. Our sense of sight and smell and touch help us to draw what we see.Spring is blooming in the Art Room-stop by and take a peek at our leaves, branches and Iris' !

Mrs. Craig's Gym:

Last week in gym class we had fun with rackets. We tested all types of balls: hitting fleece pompoms over the net, hitting foam balls under the net, and passing beach balls over and under the net with our rackets and/or hands. This week was all about St. Patrick's day games with a Pot of Gold relay, Lucky Charm Tag, and a Leprechaun Treasure Hunt.

Miss B's Music:

Music class was shaking it up with some Latin sounds. With St. Patrick's Day around the corner, this week we are exploring Irish music and dance!

Mrs. Craig's Science:

Pre-K: This week the students enjoyed a special St. Patrick's Day experiment. We used our pipettes to drop our magical potion (vinegar) on our Leprechaun rocks (made from baking soda mixed with green watercolors). They started to fizz and crack open, revealing a lucky gold coin!

Kindergarten: We wrapped up our dinosaur unit by building a stegosaurus skeleton with the salt dough bones we made and by exploring dinosaur defenses.

Pre-First: We continued on with our Earth Science unit this week building volcanoes! These will be painted in art class after the break, then we will enjoy erupting them in science class!

Mrs. Smith's Values:

Responsibility is something all children need to learn. Responsibility involves making decisions,being trusted,and learning to take credit for ones actions-whether good or bad. Taking responsibility is not just about how the choices your child makes affect them, but how their choices affect others. One of the best ways to teach your child about responsibility is to model the behavior for them. If they see you being responsible, they are much more likely to do the same.

Senora Poe's Spanish:

¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás? Our Spanish students are becoming more familiar with basic conversation and gaining confidence each week. One morning, say to your child "Buenos dias, ¿Cómo estás? and hopefully they will respond. We have introduced the emotions and feelings. Many students are "in love". Primavera (Spring) makes us feliz (happy)!

Mrs. Knott's World Cultures:

March seemed the perfect month to head to Ireland! After enjoying the funny tale of "Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato" we learned how universal potatoes are in cooking throughout the world. We ended our stay in Ireland by making homemade baked potato dip. Yum!

Office Updates

SAVE THE DATE

Line up your babysitters now for our Spring Auction and Social on Friday, April 12th!

Church Staff Parking Spots

Please refrain from parking in the spots that are reserved for church staff, even if it is for a brief moment at drop off or pick up. Please pass this along to anyone else who may be responsible for driving your child. We appreciate your cooperation with this.

UPCOMING CALENDAR EVENTS:

Friday, March 15th- 11:45 ALL SCHOOL DISMISSAL - Spring Break begins.

Monday, March 25th- School Resumes

Tuesday, April 8th- Irvin Simon Picture Day for the 2 Day 2s and Siblings

Friday, April 12th- 6:30- 10 pm- Spring Auction & Social!

Friday, April 19th- No School- Easter Break

Monday, April 22- No School- Easter Break

Friday, April 6th-11:45 ALL SCHOOL DISMISSAL - Faculty Meeting

Program Highlights:

Nobel Scientist Visits Redeemer

"Our single greatest defense against scientific ignorance is education, and early in the life of every scientist, the child's f irst interest was sparked by a teacher." - excerpt from Dr. Peter Agre's acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Redeemer's pre-first and kindergarten science classes were treated to a very special visit from Dr. Peter Agre, grandfather of Mary Pearl and Peregrine, and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. After watching a few of Dr. Agre's demonstrations, students performed their own experiments, followed by a mock Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in which their teachers were recognized for excellence in teaching! Dr. Agre's most powerful lesson was taught by example. It was a delight to witness his love of science and experimentation as well as his humble and thoughtful disposition.

Yoga at the Day School

On Friday, March 8 all of the Redeemer classes were treated to a relaxing and fun yoga session led by yoga instructor and former preschool teacher, Donna Hinder. They learned many different poses and enjoyed a quiet moment for a change! Namaste!

Maryland Science Center

Dinosaur Presentation

Our kindergarten and pre-first students played host to two other preschools when the Maryland Science Center traveled to Redeemer for an informative and interactive class on dinosaurs. After studying dinosaurs in the classroom, this experience was the perfect ending to the unit for our budding paleontologists!

A Rocking Robot

Eleanor Rose's brother, Zachary, made a special trip to Redeemer to demonstrate and answer questions about building a homemade robot. Our students love to build and innovate and knowing that being able to create something like this in the near future is exciting for them!

In This Issue

Director's Letter

Classroom Updates

Office Notes

Community News

Student Slideshow

In preschool we recognize the privilege, responsibility and joy of educating our youngest students. Alongside their parents, we work diligently at building the foundation for their ongoing and lifelong learning. Be sure to click on the link below found in every issue to see our wonderful students in action. Enjoy!