Ta-Ta For Now!

What a week, what a week!  We are plum-tuckered out from our delicious time spent as restaurateurs.  We learned so much, and had an absolute ball!  Enjoy your two weeks of time together and, over the holiday, ask your SKers to...



Language
- Word Families: make, hunt for, sort the ones they know (listed in your P-T conference packet)
- Star Words: read and hunt for them in book, signs, posters, magazines, brochures, you name it!
- Tools: picture clues, say the first sound, chunking, skip and come back, and stretching all help our friends to become well-rounded readers... practice at home, the library, the museum, by the pool, or on the beach!



Math
- Businesses: figure out who the producer is, who the consumers are, if they are selling/buying goods... or services, what the jobs are, what kind of employees they need, how they could improve sales.  Our kids are experts!
- Comparisons: asking, and telling, stories that compare quantities (use what's around you!  Dinosaur bones or butterflies, sculptures and paintings, seashells or sand dollars...)
- Number skills: conting forwards by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's, and backwards from 15 or 20, will help strengthen the skills we're building!  Counting books on a library shelf, popcorn in a bag, pebbles on a sand castle...it all helps. 
- Coin naming/sorting: Spring cleaning?  Empty our your coin jar and let our SK business owners count, sort, and name the coins!



Science
- Project Groundhog: we've wrapped up and school, but wherever your family may be over break... ask your SKer if the groundhog was right, based on the temperature and weather where you are.  Did spring come early?  How can you tell?  What makes it spring?  What tells you it's still winter?



Reminders/Announcements
- Field Trip: We will begin our "A is for Art" unit when we return to school on April 1st!  We are thrilled to be heading to the Milwaukee Art Museum on Friday, April 5th from 12-2:30.  (There is a note, along with many other treasures, in your SKer's Friday Folder.)
- Spring Break Journals: Your SKer is bringing home a torquoise journal to write and illustrate over the holiday!  No matter what he or she is doing, or where your family may be, encourage your SKer to put pen to paper and take note of things, big and small, that they enjoyed doing over the break!
- Superstars: We can't wait to celebrate Parker's Superstar (on Thursday April 4th), and Krista's on Tuesday, April 30th!  (We will send home posters and details well in advance.)
- Healthy Picnics: We welcome our good friends Maya (Monday, April 8th) and Fiona (Monday April 15th) to bring a healthy picnic to school for 18 hungry SKers!  (Details listed inside the basket that will come home the Friday before.)
- Snow things: It's all coming home for a good wash!  Please send back snowpants only if there is still snow on the ground April 1st (fingers crossed for the opposite!)  All friends will need coats and boots, hats and mittens, returned to school.
- Photos: Enjoy even more beauuutiful photos, courtesy of our resident room mom extraordinaire (Melissa, we appreciate you!) at http://flic.kr/s/aHsjEkAJWT .... (Please note: We will be updating our photo album with even more Brunch Star photos later today, including shots of so many visiting family members today!  Our sincere thanks to many of you for squeezing a visit into your already packed full pre-break schedules.)
- Have a lovely time together!