Hey PreKPals and Families-

Don’t forget!! Each year “Class Group Pictures” of the students with their teacher are typically taken during the 1st semester. With the restrictions in place this year, we did not think that would be possible. However, Bill Miller Photographers has produced class group pictures using each student’s individual head shot from the fall picture shoot!

Your child’s group picture is available to order online only through the website listed below or by using the direct link.

Please keep in mind that these groupings reflect the homeroom your child was in for the 1st semester. Virtual students who transitioned to face to face instruction for the 2nd semester will be pictured with their first semester virtual teacher. Students who were not enrolled during the first semester are not included in the group picture, even if they had make up pictures made in the spring. We were not able to get that incorporated. We were also not able to send in photos to be incorporated into the group picture. I will take a snapshot and post it on Dojo so you can decide if you’d like to order one.

BILLMILLERPHOTOGRAPHERS.COM

Code: RQUGROUPS21

http://billmillerphotographers.onlinephotocart.com/folders/349166?code=rqugroups21

Our last book order of the year is coming home tomorrow. The book order is due by May 5. Those of you who chose to have books delivered to your home (or anyone who wants to start that option) can continue to do that through the summer. My order code never changes, so help yourself to books all summer long! If you order in the summer and have trouble, please message me on dojo and I will get it taken care of. Also- we will not delete your class dojo until this time next year (We won’t message you weekly, or ever, but we will have it if we need to get in touch. It’s been helpful for us to keep dojo for the year following PreK. Just know you will be able to get to us if you need us.)

Our butterflies have all made their chrysalis! We are waiting on wings! We should have butterflies soon. Maybe this week! We will send some pictures so you can check it out!

We had the best (freezing cold) time with The Barnyard last week! I hope you enjoyed the picture overload!

The book Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon is coming home this week for the PreK book box. We hope you enjoy reading this book with your child!

Do you have friends who didn’t register for PreK for next year? TCS will still accept their applications for the wait list. There is a chance (wink wink) that there will be another prek unit added in the ’06 and anyone who is on the wait list will have an excellent chance of getting in. If you have a friend who is “on the fence” encourage them to register. It’s free to do so and they can always turn it down if they are happy with the preK situation they have their child in, but it would help make that new unit a reality if we have lots of people added to the wait list. Encourage everyone to apply!

We celebrate everyone’s birthday in PreK. If your child has a summer birthday, we will celebrate them in May on their “Pretend Birthday”. Here’s our pretend birthday list:

May 5 Bill, May 14 Lydia & Rayner, May 19 Layla.

You don’t have to do anything for their pretend birthday. We will celebrate them with a crown, the birthday song and blowing out the candle, and getting goodies from the birthday box. That way, everyone gets to experience their birthday at school!

As always- Please remember to walk down across the crosswalk and down the sidewalk each morning and afternoon when coming to the PreK doors. We want to make sure everyone is safe and that we get to continue to use that entrance for PreK arrival and dismissal. Thank you!

This week’s menu is on Dojo!

Please remember to pack 4 snacks, a water bottle with a VALVE, your ROCKET binder, your backpack, your napmat, and a jacket, WE PLAY OUTDOORS EVERY DAY that it is not raining.

Dates:

April 29: Last day to order Spring Pictures. You MUST follow the directions on the pink form that was stapled to your child’s proof sheet to order online. Please do not send any money to school!

May 5: Book order due date

May 6: Mother’s Day craft comes home

May 10: Tuscaloosa Tumblebus comes to RQES (tentative schedule)

May 20: PreK Celebration (We do not have a graduation at RQES, but we do have a celebration! More information coming soon on our socially distanced celebration!)

Breakfast and Lunch are free for each child for the remainder of the year. I posted the menu on Dojo last week. Check it out to see if your child wants a school lunch.

Links:

Check out this link to learn more about subitizing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLsIrNXxZWo

And here’s a fun song to go along with it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yyz_OycV4A

Enjoy this Peep and The Big Wide World episode with your child. This is a great website to explore!

http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/en/kids/videos/278/wandering-beaver/

We are working on learning letter sounds. This is a skill your PreKPal will need in Kindergarten. We are using these fun songs:

Jack Hartmann:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQB7gpDpt6o  and

The Letter Factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neItURLvyIQ

Have you made a Gonoodle account for your child? It’s free and fun! www.gonoodle.com

Learn how to tie your shoes (The easiest way EVER!!)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJVR8hHBQyM

PreK Jacket Flip instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wRKDeKbAcI

Class Wish List:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1NIMKDO4OUN7A/ref=cm_wl_huc_view

Have an amazing week! We are so glad you are in PreK! Alicia

Hey PreKPals and Families-

Such an exciting time in PreK! We now have several chrysalis in our caterpillar jar! We will be transferring them to the butterfly net this week. In a few more days we should be able to see them emerge!! We will feed them and watch them for a few days and then we will release them in the rose garden at the front of the school on a day that it is warm.

For the next 2 weeks we will be learning about Farm animals! We are so excited that on Wednesday, our in-person friends will get to experience the Tuscaloosa Barnyard at RQES and our virtual friends will have an online fieldtrip to an animal farm and a dairy farm! You can find those trips here:

Animal Farm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg2ZX0PF-jI

Dairy Farm: https://www.americandairy.com/news-and-events/dairy-diary/dairy-farming/virtual-farm-tours-while-youre-stuck-at-home.stml?fbclid=IwAR1qhdmECzR2D8fX0_zGOYOsN0lxrlNQfFN0Q4D-fcfMFrWoEblrDebQytc

And we will also put these links in Seesaw.

We are making plans for the PreK Celebration and will share those with you as soon as we get things finalized. It will be recorded and a link will be sent out for you to share with friends and family. We started looking at the calendar and realized that we only have about 24 in person days with our PreKPals. ☹ This year has been long and challenging and wonderful and somehow short as well. As a mommy, I understand the phrase “the days are long but the years are short”…….and I feel that way about this precious little class. All of a sudden- we don’t have enough time left! Thank you for sharing them with us! They make every day fun and exciting!

THANK YOU to everyone who sent in the items we asked for last week. Y’all ROCK!

As always- Please remember to walk down across the crosswalk and down the sidewalk each morning and afternoon when coming to the PreK doors. We want to make sure everyone is safe and that we get to continue to use that entrance for PreK arrival and dismissal. Thank you!

This week’s menu is on Dojo!

Please remember to pack 4 snacks, a water bottle with a VALVE, your ROCKET binder, your backpack, your napmat, and a jacket, WE PLAY OUTDOORS EVERY DAY that it is not raining.

Dates:

April 18: DECA forms due if you have not sent yours in!

April 21: The Tuscaloosa Barnyard will visit RQES!

April 29: Last day to order Spring Pictures. You MUST follow the directions on the pink form that was stapled to your child’s proof sheet to order online. Please do not send any money to school!

May 6: Mother’s Day craft comes home

May 10: Tuscaloosa Tumblebus comes to RQES (tentative schedule)

May 20: PreK Celebration (We do not have a graduation at RQES, but we do have a celebration! More information coming soon on our socially distanced celebration!)

Breakfast and Lunch are free for each child for the remainder of the year. I posted the menu on Dojo last week. Check it out to see if your child wants a school lunch.

Links:

Check out this link to learn more about subitizing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLsIrNXxZWo

And here’s a fun song to go along with it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yyz_OycV4A

Enjoy this Peep and The Big Wide World episode with your child. This is a great website to explore!

http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/en/kids/videos/278/wandering-beaver/

We are working on learning letter sounds. This is a skill your PreKPal will need in Kindergarten. We are using these fun songs:

Jack Hartmann:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQB7gpDpt6o  and

The Letter Factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neItURLvyIQ

Have you made a Gonoodle account for your child? It’s free and fun! www.gonoodle.com

Learn how to tie your shoes (The easiest way EVER!!)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJVR8hHBQyM

PreK Jacket Flip instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wRKDeKbAcI

Class Wish List:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1NIMKDO4OUN7A/ref=cm_wl_huc_view

Have an amazing week! We are so glad you are in PreK! Alicia

Hey PreKPals and Families-

Such an exciting time in PreK! Our caterpillars arrived last week and we are excited to watch them grow! We are marking the days that they are in each stage (caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly) with Tally Marks (which is a new math skill for us!) This week, we are learning more about insects (and arachnids) and will be adding to our paper pond in our classroom.

Your PreKPal is bringing home a new book for their book box this week. We have The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle. We will be reading a lot of Eric Carle’s books this week and working on some collage art to mimic his style of illustrations. When your PreKPal comes home tomorrow, ask them to tell you the criteria for a “bug” being an insect. Is a spider an insect? We will learn all about that tomorrow!

Another thing that is coming home today is a set of subitizing cards. We use these every day in calendar math time! We will post a tomorrow video to Seesaw to show you how we subitize every day. But until then, check out this link to learn more about subitizing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLsIrNXxZWo

And here’s a fun song to go along with it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yyz_OycV4A

We need some items for our class if you can help:

• Bags of popcorn kernels for our sensory bin for next week.
• Yellow and green plastic eggs (apparently all of Tuscaloosa is sold out and at my house we only use Pink and Blue eggs for our egg hunt) and somehow, we don’t have any other colors! We need these this week before Thursday.
• Sidewalk chalk. We are down to the little nubs in the bottom of the tub and they are all sort of gray! We use chalk almost daily for one of our recess stations so we’d appreciate as much as you can send.

We are doing great with all of our “getting ready for Kindergarten” stuff! Each day we have PreKPals tell us how much they love eating in the cafeteria! They are going to be experts by the fall! Speaking of- We only have about 28 more “in person” school days. I cannot believe that we are seeing the end………I thought we’d never get here but now that we are, I’m not quite ready! Are you?

As always- Please remember to walk down across the crosswalk and down the sidewalk each morning and afternoon when coming to the PreK doors. We want to make sure everyone is safe and that we get to continue to use that entrance for PreK arrival and dismissal. Thank you!

This week’s menu is on Dojo!

Please remember to pack 4 snacks, a water bottle with a VALVE, your ROCKET binder, your backpack, your napmat, and a jacket, WE PLAY OUTDOORS EVERY DAY that it is not raining.

Dates:

April 12: Please return the blue and white DECA form that is in your child’s Rocket Binder. It is due on April 13.

April 21: The Tuscaloosa Barnyard will visit RQES!

April 29: Last day to order Spring Pictures. You MUST follow the directions on the pink form that was stapled to your child’s proof sheet to order online. Please do not send any money to school!

EDIT!!! NEW DATE!!!!   May 20: PreK Celebration (We do not have a graduation at RQES, but we do have a celebration! More information coming soon on our socially distanced celebration!)

Breakfast and Lunch are free for each child for the remainder of the year. I posted the menu on Dojo last week. Check it out to see if your child wants a school lunch.

Enjoy this Peep and The Big Wide World episode with your child. This is a great website to explore!

http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/en/kids/videos/278/wandering-beaver/

We are working on learning letter sounds. This is a skill your PreKPal will need in Kindergarten. We are using these fun songs:

Jack Hartmann:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQB7gpDpt6o  and

The Letter Factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neItURLvyIQ

Have you made a Gonoodle account for your child? It’s free and fun! www.gonoodle.com

Learn how to tie your shoes (The easiest way EVER!!)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJVR8hHBQyM

PreK Jacket Flip instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wRKDeKbAcI

Class Wish List:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1NIMKDO4OUN7A/ref=cm_wl_huc_view

Have an amazing week! We are so glad you are in PreK! Alicia

Hey PreKPals and Families-

I hope you have had a great weekend with your family and that you enjoyed Easter (for those of you who celebrate) and that you took advantage of this beautiful weather! Sorry our blog post is a little late today. We just finished with the last of our family time for the weekend.

We have a fun week planned in PreK this week! I realized that I never told you that for the next few weeks we will be learning about different animals. We learned about Zoo animals last week and this week we are learning all about pond life. We are going to build (and eat!) a beaver dam this week! So much fun!!

We are also waiting on some very special mail. Our caterpillars should be here any day!! We will watch them grow into Painted Lady Butterflies! This is always one of the most amazing experiences for our PreKPals. I am sure you will hear all about it as soon as they arrive.

Please remember to walk down across the crosswalk and down the sidewalk each morning and afternoon when coming to the PreK doors. We want to make sure everyone is safe and that we get to continue to use that entrance for PreK arrival and dismissal. Thank you!

This week’s menu is on Dojo!

Please remember to pack 4 snacks, a water bottle with a VALVE, your ROCKET binder, your backpack, your napmat, and a jacket, WE PLAY OUTDOORS EVERY DAY that it is not raining.

Dates:

April 8: Last day to order RQES t-shirts. Here’s the info in case you need it again.

• Where: https://rqepta.memberhub.store
• When: ORDER BY APRIL 8!
• T-Shirts will be sent home with students approximately two weeks after the order deadline.
• Contact: Michelle Waits – michellecwaits@gmail.com
• Price: $15 Short Sleeve Comfort Colors T-shirt

April 21: The Tuscaloosa Barnyard will visit RQES!

May 25: PreK Celebration (We do not have a graduation at RQES, but we do have a celebration! More information coming soon on our socially distanced celebration!)

Breakfast and Lunch are free for each child for the remainder of the year. I posted the menu on Dojo last week. Check it out to see if your child wants a school lunch.

Enjoy this Peep and The Big Wide World episode with your child. This is a great website to explore!

http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/en/kids/videos/278/wandering-beaver/

We are working on learning letter sounds. This is a skill your PreKPal will need in Kindergarten. We are using these fun songs:

Jack Hartmann:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQB7gpDpt6o  and

The Letter Factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neItURLvyIQ

Have you made a Gonoodle account for your child? It’s free and fun! www.gonoodle.com

Learn how to tie your shoes (The easiest way EVER!!)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJVR8hHBQyM

PreK Jacket Flip instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wRKDeKbAcI

Class Wish List:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1NIMKDO4OUN7A/ref=cm_wl_huc_view

Have an amazing week! We are so glad you are in PreK! Alicia