A Note From Our Director:

Dear Parents,

Thanks to all of you who made it to the Ice Cream Social on Sunday. What a fun event it was! I enjoyed meeting and visiting with you and am so grateful to our wonderful Board of Trustees for hosting such a fun party! I look forward to many more fun times together at St. Matthew's!

We are beginning another wonderful week of learning and discovery. Today, I met Barker Dog with some Pre-K friends and we learned all about the letter "M". Then it was off to pet the farm animals with the 3's! It was so fun to see them holding, feeding and petting the pigs, goats, bunnies - even a cow and a donkey! I got to peek in on some parachute fun in Fun 'n Fitness. After a delicious lunch prepared by you wonderful parent volunteers, we had a fun, productive faculty meeting. Whew! What a busy day! I can't wait until tomorrow.

I did want to remind you all of a few things to help keep our school running smoothly and keep us all safe and happy:

1. Please do not park in the Mesa lot. This lot is for faculty. If you are getting out of your car to walk your child in in the mornings, you need to park in the Steck lot. Mesa is for drive through drop off only. If you arrive after 9:05, you must get out and walk your child in. The morning carpool teachers will have gone inside and you must sign your child in.

2. All children need to wear rubber soled tennis shoes to school. This is a safety issue and is a requirement by our licensing agency. No crocs or flip-flops, please.

3. When you come to school, come to the office, sign in, and get a visitor's badge. Again, this is a safety issue. We want to know who is here on our campus. You do not need to do this for pick-up and drop off, but any other time you are here, please wear a visitor's badge.

4. Swine flu notes:
   Please let us know if your child has H1N1 or flu like symptoms. The teachers will let you know if a child in your class is home with the flu, but we can only do this if we know.
   If your child has the flu, we recommend you keep your child home for at least 5-7 days from the onset of symptoms. St. Matthew's has two "high risk" groups in our community - children under 5 and pregnant women - and we want to be mindful of that.
   If you have a sick sibling, please do not bring that child in at St. Matthew's. We understand you cannot leave that child home alone. Please call the office or your child's teacher and we will be happy to escort your St. Matthew's student to and from your car.
   Again, the cases we have seen have been mild. We want to keep it that way!

Thanks so much for all you do to support our wonderful school. I'll see you at Fall Fest!!

Faithfully,

Francie Thurman

The Farm Unit

We have finish up week one of two weeks of our Farm Unit.  

Last week we learned about the types of animals that are typically found on a farm.  The kids had fun making all kinds of farm animal sounds and learning the names of the baby farm animals.  We created paper plate pigs using different sized circles, triangles and rectangles.  We discovered what happens to a color when white is added to it the colors get mixed together.  Everyone also learned how to use a glue stick (the week before we learned how to make dots of glue using the glue bottles and we learned how to cut with scissors - "open, shut, open, shut, this is the way we cut!")

This next week, Farmer Fry will be bringing a petting zoo of farm animals for us to pet!  We will be talking about the types of things farmers grow.  Using different types of vegetables, we will make vegetable print patterns!  Please have fun talking to your child about farms and when you go to the grocery store, be sure to point out things that was grown on a farm :)

Ice Cream Social This Sunday!

Farm Animals Visit Postponed until Monday

Parent Education Night - Oct. 1st

*This is not a St. Matthew's event.*

Holy Smoker's Brisket Order Form

Reminder: Safeguarding God's Children Training This Week!

Those of you needing Safeguarding God's Children Training, there are two trainings this week:  one tomorrow (Tuesday) from 9:15-10:45 and one Friday the 25th from 9:15-10:45.  Sign up in the school office.

Parents need to take this training if you plan on spending more than 6 hours in the classroom.

Notes from the first Parent's Council Meeting

Hi all!

We had a great first Parent's Council Meeting last Friday and I am posting the minutes for you to see what was discussed. A few key points to note:

1.) Sign up for the Bake Sale for Fall Fest for our classroom is on the door to the class :) Treats should be individually wrapped.

2.) Our "Class Booth" for Fall Fest is the 5 and up moonwalk (fun!). Sign up times are in 30 minute increments and we are going to need 13 volunteers total so we are really going to need everyone to try to take a small shift!!!! I'll put this sign up sheet on the class door on Wednesday.

3.) The ice cream social is this Sunday 9/27 from 4-5 p.m. (it's Amy's Ice cream)

4.) Keep collecting Box Tops -- and turn in by 10/23

5.) The date for La Noche has been set for 2/27

6.) We will take up a small voluntary donation from parents in our class to be used in buying gifts for the teachers throughout the year (Birthday, Christmas & Teacher Appreciation) -- More information on the specifics to follow!

Thanks!
Your classroom reps,
Christian & Danette

"Discover Me" Bottles!

For our first science experiment, we created "Discover Me" bottles! Inside each bottle there is:

• Water
• Oil
  
• A picture of the child
  
• Pennies (the number of pennies depend on how old the child is)
• A bead with the first letter of his/her name
• A foam letter that is the first letter of his/her first or last name
• Pieces of plastic straws or foam that each child cut (the number of straw pieces depend on how old the child is)
• Glitter

Each child used a funnel to pour the water, oil and glitter into their own bottle.  Then for every object that was added to the bottles we guessed if it would sink or float.  As with most experiments, unexpected things happened:

• Every child had to shake their bottle vigorously (when I had intended the bottles to be turned gently to so we could see the oi and water move around each other and see the objects float :-p)  
• After the bottles were shaken, the oil became opaque.
• All the glitter that the kids put into their bottles clumped together also making it difficult to see the objects inside the bottles...
• Of course, the kids had no idea what my expectations were so they were so excited about their "Discover Me" bottles and they cannot wait to take them home! (By the way, CJ now wants to make his own bottle just like theirs...)
  
• The "Discover Me" bottles will be sent home on Monday because I decided it was a good idea to glue the caps onto the bottles so no one would be temped to do an experiment of their own by taking the caps off at home ;)
  

Mid-week Announcements

Today we had our individual class pictures.  Almost everyone had a great time having Mr. Dabbs take their picture and call them a cute nickname - I think Addie had the favorite, "Pancake Princess" - be sure to ask your child what Mr. Dabbs called him/her!

Today we also welcomed an new friend to our class, Claire Price.  Claire fit right in with our wonderful class and we are all excited that she has joined us!

Book orders are due Friday.  You can always place an order online at Scholastic.com

• Enter "1FBVH" for the 5-digit code
• For more details on ordering online read this post.
  

This is the last week of our "All About Me" unit.  During this week we are talking about our five senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste.  The kids had fun talking about which senses they were using during lunch!  We are also talking about sound and music.  Everyone got to experiment with different "instruments" or noise makers this afternoon.  Be sure to look at the picasa album to see and hear a sample of this ;)

Next week we start our "Farm" unit. The farm animals will be visiting St. Matthew's next Friday, the 25th.  This will be a lot of fun for our friends since they will get to pet rabbits and pigs, see a cow and maybe a miniature horse!  I do want to give you advance notice that I will not be there that day (or at least not the entire day) because my mother is having back surgery in San Antonio and I need to be there with her. 

Please feel free to contact me via email or phone if you have any questions or concerns!

Weekly Reminders for 09/14/09

• Fun-N-Fitness on Monday - be sure your child is wearing tennis shoes
  
• Individual School Pictures on Wednesday, September 16th
• Book orders due by Friday, September 18th
• Unofficial Class Party at Chick-fil-a is postponed
  

Another Day of Firsts...

Wednesday, September 9th was another day of firsts for our class!

• We had our first substitute (Mrs. Prchlik stood in for Mrs. McCay)

• We had our first full Chapel Service (the kids did great!)
  

• We celebrated our first set of birthdays (Katie, Zach and Henry all turn four this week)!

• We attended our first Music Class taught by Mrs. Magee in the music room!
  

• We ate lunch at school for the first time!

I took a ton of pictures today and they are uploaded to the September 2009 album.  Enjoy!

Class Roster

Please feel free to print this class roster to help your child learn the names of all his/her new friends in Mrs. Bonura's class:

You're Invited to a Party @ Chick-Fil-A!!

Lauren Ward, Henry's mom, wanted to invite you to a *party for Mrs. Bonura's M/W/F class at Chick-Fil-A on Saturday, September 19th from 5-7pm (the location on Braker).

Please let her know if you can come and how many they can expect to set up the fun:)  Food and fun provided by Chick-fil-a. This will be a great chance to meet each other outside the hecticness of drop off and pick up ... siblings are of course welcome.

* This is not an official St. Matthew's event...

If You're Happy & You Know It...

We ended our first week on a very happy note :) The class learned the words to "If You're Happy and You Know It" We clapped, stomped and shouted "Hooray!"

I can tell that kids are starting to feel more comfortable in the classroom, with me & Mrs. McCay and with each other. Many new friendships are starting to bloom! There were so many smiles and giggles today - all of their personalities are really starting to come out :)

The girls have enjoyed playing dress-up with the princess clothes donated by Katie...
The boys love building with blocks, setting up train tracks and playing with the cars...
Painting is definitely a favorite activity for Grant and Addie... Grant loves to sing along with the music and paint :)
On the playground, Henry and Anderson had fun playing chase... Fletcher had so much fun riding a scooter and getting it stuck in the rocks - while Allison kept pulling the scooter out of the rocks for him... Ben discovered that he is "very curious" and likes to know all that is happening around him ;) Charlotte enjoyed riding a tricycle while Mia and Katie took turns on the swings... Zach and Trevor discovered they are going to be great friends!

Reminder: No School on Monday!

Knees Are For Kneelers, Feet On The Floor

Today we learned what to expect during Chapel! Mrs. Dugat taught us that the most important thing to remember when we go into the Sanctuary is that "God loves us!" We learned that "knees are for kneelers", "feet on the floor" and "seats are for sitting" we also learned that the books(the Bibles and Hymnals) are for adults but we did get to look at them for a few minutes! Mrs. Magee played the piano while we practice singing "Good Morning, Lord!" Mrs. Dugat showed us the signs for "I love God" and "God loves me!" Next week we will be prepared for a wonderful Chapel experience.

Reminder: If anyone is celebrating a birthday next week, please bring a baggie with 4 coins to count during Chapel.