Welcome to Pre-Kindergarten

My name is Ms. Cyndi Ward and I am the Pre-K teacher at St. Peter’s.

The 2011-2012 school year will be my 4^th year with St. Peter’s. I am very excited to continue teaching children about the Catholic faith. I understand the importance of Catholic education and the sacrifices parents make daily to assure their child can attend St. Peter’s. My parents made the sacrifices for me from Kindergarten through 12th grade as I attended St. Mary's of Piscataway and St. Mary's Ryken.

I have a wonderful teaching assistant Mrs. Delani Norman.

The 2011-2012 school year is my 7^th year with St. Peter’s. I began working at St. Peter’s as the first grade aid, followed by 4 years working in our before/after-care as well as a substitute teacher. I am very excited to be with the pre-k at St. Peter’s this year. My oldest daughter graduated from St. Peter’s in June 2010 and my middle daughter is currently attending 8^th grade at our school. My youngest daughter will be coming to our school in 2 years. I have been a St. Peter’s parent for 11 years and truly feel our school is great!

We look forward to have a GREAT YEAR with the 2011-2012 Pre-K Class!

Our Current Theme is:

Construction Zone

Our Alphafriend is:

Mimi Mouse

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Upcoming Events:

*February 14th ~ Valentine's Day Party

*February 15th ~ 1:40 pm Dismissal

*February 17th ~ Muffins with Mom @ 2:45 pm in the Pre-K Classroom

*February 20th ~ No School

*February 21st ~ Shrove Dinner 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm

*February 22nd ~ Ash Wednesday - Mass 10:40 am

January 2012

   Happy New Year to all! We hope you had a wonderful holiday season and you are having a blessed New Year so far. Pre-K come back to school refreshed and ready to get back into learning!

   Catholic Schools Week is quickly approaching!! Please make sure you have downloaded the recent email attachments for the schedule of events during the week. The school has special events each day as well as a food and clothing drive.

   We continue to work on our Seasons All Around theme and discovering what each season has to bring. We were very excited when we were working on a weekly reader about snow because it began to snow!

It didn't amount to much, but we were very excited!!!

We are adding to curriculum a little by introduction cooking each week. Since we will meet an Alphafriend each week, we will make some type of snack that begins with the same letter as our Alphafriend. For the week of Willy Worm, we made homemade waffles. That's right! That were delicious!!!

Friday, January 6th, Pre-K was introduced to our classroom friend that likes to go on weekend adventures. George the Monkey will be traveling each weekend with a student to have an adventure. Students will take a bookbag home that contains a Curious George Book, Journal, Box of Crayons, and of course George. Students will draw a picutre or take a picture to put in the journal and write a sentence about their adventure with George over the weekend. They will return the bookbag on Monday and share their adventure with the class. I can't wait to see where and what George gets to do this year!

December 2011

God grant you the light in Christmas, which is faith;
the warmth of Christmas, which is love;
the radiance of Christmas, which is purity;
the righteousness of Christmas, which is justice;
the belief in Christmas, which is truth;
the all of Christmas, which is Christ.
--Wilda English

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

So far December has been a very busy month! We are preparing our presents for our parents, we are learning about the letter U, and we are learning about the weather as well as the different seasons. But the most important thing we are learning about is the true meaning of Christmas. We know it's not all about Santa Claus and getting presents, but preparing our hearts for Jesus' birthday.

Wednesday, December 21st, Pre-K enjoyed our annual Polar Express party! We had awesome parents make all the preparations and it was even better than years before! Thank you for all your hard work and preparations!!!!

Enjoying a story with our Kindergarten friends as we wait for our

Conductor to start our Polar Express adventure.

Our Polar Express hot chocolate station with many options!

Finally we get to enjoy the show :-)

The first 2 weeks of December we were preparing for our big performance at the school Christmas play. The Pre-K class sang the some "The Whole World is Waiting for Love." They did a WONDERFUL job. Dr. Driscoll was so proud of them for staying on beat and singing along with the piano. Maybe we have some future choir members.

(We have a few friends missing in our picture)

   Did you know every year an elf from the North Pole is sent down to the Pre-K classroom by Santa to keep an eye on the class? Each night she returns to Santa to let him know how the Pre-K class is doing with their behaviors. Hopefully he is getting good reports.

November 2011

   November is a month to give thanks. And that is just what we did in Pre-K!

   The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we had a school program for all of our Grandparents/Grandfriends. Pre-K had a little stage fright for the first song, but we had loud voices for the second song.  We had two very generous donations giving to the classroom and were able to purchase new rest time music as well as new games for the classroom. Ms. Ward started the week after Thanksgiving break with "team building" to explore the new games :-)

We were very excited to meet our new alphafriend Tiggy Tiger. After we practicing tracing and writing the letter T, we made mini Teepees.

On November 10th St. Peter's celebrated two special occasions; Veterans Day and the Marine Corp Birthday. We invited Veterans in the St. Peter's community to come to our school for a special event. We made Hero cards for each Veteran in attendance as a token of our appreciation for all their hard work and dedication in keeping our Country safe.

Thank you to all the Veterans who were in attendance, you are truly AMAZING individuals!

We continued the event by celebrating the Marine Corp Birthday. According to Mr. West, the Marine Corp tradition is the youngest and oldest Marine cut the birthday cake. Therefore, Jourdan was given the opportunity to take part in cutting the cake. The rest of the Pre-K class was very excited to learn that each of them would be able to eat a piece of the cake.

   The week of November 7th we prepared thank you cards to send to the Soldiers in Afghanistan. The Pre-K class will be sponsoring a Soldier serving in Afghanistan during the 2011-2012 school year. Each week we will send pictures and cards to the Soldier as well as a care package every month. The Soldier has made contact with Ms. Ward and is excited to receive cards and pictures from our class. If possible, he will send pictures to us so we are able to see who he is.

October 2011

   On October 31st, we had a Halloween Parade and classroom party. We had a GREAT day of fun! Here are a few pictures while we were making our halloween crafts.

On October 26th, we went to Shlagel Farms for our pumpkin farm field trip. We had a BEAUTIFUL day for the field trip, for the first time in 2 years :-) The sun was shining, the air was cool, and the kids were excited! When we arrived at the farm, the farmer talked to us about the farm. Then we were able to go on a hay ride to tour the farm, play in a corn box, get up close with a few very large turkeys, pet a few animals in the petting zoo, run around the hay maze, and finish our trip with picking a pumpkin. Fun was had by all! Thank you to all the chaperones that were able to come out and help with the field trip, without you, the field trip would not have been as much fun! Thank you to Shlagel Farms for letting us come and play on your farm! We hope to see you again next year!!

We were very excited to have our first reading time with our prayer partners!

The Pre-K class loves to "cook up" different things in our classroom. We decided for science it might be cool to make some green playdough that smelled like cinnamon.

We began a new theme, Community Helpers, during the month of October. We were able to have a few people from our community come into our classroom to tell us all about their jobs!

EMT Kauffman and his crew came to visit our school to tell us about the ambulance. The crew showed us all the different types of equipment they use when they are attempting to help people. Did you know they give stuffed animals to kids when they have to ride in the ambulance? This is supposed to help kids that are scared. They also showed us a bear that will help you breathe. The oxygen comes out of the bear's belly. After they showed us all the cool equipment, we were able to check out the ambulance and lights! Thank you Dentsville Volunteer Emergency Medical Services for coming to see us and taking care of people who are sick!

Officer Waldon from the Charles County Sheriff's Department came to visit our school. She showed us all the equipment she carries on her belt. As she was showing us, she told us how each piece was used. We then went outside to look at Officer Waldon's police car. The best part was when she turned on the sirens and lights! Thank you Officer Waldon for all your hard work and dedication in keeping us safe!

Mrs. Walker from the Charles County Library talked to us about the library. She told us that if we needed to find information, we could go to the library and find information on almost anything! Mrs. Walker read us 2 books and told us a story using the Flannel Board about a Huge Turnip. Thank you Mrs. Walker for coming to read to our school and all your help in keeping our community supplied with books! We look forward to setting up another story time soon.

Fire prevention week was October 9th - October 15th. During this week we learned about fire safety. Unfortunately, the fire department was not able to come to our school, but we still learned alot! We talked about stop, drop, and roll then practiced just in case our clothes catch on fire. We practiced fire drills in our school. We know that if there is a fire in our school or classroom, we need to quick, quietly, and calmly get out of the building. We had a little help from the book Miss Mingo and the Fire Drill by Jamie Harper. We loved this book because Miss Mingo has a Pre-K class just like us!

We began the month with a great Race for Education day. This year the school was able to raise over $20,000.00. Pre-K raised around $2,383.00!!!! Thank you to all our sponsors and wonderful parents who came out to support our event!

Enjoying a little lunch after a morning of fun!

September 28, 2011

We have had a VERY busy month in Pre-K! Most of us are finally in the school routine and the rest of us are slowly, but surely getting there :-)

We began our week talking about Johnny Appleseed since his birthday was on Monday. We learned there are three different kinds of apples and each one can taste different. Mrs. Norman brought a special snack in for us to eat Applesauce! We also learned that an apple grows from a tree and the tree grows from a seed planted in the ground.

We have been learning about shapes the past couple of weeks and learning how many sides each shape has. Did you know you can make a circle, square, rectangle, and triangle with your hands?

We have been working hard on practing our cutting skills, after all, practice makes perfect.

Last Friday we began the new season Fall! We learned that the leaves are going to start changing colors and falling off the trees. We talked about all the different colors they will be changing to in the next few weeks. To help us remember, we finger painted leaves that are hanging on our bulletin board tree.

And last but not least....who can't have fun when there is shaving cream involved?

Septemeber 2, 2011

The Pre-K year has begun and we are having a great first 2 days! On our first day of school, we met lots of new friends and took a tour of the school, met Mrs. Shaver, Mrs. Bonifant, and Mr. West. We had our first P.E. class with Mrs. Thur and were able to see the P.E. room. We started to learn new songs and were able to have some silly time to dance around and have fun.

Now we are on our second day of school and still having fun. We had our first computer class with Mrs. Godfrey in the media lab. Make sure you check your child's folder tonight for a special project from school today.

Summer 2011

Welcome St. Peter's Pre-K class of 2012. Mrs. Norman and I are very excited to have you in our class this
year! We hope you are having a great summer and are very excited to start a new school soon! We hope to see you all on Saturday, August 20th from 11am - 1pm when mom and dad bring in your school supplies for the year. We hope you will come so you can be able to meet some of your new classmates and explore the classroom. Until then, have a great summer with lots of adventures!

Remember school starts for Pre-K on Septembter 1st.