3D"Your 3D"Your 3D"Your 3D"Your

Keep in Min= d

School Events and Closures

Date / Time	Event

Wednesday December 10 / 7 pm	Bowen Board Meeting
Wednesday December 17 / 11:15 = am	Class Sing-Along and Winter Vacation

Monday January 5	School re-opens
Friday January 9 / 9 am=	Parent Workshop
Wednesday January 14 / 7 pm	Bowen Board Meeting
Monday January 19	School Closed - Martin Luther = King Day=

Director= 217;s Update

Dear Families,

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break! We are happy to be in the swing of things back here at Bowen and are making plans to learn about all = our December holidays. Each classroom will be hosting a sing-a-long for parents= and children on Wednesday, December 17^th before the long vacation. M= eanwhile, I will be hosting an Open House in the Big Room all morning so that parents from our different classrooms have the opportunity to meet, mingle and chat before the classroom festivities begin. The 3-Day Class will celebrate from 11:00 to 11:30 am. The 5-Day and TK classes will be celebrating from 11:30 to 12 noon. Our TK class will be dismissed at 12 noon that day = and the children will not need to pack a lunch. Stay tuned for more information from your child’s teachers about the specific plans for your classroo= m. I hope to see all of you there!

Priscilla Howland, who will be holding down the fort as interim director during my maternity leave, will be visiting us this Monday, December 8^th a= nd will spend time in each of our three classrooms. I have “officially” talked to each classroom about my pregnancy and ab= out how Priscilla will be helping to take care of Bowen during my absence. The children have been asking me many intelligent and humorous questions about = the baby and telling me lots of stories about “when I was a baby….” So far, I’ve been advised that I need to get a ch= air, a hat, a bottle and LOTS of milk ‘cause babies eat a lot. Being that this is our first child, my husband Rob and I can certainly use all th= is great advice from the Bowen children! Priscilla will be working as the interim director full time when Bowen resumes in January. I will be assisti= ng her on a part-time basis until the baby is born. Please let me know if you = have any questions or concerns about the transition.

<= /p>

We had a wonderful parent workshop on Thursday evening. Karen Stevens from the 3-day class generously shared her expertise in travel planning and provided many useful tips for organizing a fun and economical family trip. The hando= uts from the workshop are attached to the newsletter e-mail for those parents w= ho were unable to attend. Thank you, Karen!

There are rumors that we may get our first snow this weekend - an event that kids= and grown-ups may approach with very different feelings! If so, I hope you all snuggle down with some hot chocolate and a great storybook!

Love,

Barbara

3-Day Class= News

We enjoyed being back in school this week after the Thanksgiving break. From t= he reports we heard, it sounds like everyone had a nice holiday with families = and friends. We jumped right into a week of fun with transportation! We discuss= ed this big word and brainstormed different types of transportation that we us= e or see every day. Our many toys of the week supported this theme. How lucky we= are to have such amazing materials at Bowen. We used big wooden vehicles, small plastic cars, airplanes, boats, car dominoes, giant train floor puzzles, wo= oden trains and even keys to support our learning. The mechanics garage visited = the block area for a day, which provided many opportunities to practice our ski= lls at sharing. Also fun was building boats with blocks in pretend oceans on the block area floor. We even built some complex bridges. There are many fun so= ngs about things that go that we visited, too.

For Art, we had fun working together to make two big shoebox trains. This was a step-by-step process that required follow through and patience over the cou= rse of the week. The children can’t wait to bring their homemade toys out= side to play on Friday! Another fun activity was using cars in an atypical way to make art. We rolled the wheels of various cars in paint and made a car track painting. This was quite popular. On the easel, we had fun decorating submarines, trains, and VW bugs with dot markers and paint. We even had fun making key prints in the always popular gak. Who knew so much art could be = done with all of these things that go!

Another important part of our 3-day experience began last week. We started “B= ook Buddies” with the TK class. Each child is paired with a child from th= e TK class and during Book Buddy time, the pairs find a quiet space to relax and= browse books together. Some TK children are even able to read the books aloud! This experience has been extremely positive for all and we can’t wait to continue with it this year. Ask your child who their TK buddy is.

In the next two weeks we will spend a day celebrating Hanukkah and a day celebrating Christmas. If you have something special you would like to share for either day, let us know.

Thanks for another great week!

Jen and Jane

5-Day Class= News

Dear Parents,

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family and friends. N= ow the vacation is over and we are back to the busy days in the 5-day class. T= he children were amazed at the transformation that took place over vacation. T= he room changed from Plymouth to the usual 5-day classroom. There were many ha= ppy children when they saw that the big blocks were available for play. The cla= ss also noticed the new calendar for December. There are many stickers on this calendar to remind us of all the special happenings in December. On Monday,= the explanation for all the stickers was given. When the calendar is discussed = each day, the children are once again reminded about the special times. December= is a very busy month.

During December we will be talking about four Holidays of Light: Kwanzaa, Las Posa= das, Hanukah, and Christmas. As we go through the next few weeks, we will explore the traditions of each of these holidays by dedicating a day to the celebra= tion of each one. This will be done by doing activities related to the holiday, eating a food that would be served for this holiday, talking about how and where the holiday is celebrated and the colors that go along with the celebration. The children will compare the differences and similarities bet= ween the holidays.

On Thursday, we talked about the first Holiday of Light, Kwanzaa. This holiday= is one that celebrates the harvest that takes place at this time of the year in Africa. The number seven is very important to this holiday since there are seven letter in Kwanzaa, seven candles on the kinara, the candle holder, and seven days that the holiday is celebrated. It is celebrated from December 2= 6^th through January 1^st. There is a special table for Kwanzaa that h= as a mkeka, fruits, a candleholder, candles, gifts, ears of corn and a unity cup. The class had an opportunity to talk about this special table and many chil= dren asked very good questions about the celebration of Kwanzaa. Each child had = the opportunity to make a mkeka, a woven mat, and a necklace with red, black and green beads. Sliced oranges are often served during Kwanzaa and, of course,= we had some for snack. We all experienced a wonderful celebration.

Shapes and letters visited the room this week also. The children have been putting attribute blocks into specific sets. The shapes that they have been working with are squares, circles, rectangles, triangles and hexagons. It is an activity that one person at a time does at one of the round tables. It is amazing to the see the different strategies each child uses to approach the task. Circles, circles and more circles are being painted at the easel. The= se wonderful circle paintings will soon be on the back bulletin board. Letters found their way onto the blue rug and the children created Alphabet Road by putting the puzzle together in ABC order. You never knew what letter street your vehicle was going to take. During group time we had fun playing= a letter game on the blue rug with Alphabet Road. Sponge letters also s= pent a day at the easel. The children stamped their names or just letters = on big sheets of easel paper.

The 5-day class is also working very hard on a special holiday surprise. That’s all we can say!

Have a great week!

Barbara and Margie

TK Class Ne= ws

The TK children went international this week! The Italian theme in the drama ar= ea was quite popular. The soccer jerseys were a big hit and looked very nice on the children as well. The teachers were “served” some very fancy Italian pastries and lots and lots of pasta. The theme of “in” versus “out” carried through a number of activities this week. = It is interesting to see how a child can work with familiar items in different ways - for instance, when we read a book in a circle or when we built a building with blocks in a rectangle.

During Math this week we practiced number recognition with higher numbers. The TK children are doing a wonderful job with this and the more they practice bot= h at home and at school, the more they will improve. Our letter of the week was = formed on a number chart after we talked about the actual numbers. It is very exci= ting to see what surprise pattern appears once the child fills in the numbers. <= /span>

3D"Your We also = worked with ice this week. We decorated our I’s by painting with colorful ice cubes. The I’s were nicely painted and the class enjoyed this project. Also, we chipped away at our insects on ice in the discovery table. Although this took a while, the children were both determined and excited to free the insects from the ice!

Our book of the week was Ish by Peter Reynolds. This book is a wonderful= way to talk to children about how art can be tricky and it is okay for your drawings to come out anyway you’d like – just as long as you tr= y. We then made Ish drawings, which we will hang on the TK bulletin boa= rd for you to enjoy.

Since we started a new month, we worked on our November self-portraits. It is so = nice to see how these portraits change over each month. The TK class is really getting used to taking their time and reflecting on their work before their marker actually touches their paper.

Next week we are inviting the parents to come into share a holiday tradition with the TK class. There will be a sign up sheet in the TK room, so please choos= e a time that works best for you. We look forward to having you join us and talk about your holiday ideas. Some examples of shared ideas that past TK parents have done are:

share a holiday book
do a holiday craft<= span style=3D'mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"'>
sing a holiday song=

It is such a wonderful time of year that the teachers thought this would be a nice way to celebrate the holidays.

Have a great weekend.

Carolyn and Jenn-Ann

Extras

Newsletter Submissions

This newsletter is emailed to the Bowen community every Friday evening. All contributions are welcome. Please send them to mimiborden@yahoo.com (in the= body of your email or as a Microsoft Word attachment) or place a hard copy in Mi= mi and Peter Borden’s mailbox at Bowen. The deadline for submissions is Thursdays at 3 pm.