October 11

Letter from the Director

Dear Redeemer Community,

October 1 marked the beginning of admissions season at Redeemer. Applications for new students have begun arriving, and school tours have started. Feedback from prospective families consistently revolves around the quality of our program and the happiness emanating from the students and teachers. Redeemer is a positive and energetic environment where children discover that learning is fun! We have a solid reputation within our community for our strong academic program and wonderful ability to promote social growth. Whether leaving after the fours, kindergarten or pre-first, we hear time and time again how prepared our students are for their new schools. They find success in all types of programs, whether they attend independent, public or parochial schools. It is a source of great pride for us.

This fall we will be hosting sneak peak information sessions for both our Kindergarten and Pre-first classes. I encourage parents from our 4s and Kindergarten classes to attend these sessions to learn more about our programs and what Redeemer has to offer your individual child. We are proud of the academic foundation we provide, as well as the low student teacher ratios and small class sizes. Redeemer offers the opportunity for children this age to serve as leaders, building confidence, independence and competence. In addition to enrichment classes in art, gym, science, music, and values, next year our pre-first and kindergarten students will also attend weekly classes in Spanish and geography/world cultures. Please be sure to mark these important dates on your calendar and rsvp to Katie Poe if you have not done so already.

Kindergarten parents interested in P1: October 23 at 9:00 am
4s parents interested in Kindergarten: November 6 at 9:00 am

Feedback from our summer survey indicates that our current families are our best marketing tool, and we very much appreciate all that you do to promote our school. Our program at RPDS is second to none, and we are thrilled to share our school with our families. As always, please come to me with any of your questions or concerns. Have a wonderful weekend!

Best regards,
Mary Knott

Classroom Updates:

Hanna 2s:
The Hanna Twos have begun learning about circles, the color orange, and Autumn. They are enjoying Mouse’s First Fall, a great read-aloud book that celebrates the season and easily transfers to outdoor fun with leaves. The children are painting with orange, placing faces on felt jack-o-lanterns, and learning the hand motions to Five Little Pumpkins.
They are also snacking on crunchy, orange carrots. Yum!

Longaker 2s:
Our very busy Twos class was transfixed last week when they had an opportunity to observe 2 newly hatched chicks last Tuesday with Science teacher Wendy Craig. This week we’ve moved into Fall, with a nature walk to the big oak tree to collect acorns, sticks and leaves. We have a new focus on pumpkins and the color orange this month, from pumpkin counting, measurement and planting to pumpkin seeds and muffins.

Hooper 3s:
The 3 Day 3’s are busy making their Fall Counting Book which is full of colorful artwork, numbers and lots of rhyming! The children are especially fond of the ‘spooky’ Halloween rhymes. PLAY is alive in our classroom with lots of fun and smiles. Some favorite activities include…..building with blocks, legos and playdough, “car racing” down the mountain as well as creative play in the kitchen complete with food, pots, pans,aprons and utensils! We are making many festive creations out of ORANGE TRIANGLES as Halloween is in the air! Many thanks to our parents who provided our delicious faculty lunch!

Libby 3s:
We have jumped into October and started working on the color orange and triangles. We have also been working on the fall counting book and have begun practicing writing our names and putting coats on by ourselves!

Faint 4s:
The Faint 4’s talked about and tasted eggs for letter E and our class graph shows that most students preferred scrambled eggs. Our frequent graphs allow children to count, compare numbers and increase their math vocabulary. We will move on to feet, fish, and firefighters while changing our room décor to autumn/ Halloween with our seasonal crafts. At rug time, we have been rhyming, sequencing, and working on recognizing each other’s names. Hope your child is talking about some new friends as we are deliberately grouping the children to encourage new relationships!

Loeb 4s:

Whether reading in the library corner, working in our workbook, or cooking, our fours are having a really good time! We’ve gone on a nature walk, painted Fall trees, eaten scrambled eggs and English muffins with honey, and made an Elmo puppet! Pre-K is fun!

Kindergarten:
The kindergartners are settling in nicely. They have the routines down and are busy making lots of new friends. In math, the kindergarteners are using informal language to compare and contrast a variety of shapes. In the upcoming week, the students will continue to learn about shapes and begin their unit on patterns. In language arts, we have reviewed the letters b,f,t,m,n,a and the corresponding sounds. We will continue to work on building and decoding short a words. We have also started learning some sight words. I and is are the first two on our word rings. The kindergarteners continue to have a blast in writer’s workshop. It is amazing to see them begin to get their ideas on paper. We are off to a fantastic start!

Pre-first:
The Pre-First boys have been working hard to master the beginning, middle and ending sounds of words. Next week, we will be introduced to digraphs, new punctuation and characteristics of a story (character, setting and main events). In Math, we have been focused on different ways of counting by 2s, 5s and 10s. Baseball is in the air! We will incorporate some baseball math stations and writing activities in honor of the Orioles. GO o’s!

Lunch Bunch:
Lunch bunch has been spending the week getting excited for the Orioles and making halloween decorations for our bulletin board. As always we are working on self help skills such as opening containers and using the bathroom all by yourself! We have many exciting projects planned for the month and can not wait to get started.

Office Notes

Lost & Found- Our lost and found is filling up! It is important that ALL clothing is labeled, especially sweaters, sweatshirts, coats,hats and gloves.

Applications for 2015-2016- We are now accepting applications for all new students. Applications for returning students will go home the end of October. The application can also be found on our website: www.redeemerpds.org

UPCOMING CALENDAR EVENTS:

Monday, October 13th- NO SCHOOL- closed for Columbus Day

NO RPDS at the Church on Sunday on October 19th.
The date has been changed to Sunday, December 7th. More information will come on this holiday celebration.

Friday, October 31st- 9:15 Halloween Parade
All school dismissal 11:45- no afternoon programs

Program Highlights:

Episcopal Schools Service

Every year our kindergarten and pre-first students gather with friends from local Episcopal preschools to celebrate a chapel service together, followed by a short reception. This year our students and teachers traveled to Good Shepard Preschool where they performed a song and shared our beautiful school banner. It is such a wonderful opportunity for our students to engage with other children in our community. We look forward to it every year!