Anna Much

October 18, 2025

Hello Fantastic Families,

Wow! What a fun-filled week! Our long, anticipated field trip to the apple orchard was a great way to start the week and celebrate the Fall season. Thank you to everyone for getting your children to school on time and for our drivers/chaperones! We couldn’t have had this wonderful experience without your help! The next day, we made some yummy applesauce with the apples we picked. Thank you to Pam (Brooke’s mama for helping at the last minute!!). The children washed, peeled and cut the apples, and even stirred the pot. The children just wanted to keep peeling and cutting so we made quite a big pot of applesauce. We ate some after lunch that day, most of us had seconds, and we still had leftovers. And what do you do when you have more than enough? You share, of course! We jarred some up, made a fun label, and delivered it to our Big Buddies. We also gave them a gift of poetry by reciting one of our fall poems (about apples, of course!). The Big Buddies were thrilled to have a visit and gift from their little buddies and we were quite happy to give to them as well. The bond is growing with big and little buddies and we had another fun Friday with them where we read our Color Poem Book to them! They read to us and we all played games together on the blacktop. Hopefully, your child shared their Color Poem Book with you! This has been an on-going project of writing a color word and doing art to match the poem. I hope they enjoy reading to you and showing you the sign language of the poem and now you will have a treasure that they will surely enjoy coming back to for years to come.  

We met two more Letter Friends this week and your children are coming home with Sound Books so please do ask them to read them to you to help continue their letter sound practice. 

This week we joined Miss Kristen’s class in practicing songs for our Fall Festival. It was a lot of fun singing with her and her students! We even joined her for her weekly Friday morning dance party! We also started learning the Fall poem we’ll be reciting for the Fall Festival. It’s going to be so sweet and I do hope you can join us. Please let me know if you will NOT be joining us. Our Festivals are a big part of our school community and curriculum but we understand that not everyone can make every event. Just let me know in advance so that I will not be waiting for an arrival. Thank you!!

Fall Festival/Pumpkin Walk: 

Friday, October 24 
Potluck-5:30
Event-6:00
We will gather and share in some delicious food (BRING PLATES,UTENSILS and MUGS FOR YOUR FAMILY) and community and then when the bell rings your child will find me and the whole school will gather for songs together. DIRECTLY AFTER, WE WILL PERFORM OUR POEM AND THE REST OF THE PERFORMANCES WILL GO IN GRADE ORDER. WE WILL END WITH AN ALL-SCHOOL SONG AND THEN WALK THROUGH THE GARDEN TO VIEW THE PUMPKINS.

What to wear: Please dress your child in Fall Colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Brown, Dark Purple, Dark Greenor jeans and flannel shirt. Your child may wear pants and a shirt, a dress, or skirt and shirt. NO LOGOS!!! Please don’t buy anything new if you don’t have something. Let me know if you don’t have anything and I can help. I will also be adorning your child with pinned fall leaves on their shirts so if you don’t have Fall Colors, black is fine.  

🎃 WE STILL NEED MEDIUM/LARGE PUMPKINS FOR CARVING. PLEASE BRING PUMPKINS BY THURSDAY!!! 🎃

WE ALSO NEED SOME CHOICES TO DRESS OUR SCARECROW. HATS, SHIRTS (I HAVE PANTS). DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY DECORATIVE CROWS (plastic or stuffed) I CAN BORROW? 

I hope you all have a lovely weekend! If you happen to get outside and collect any Fall leaves we would love to have some for pressing. 
Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the Fall Festival.

Much Love and Gratitude, 
🧡 Miss Anna

October 10, 2025

Hello Dear Families,

Well, it’s been a strange week for me not physically being at school. Thank you for all of the kind and well wishes for my daughter. I sure did miss the children and all the fun we have but Miss Lena has been a superstar and kept me updated daily. She and the children had a lot of fun! They wrote in their journals and learned a new cooperative board game. This class really loves board games and which are such great lessons in turn taking, bonding and problem solving. The children enjoyed extra time exploring and playing outside with their Acorn friends, reading lots of books and playing whole class games at circle time. 
In preparation for our field trip, Miss Lena read a fun counting book called Apple Countdown and another book called Applesauce. You may have heard or guessed that we are going to make some applesauce the day after our field trip. Yum!!

The children made a Welcome Back sign for their Big Buddies and hung it up in front of their classroom to welcome them back from their big overnight outdoor education trip today.

Field Trip details: Monday, October 13th!!!

Bring a raincoat and boots!! There’s rain in the forecast but only a 25% chance in the morning so we are going!! Please label your child’s car seat/booster with their name and drop it and your child’s backpack with lunch inside off at the parking lot with Miss Lena. She will be there with the drivers as they load up. Bring your child to the classroom as usual and please have them use the toilet before school starts. We leave at 9:00 so please be on time!!

Please let me know if you have any questions about the field trip. Drivers, I am sending you another separate email. 

Much Love and Gratitude for our amazing Village!! 
💜 Miss Anna

October 3, 2025

Hello Families,

Hooray for the rain!! 
We had so much fun playing in the rain and mud this week! Now that we are officially in the rainy season please remember to leave rain boots at school or bring them daily. Even if it isn’t raining, our yard is muddy…and even when our yard isn’t muddy, we make our own mud!!

Language Arts: 

The children wrote their first entry in their fall journals this week and it was such a joy to hear them read to me. I look forward to sharing with you at the conference. We also read a book called Being Friends about how friends can like different things and still be friends. We continue to learn about our emotions and how to manage them and this week we read a book called When Sophie Thinks She Can’t. This book was about frustration and having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. Then, we came up with statements using the word yet. Some of their statements were, “I can’t do the monkey bars yet.” and “I can’t swim without goggles yet.” It is so powerful to teach children to see that it’s okay to have struggles and that practice makes progress!  We also started Sound Boxes this week and many children should have come home with Blue Sound Books to read to you. It really is valuable if you ask them about it, help them find it in their backpack and encourage them to read the book to you. See if they can say the sound and do the sign and movement for the Letter Friend as well. 

Math: 

We explored Tangrams (A chinese puzzle where a square is cut into 5 triangles, a square and a parallelogram).and geoboards this week and also had fun playing Eye Spy with shapes. This is a fun game you can play at home or out in nature. Shapes are everywhere!!

Our Morning Circle:

Next Tuesday, 10/7 is our morning to lead our All School Circle. We’ll be reciting our Color Poem. Your child might want to practice for you. They know it pretty well but we sometimes get butterflies in our tummy about this. As some of the youngest students it is kind of a big thing to stand up in front of the whole school and perform. You are welcome to join us. We will also be doing an Apple Chant that the Acorn class taught us this week. 

Speaking of Apples🍎…We have our drivers for the field trip on Monday 10/13. If I haven’t sent you an individual email confirming you can drive, that means you are not on the list (meaning you have not filled out all paperwork). If you want to drive in the future, please get all paperwork into Carolyn in the office. Everyone needs to sign the Field trip sheet on the white board as this is acknowledgement that your child will be off campus on that day. Thank you if you have already signed!

Classroom Needs/Wishlist: 

I need help in the garden pruning the butterfly bush and weeding. Please let me know if you can help with this.We need pumpkins and gourds for carving and decorating. Each child needs a medium or large pumpkin for carving with their big buddies on 10/24. I would like to start decorating with gourds and pumpkins and maybe corn stalks as soon as possible. 

Thank you! 
Remember: No School on Monday!!
Conferences next week! Each conference is 20 minutes long. 

I hope you all have a lovely long weekend!
Much Love, 
🩵 Miss Anna

September 26, 2025

Hello Families,

It’s officially Fall and it’s been exciting noticing the changes of the season. On Monday, I told a story about the Autumnal Equinox and the balance of night and day and we listened to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Autumn) while the children drew an autumn tree for the cover of their journals. We’ll be starting journaling next week and I will share all about it at our conference. We’ve been learning new Autumn poems and noticing the leaves turning from green to yellow on our Sycamore trees. We took a walk with the Acorn class yesterday to the vineyard just behind school and noticed the grape leaves turning red, orange and yellow. This is an abandoned vineyard so we picked and ate grapes, then continued walking until we got to the bike jumps further on. We had fun running up and down, and sliding down too, with our Acorn friends. 

We are continuing to read about our names. It’s so lovely to hear the story of their names and they feel so proud as I read about them. If you haven’t turned one in yet, please do so soon. 

The children made some beautiful nature name art this week with Miss Lena. It was a two-day project where they collected leaves, bark and sticks on the first day, then they glued on the materials the next day. 

We had a fun buddies day today making paper airplanes with our big buddies, flying them and then measuring the distance. We worked with our big buddies making the planes and creating a name for our team. We also measured our big buddies on our height chart. We had to make an extension for some of them! 

We read lots of books about apples and apple picking as we are getting geared up for our field trip NEXT WEDNESDAY, October 1st to Ratzlaff Ranch. We need more drivers so please get your paperwork in to Carolyn if you are able to drive. Some of you are just missing one or two things so I will be emailing you to let you know. 

Conference Week is 10/7-10/10
Please sign up on the sheet on the white board. If none of these times work for you, please let me know and we can try to figure out another time.

Are you ready for the rain? Please make sure your child has rain gear (boots, raincoat/rain pants or a rain suit) and extra clothes. The rain is coming next week…hopefully! 

Save the date: October 24th Fall Festival and Pumpkin Walk (More details soon!)
I hope you all have a beautiful weekend and get a chance to go outside and enjoy the beauty of Autumn!!

Much Love and Gratitude, 
🧡 Miss Anna

September 18, 2025

Hello Amazing Families,

I have to say I am so filled with gratitude from our Back to School NIght! We had 100% attendance and I really enjoyed sharing and laughing with you all. I loved hearing what your children have shared with you about school and I am so honored to be a part of this magical time in their lives. 

Language Arts: 

We started the first page of our Red is an Apple Book. The children have been learning a Color Poem with sign language and we will take the next few weeks to complete this book. We read an amazing book called Beautiful Oops about how when you make a mistake with your art, you can use your imagination and turn it into something beautiful. It’s a fun book and a really great life skill to be flexible and learn how to fix mistakes. 

Math: 

We had lots of great Number Talks both at Centers and at Morning Circle. Number Talks are when we look at a visual representation of a number and then talk about it. When we’re working with our ten frames and they are putting their play dough balls on to represent the number 8, I ask, “What do you notice?” Children start noticing the empty spaces or that the top row of the ten frame is full. This is all getting us ready for adding and subtracting and having a solid number sense foundation. We also play around with this when we are counting sticks for the number of days we’ve been in school. If we have a group of 8 sticks I show them different ways to make 8 and they show me by holding up their fingers in different combinations. 

Science: 

We were playing outside and observed something so interesting yesterday. There were two red-tailed hawks on the ground and in the air. We watched and made predictions about what they were doing. Then another hawk swooped in. Some of our predictions are that they are two males fighting to mate with the female, they are fighting over food, or they are fighting over a nest. Could it be a juvenile with its parents? We need to do some research to learn more.

Field Trips: 

Wednesday October 1st-Apple Picking at Ratzlaff Ranch 9:00-12:00 with the Acorn classWe need drivers and chaperones!! If interested, please get your paperwork into Carolyn. 

You need: 
Proof of Insurance-$100,00-$300,00 coverage
Driver’s license copy  Fingerprints
Meeting with Rebecca

I have shared a google doc (please let me know if you didn’t get it): The first form EVERYONE will fill out to tell me what kind of car seat/booster your child has. The other forms are the field trips. Please fill this out if you are interested in being a driver/chaperone. You need to have your paperwork into Carolyn if you want to be a driver/chaperone. I will then let you know if you are needed as just a driver, or a driver/ chaperone. 

No School Friday!!

I hope you all have a lovely long weekend! 
Much Love and Gratitude, 
❤️ Miss Anna

September 12, 2025

Hello Families,

This week was extra fun as we watched our weather change. It was pretty exciting getting caught in the rain storm! Thank you if you have brought rainboots and a raincoat or rain suit for your child. Everyone will need rain gear. Children will need rain boots and either a rain suit, or a raincoat and rain pants as we will play outside in all types of weather. You may leave them here or bring them home daily. I love the idea of leaving them at school so they are not forgotten at home but I realize that you may not have a second set of gear. 

Language Arts: 

The children have been learning a rainbow song in sign language and made rainbow books this week to help learn their color words. Adding sign language to our poems and songs helps children learn kinesthetically, visually and auditorily. Hopefully, the Rainbow Book made it home and your child shared it with you. We will make several of these types of books throughout the year and it is wonderful if they can “read” them to you at home to strengthen their learning and bridge home and school. 
We read a book in our garden called Yoon about a girl who moved to America from Korea and was navigating the differences of her new school. She didn’t want to write her name in English and didn’t like the way it sounded but with patience and kindness from her parents, teacher and a new friend, she began to write her name and love school. This led to a discussion about our own names and what they mean. We are going to explore this more as a class so I would love your help. On Monday, I’ll be sending home directions for a simple Name Exploration homework. Please let me know if you have any questions or need guidance on completing this with your child.

Math: 

We made lots of patterns this week with our bodies (clapping and snapping and stomping) colored bears, and macaroni necklaces. The children are beginning to be able to name their patterns now too. We also learned about 10 frames and played with playdough to represent numbers on ten frame. We played a game with our play food classifying healthy foods and made a Healthy Foods poster to continue talking about how to take good care of our bodies.
We worked on deadheading our flowers in the garden and collected the Scabiosa seeds. We also ended our week with a lovely yoga session doing a Sun Salutation and some cat and cow poses.We had lunch and recess with our big buddies today too! 

Important Dates: 

Tuesday 9/16 Back to School Night-Potluck and Parent Meeting
5-5:30 Potluck
5:30-6:30 Parent Meeting 
Please let me know if you can attend. The meeting is for parents only but Isabella (my daughter in 6th grade) has offered to watch any students if you cannot find childcare. Please do let me know if you are planning on this so she can be prepared with who and how many. I hope that at least one parent can attend. This is a time to connect with one another and for me to share about your child’s daily routine and important info about the year.

Picture Day Wednesday 9/17

No School Friday 9/19 See an attached flyer about a Village family beach meet up on this day.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend! 

Much Love and Gratitude, 
💜 Miss Anna

September 5, 2025

Hello Fabulous Families,

We had another wonderful week exploring our world and working and playing together. We took a walk on the trail behind the school to pick those beautiful wildflowers called Madia (also known as Tarweed). You may have seen them on the drive into school. We usually leave most flowers for the bees and butterflies but since there are so many, we picked a few to make some hammer print art. We also used some of the Scabiosa (also known as pincushions) from our fairy garden for a beautiful red and purple color. We used rocks instead of hammers and talked about how our ancestors and people long ago didn’t have hammers so they used rocks as tools. 

Language Arts: We read a book called All the Colors of Us  where we learned that we get the color of our skin from our families and ancestors, the sun, and melanin. This then led to a discussion of who our ancestors are and where in the world they lived. We’ll be talking more about families and ancestors in the upcoming weeks as we continue to learn about who we are and how we connect with the world. We are still learning about feelings and what to do when we have big feelings. Today we brainstormed what we can do when we are angry and the children had many great ideas for safe ways to manage their mad feelings. We also read the book When Sophie Gets Angry-Really, Really Angry. In this book Sophie runs outside and cries and then connects with nature before she’s ready to join her family again. We talked about how crying and being outside helped calm Sophie and how feelings come and go.

Math: The children have been building with pattern blocks and noticing how two shapes together can make a new shape. We also count the days we’ve been in school and we had our first bundle day!! Ask your child if they can tell you how many sticks are in a bundle! We are continuing our work with graphs and made a new graph for our hair color. We also added our big buddies to our Favorite Color graph!

Buddies: We met our big buddies (from Mr. Robbins’ middle school class) today and had fun learning their favorite color and painting our handprints together. We also played Red Light, Green Light and had lunch and recess with them. We can’t wait to play and do more fun activities with our big buddies! 

Save the Date: Sunday 9/7 Village Fest 1-4 @ the Rio Nido Roadhouse There will be music, good food, swimming and a Silent Auction! Come support VCS!!

Picture Day: 9/17

Back to School Night: 9/16 5-6:30 Potluck and Parent Meeting here in our classroom. We will have food from 5-5:30 and start the meeting at 5:30. This is an important night to learn about your child’s daily school routine and information about the year. Please let me know if you can attend. Parents only!!

Thank you and I hope to see you at Village Fest this weekend!

Much Love, 
💜 Miss Anna

August 29, 2025

Hello Fantastic Families,

We had such a fun and busy first full week of school! We started the week off with yoga where we learned how to grow a little taller as we sit with a straight spine and strengthen our core.
We had some stuffie friends help us with our belly breathing and did a sun salutation, as well as a few other poses. The children also made fairy houses in our garden and were delighted to see that the fairies had left some treasures for us. We had our first music class with Miss Rachel on Monday where we were tapping, clapping and stomping out rhythms. 

Language Arts: We read a book called In My Heart that was all about different feelings we might have. After the story, we painted hearts and the children told me how they were feeling in their heart. We continued our discussion of feelings later on with the Acorns with a collaborative circle where we read another book called Lots of Feelings. Then, Miss Jess (the Acorn Teacher) introduced the children to Bug, a shy stuffed animal who was very brave and talked to the children about feeling nervous and shy. Exploring and identifying feelings is so important for children as they develop their social/emotional selves.

Math: The children played several games this week learning some new shapes and identifying numbers. The children also graphed their eye color and their favorite color and learned that graphs help us organize information.Next week we will continue to explore who we are and how we connect with one another in our world. Please feel free to stop in the classroom and check out the children’s art work. They drew their self-portraits and I’m sure they would love to show you.

Remember: NO SCHOOL MONDAY!! Happy Labor Day!

Save the Date: Next Sunday 9/7 Village Fest at the Rio Nido!!This is a fundraiser and will be a lot of fun to build community and support our school! There’s a pool, music, silent auction and good food!

I hope you all have a lovely 3 day weekend!! 

Much Love and Gratitude, 
💜 Miss Anna

August 15, 2025

Hello Fabulous Families,

The first day of school is next Wednesday, August 20th!! School begins at 8:45 and ends at 1:15.  We have been busy working in the classroom to prepare for the children and getting excited for the fun we’re going to have. Just a few reminders: 
Orientation: Monday, August 18th at 5:30. Parents only please! 

Morning drop off: You or an older sibling may walk your child into the classroom in the morning to drop off their backpack, lunch and water bottle. We encourage children to be independent during this time as it helps them gain confidence and organizational skills. Students will hang their backpack or tote bag on a hook right outside of the classroom. These are not labeled, just choose a hook. Then students will bring their lunch, water bottle and jacket inside to their cubby. Cubbies will be labeled with their name. After your child has their things put away, they can take a quick look around and say hello, but we do encourage you to help them head out to the black top to join the rest of the school to play before the bells ring. At 8:45 the teachers will all call their children to line up. Each teacher has their own sound to call their students. Bells, whistles, a tambourine. My call is hand clapping. I will clap my hands several times and our class will line up on the black top closest to the ramp by the office. 
Every Monday morning (or the first day of the school week) we gather for an all school circle where parents are welcome to join. On the first day of school we will walk out to the field for our annual Spiral Dance. Parents are welcome to join and if you have never experienced this, it is truly a beautiful community event. We finish the last day of school this way too, so put it on your calendar if you are interested. After the Spiral Dance, we head back to our classroom to begin our day. If you are staying for the Spiral Dance, please say a quick goodbye to your child in the field. Then, students and teachers will walk back to the classroom as a class. 

Pick up: Please wait for your child outside of the classroom at the picnic tables or in the quad. I will excuse them individually. 

Extended Care: You can drop your child off at 8:00 a.m. in the Extended Care room (also the Acorns indoor space and right next door to my classroom). The children will go outside at 8:15 and play on the blacktop. Aftercare is provided until 5 p.m. every day. If you know your child’s aftercare needs please let me and the office know. Aftercare is always available even if you have not planned for it. So if you are running late and will not be there at 1:15, your child will go to aftercare. If you know your child’s aftercare needs in the morning, you can write this on our class dry erase board outside the classroom. You can verbally communicate to me or Miss Lena but please also write it on the board.

Things to bring daily: 
1. A healthy snack and lunch (protein, fruits, veggies, grain). No sugar or juice! There will be a handout by my dry erase board of some yummy suggestions compiled by Village families if you are interested. 
2. Water bottle filled with water only!! 
3. Extra set of seasonal clothes including socks and underwear
4. Jacket or sweater for the cool morningsPlease don’t bring any toys/stuffies from home. We have a class stuffie for snuggling (you’ll meet them soon) and it helps to keep things simple by keeping things from home, at home.
5. Sun hat (please apply sunblock before school starts)

What to wear: Children must wear close-toed shoes for safety. We are active and get messy and dirty at school so please keep that in mind. Remember: no logos or characters on clothing, backpacks, or lunch boxes. 

Communication: The mornings are busy in the classroom as we get prepared for the day. I do love a hello and brief conversation but if you have anything lengthy to discuss, please email me. I check my email early in the morning (before 8:00) and then again at the end of the day (after 3:30). If your child is going to be late or absent, please email the office. You are welcome to include me in the email as well.

Family Jobs: I have a Family Job list that will be posted outside of the classroom for anyone who is interested in helping out. Thank you to the families who have already signed up. 

Please let me know if you have any questions. 

It’s going to be a great year!! 

💜 Miss Anna