Calling all Snow Boots!

Whew, we are three days in to this week and we really need to go outside and play! :) So, tomorrow as long as the wind chill remains decent we will go out and play in the snow drifts outside our classroom. BUT....only students who have on snow boots will be able to go out. So, please be sure to send boots tomorrow and Friday so we can go play! :) I will also be sending home a note in your child's daily book to let you know if we need more changes of clothes as I would imagine we will need to change clothes after playing in the snow! :)

Welcome Back to School

Well, I think we are finally able to get 2nd semester started after a bit of a teaser for school last week and a slightly extended winter break! I hope everyone was able to stay warm and enjoy a few extra days off, however, I'm quite sure most parents are ready for the kiddos to get back to school and a routine! I know I'm definitely ready to get back into a routine and have fun at school with all of my friends!


We are starting off this week celebrating Miss Holly's birthday that was the end of December. Happy Birthday Miss Holly! A special treat is always fun in preschool! We enjoyed a birthday cookie with lots of frosting! Next week we will be celebrating Bri's birthday. She is so excited she can hardly stand it! :)


We will be reading the books The Mitten and The Hat by Jan Brett this week and doing activities based on these books.


Thank you to those who sent back your conference availability sheets. I will work on getting those scheduled in the next week or so! Parent Teacher Conferences will be here before you know it! :)


Reminder: Please be sure to send in mittens and hats. If the wind chill is above 20 degrees we will try to go outside for short periods of time to get some fresh air each day. If it is below 20 degrees we will stay inside and work out our sillies in the motor room or gym!

We got some great pictures from our Winter Program and Party that I will try to get posted soon! If any of you took any pictures that you would like to share feel free to email those to me. They would make great additions to our end of the year slideshow!


Have a great day!

Earth Week

Madison Elementary Celebrates Earth Week

Next week is Earth Week and we will be celebrating each day at Madison! Below is a schedule of the events we will be participating in as well as some items we might need for some projects! We would love for students to wear green as many days as possible next week to show our Green Spirit!

Power Hour- for an hour every day, each classroom will turn off their lights and power down any electronics.

Trash Pick-Up- During the week, classrooms will take time to pick up litter in the fields close to the school.

Juice Bag Recycling Program- Madison Elementary will be participating in a fundraiser that pays Madison 2 cents for every empty juice bag collected (to be continued throughout the year).

Use One- Students will be encouraged to use only one paper towel after washing their hands and one napkin at lunch.

Recycling Mosaics- Each classroom will create an earth friendly mosaic out of recycled materials. The mosaics will be displayed throughout the building. Please send in CLEAN recyclable items (pop tops, juice boxes, cans, plastic rings, etc that we can use for our mosaic. We will be creating our mosaic on Wednesday).

Pledge Tree- Each student will write an earth pledge on a leaf to be placed on Madison’s Earth Tree in the main lobby.

Trees for Everyone – On Tuesday, Arbor Day, each Madison student will receive a Red Bud seedling to take home and plant.

Book Swap- Students are encouraged to bring a book to school that they have read and are willing to donate. Students who bring a book will then be able to take a book. If your child will be participating please send a book by Tuesday.

Grade Level Earth Activities-Each grade level will participate in “Earth” activities throughout the week. We will be decorating tote bags with our hand prints!

I look forward to a great Earth friendly week!!!

Miss Amy

Sun, rain, wind, storm, hot, cold, cool, warm..What the weather?

We have spent the last few weeks in preschool talking about the weather....and our Kansas weather has done a great job of being different every day to give us something new to talk about every day! It's not every where that you can talk hot weather and sunny days on one day then have to find your snow boots and winter coats again the next day! Our favorite activity has been catching scarves blown in the wind with the wind created by a blow dryer...who knew a simple blow dryer and a few scarves could be so fun....but they are!

Today we got to make cookies sent by our friend Noah. We made sugar cookies cut out with the Easter themed cookie cutters that Noah sent to us. Thank you Noah and Noah's mom! :) After they baked and we took a short recess break, we decorated them with frosting and sprinkles. Maybe the silliest question I asked all day was "what color of sprinkles do you want"...I should have know the answer was "all of them!" :)

In a few weeks we will be celebrating Earth day with a week full of great activities. Be on the look out for a note outlining the activities for the week. Just a quick preview....we will be taking part in a "green hour" each day by shutting down all electronics and lights, collecting cans for recyling and participating in a grade level project.

You will also be recieving a note soon about our upcoming Preschool Family Picnic. In conjunction with Miss Sara's class we will be celebrating our great school year at our family picnic scheduled for May 14th at Celebration Park. A note will be sent home soon with further details. I look forward to a great evening with our students, families and staff!

Welcome back from break

We have had a great week back from Spring Break so far! I apologize for not posting for a while! We have been so busy having fun! I would like to welcome a new staff member to our classroom. Miss Ann joined us on Monday as a new para to add to my great crew! She comes to us with many years of teaching experience in elementary school and after a break for a few years from the classroom she is ready to go and excited to get to know all of Miss Amy's All-Stars!

This week we have continued our zoo themed unit that started the week before spring break. We decorated and cut spiral snakes on Monday and they look very cool hanging from our ceiling now! Yesterday we painted lions with brown and yellow and today added yarn manes. Tomorrow we will be working on a giraffe project. We have done other activities including sorting zoo animals, making zoo animals with play-doh and playing with the Little People Zoo set.

One of our friends broke his nose this morning (at home) so this afternoon I was talking with my friends at school and telling them that when Noah returns to school tomorrow we all need to be extra careful not to bump in to him. And my other friend Kaden commented, "yeah, guys, 'cause we don't want his nose to fall off again!" Oh the views of preschoolers is so fun!

Please be sure to check out the reminder dates posted on the side of our blog for the next two days that there will be no school due to professional development days.

Also, I will be working with our classroom neighbor, Miss Sara, this week to finalize a date for our spring family picnic to be held in May. The plan is for this to be a great time for families from Miss Amy's room and Miss Sara's room to get together to celebrate a great school year and wish all of our friends good luck who are moving on to new adventures next year. Be looking for more info on that soon!

March is Disability Awareness Month and at Madison the special education staff wanted to honor each of our students with a poster with the theme All About Me. Earlier this week you should have recieved a large poster board home with your student. If you choose for your child to participate please decorate your poster (similar idea to the All About Me quilt we did a few months ago) and send it back to school! Be as creative as you would like!

And finally, the special education departement at Madison will be hosting a Parents Night Out for students with special needs and their siblings on Wed. April 1st from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. We wanted to give parents an opportunity to spend a quiet evening with out children....go out to dinner, go shopping or just go sit in your quiet house! :) We will provide pizza and drinks along with games, movies and supervision during that time period. A note went home earlier this week. If you would like to participate please return the slip by this Friday March 27th and include the names and ages of children who will be joining us that evening so we can plan accordingly!

Pictures from police officer visit

Police officer visit

We had a great day in preschool today! We had another community helper visit us today. Chase's dad is a deputy sherrif and visited our classroom this morning and afternoon. With the nice weather outside we gathered out front on the steps and got to see the police car, talk about what police officers do and how they can help us and even got to hear the sirens a few times. We also got to take turns and go up to the police car and take a peak inside. Did you know that the backseat in a police car is just a hard plastic bench? We all learn something new every day! :) Thank you very much Mr. VanDellen for visiting us and sharing stickers, tatoos and junior sherrif badges with us! Chase was VERY excited to have his dad visit him and all of his friends today!

With the great weather we took advantage of the opportunity to get lots of fresh air! It sure does make for a smoother day when we can step outside for a little while!

This week we have been reading Dr. Seuss books in honor of Dr. D's birthday this week. We have been doing lots of fun activities related to these books including water coloring painting fish after we read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and played with blue goo and laced on paper socks after reading Fox in Socks. We will be reading Green Eggs and Ham on Thursday and will be making green eggs and ham on Friday!

Tomorrow we are looking forward to another community helper visit by a paramedic (Claire's dad....one of Miss Sara's friends).

More Community Helper Visits

Kaden, Ian, Noah, Ava and Michelle enjoy their sundaes

Kaden uses his muscles to scoop his ice cream

Noah adds some syrup to his ice cream

Chase's chocolate syrup with a little ice cream too :)

Ava scoops her ice cream

Kylie scoops her ice cream

Last week we had two more community helper visits. On Tuesday we had a fire fighter visit us in the afternoon. He brought lots of equipment with him and talked to us about things that are not safe to play with and what to do in case there is a fire in your house. We learned it is very important to have a family meeting place outside your house and to crawl down low to the ground if there is smoke in your house and if you can't get to a door then go to a window so the fire fighters can find you. We also watched the fire fighter put on all his uniform and equipment so we could see the transformation from regular person to a fire fighter in full gear and start to understand that it is still the same person even if he looks a little scary in his gear. He also brought us Junior Fire Fighter certificates and coloring books that went home that day.

On Wednesday we had a chocolate maker come visit and tell us all about how to make chocolate and where it comes from. She had a great treat for us when we all go to take turns dipping a graham cracker in white chocolate. Yum yum. They were quite tasty!

We also spent the week pretending to run an ice cream shop in our classroom which was great fun! We had pretend ice cream, sprinkles, bowls, cones, spoons, menus and money. We had a lot of fun talking about our favorite ice cream and seeing how many scoops we could pile on one cone. We ended the week with a speical treat on Friday afternoon of making ice cream sundaes. First we smelled all of our ingredients to see what we though they smelled like. Then we tasted a little bit of everything to make sure we liked it! The chocolate sauce and cool whip were for sure favorites. The cherries were liked by some. Then we started the ice cream around the table and scooped our own then added toppings as they came by. I think some students might have had a little ice cream with their chocolate syrup :) Above are some pictures of our fun afternoon!

Next week we have several more community helpers coming to visit. On Tuesday we have a nurse coming (Jennifer, Miss Amy's sister). On Wednesday we have a police officer coming (Chase's dad). And on Thursday we have a paramedic coming (Claire's dad (she is in Miss Sara's room)). We are looking forward to learning all about these jobs as well!