October 2, 2026
Hello Fabulous Families,
We started off the week leading Monday Morning Circle with our poem, “The Harvest Moon”. The children really had to practice their life skill of courage as many of them were nervous or felt shy performing in front of the whole school. We debriefed afterward at our circle in our classroom and the children shared how they felt. Many children had mixed emotions, feeling nervous, and also excited, or proud. I shared how even though I am an adult, I still get nervous (it’s really true) AND we can do hard things. It was a week of firsts! We had our first time leading Monday Morning Circle, and also our first entry in our Fall Journals. The children also bound their Color Poem Books and brought them home today. We read them together as a class, then we recited the poem for our Big Buddies, and read our books to our buddies. I hope that your child gets a chance to read to you. This was a month long project that was really fun and they took a lot of pride in their work.
We have started reading and learning about the moon. We started a list of what we know about the moon and questions we have. The 3:00ers then turned this into their Village Friday presentation where the whole school met in our classroom and we recited poems,showed our illustrations of the moon cycle, and answered questions about the moon. They worked really hard all week drawing pictures, writing words and gaining knowledge to teach others. Some of the 1:00ers who were in aftercare joined us on “stage” for two new poems that we just learned yesterday!!! October is known as The Hunter’s Moon. Maybe your child can recite the poem for you at home. I was filled with such pride and joy and the children were also as the preparation for Village Friday is quite a lot. They had to work together to make their illustrations and write their words. They had to teach the 1:00ers new poems, and they also had to prepare the room by cleaning and moving furniture. It was a lot of work but really fun and rewarding as well. They all had beaming smiles afterward!!! And the 1:00ers that joined us looked very happy and proud too!
Field Trip Next Wednesday, October 7th
We’re going to the apple orchard for a tour and apple picking!!! We will leave around 9:00 and return around 12:30.
Leave labeled carseats and backpacks at the curb. Drivers will load up as seats arrive. Children come to the classroom as normal.
Remember to check for lice. This is an important time to re-check as it has been 7-10 days since reported cases. If you missed any nits (which is really common) they may have hatched by now. Thank you for being diligent with your head checks.
Parent/Teacher Conferences October 13-16
1:15 dismissal for ALL students
I will have a sign-up next week on our classroom board on our deck.
We’re still trying to collect family photos for our classroom photo album. Please bring one in as soon as you can!
I hope you all have a lovely weekend.
Much Love and Gratitude,
Miss Anna
September 25, 2026
Hello Dear Families,
Wow! What a week! We started and ended the week with thoughts and discussions about Peace. We learned from our Big Buddies at Morning Circle that Monday was International Peace Day. We talked about what peace means to us and then we read a book called, Can You Say Peace? We learned how to say peace in several different languages. We also celebrated the Autumnal Equinox this week with a story about Autumn and the balance of dark and light. Then, we listened to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and drew a Fall tree for our Autumn Journal cover. We’ll be writing in our journals for the first time next week!
We’re continuing to explore who we are and how to take care of ourselves. We learned a new poem called, “I’m Glad I’m Me” and read a book called Just Because I Am. We discussed consent and then practiced saying “No!” and “Stop!” and asking for and giving consent. In our classroom this can be asking someone if they want a hug and then waiting for their “Yes” before hugging. Each day at Calendar time we practice “writing” the number of the day. We often use our own hand and finger to “write” the number on our hand while I write the number on the white board. We sometimes write it in the air, write with our feet, and sometimes, we write it on a friend’s hand, but we always practice asking first and waiting to hear their consent. If they say, “No” we listen to that and don’t do it. Boundaries are something that is really important to teach young children and must be done frequently so we use stories, puppets, and role playing to practice throughout the year.
Today we went for a hike with our Big Buddies on the trail to Grandmother Oak. We looked for signs of Autumn and then read one of my favorite books, And If The Moon Could Talk. It’s beautifully poetic and it was lovely to share with our buddies out by Grandmother Oak on the eve of The Harvest Moon.
Tomorrow night is the full moon and September is known as The Harvest Moon. Maybe you’ll get a chance to gaze at it with your child. On Monday morning we’ll be reciting a poem for All School Morning Circle. You are welcome to join if you can.
As you know, lice is here at Village and we spent some time talking about it this morning and clearing up any misconceptions. We’ve removed stuffies and the Cozy Corner for now. I am attaching a helpful guide from one of the Acorn families. The really important thing is to please tell the office and myself if your child has or had lice. Do the treatment/comb out and RECHECK within 7-10 days after treatment. This is especially important because even if you removed the lice they could have laid eggs (which are invisible at first) and then hatch and relay eggs. UGHH!!! It’s such a pain! I reminded the children that it is annoying but lice is just a part of the world, for all people.
3:00ers: They have been working on reading and spelling more short ‘a’ words and had another spelling test today. They’re also getting really good at knowing the three important parts of a sentence. Start with uppercase, space between words and punctuation at the end! We also have really been enjoying reading The Wind in the Willows. We read every day at the end of our day for about 15 minutes and it’s so lovely. We are looking up words in the dictionary that stump even me!
I hope you have a lovely weekend. We would love some signs of Autumn for our classroom so please bring in any leaves, acorns, buckeye seeds, or other beauties that you might find on your outdoor adventures.
Next Wednesday we will have a water day with the Acorns so bring water shoes and extra clothes.
Do you have your rain gear??? It’s time to get ready. We will need boots, a raincoat and rain pants for our rainy season!!! Also, if you have any spare gear we could use some for the classroom as backup.
Field Trips:
October 7th Apple Picking Ratzlaff Ranch
October 20th LBC Sewam Dance
October 27th LBC Three Little Pigs
Many of you have updated your insurance and are cleared to drive but some people still need to turn in updated info if interested in driving. Thank you!!!
Much Love,
Miss Anna
“Preventing conflicts is the work of politics;establishing peace is the work of education.” ~Maria Montessori
September 18, 2026
Hello Fantastic Families,
We are just cruising along with learning our Letter Friends and the children are getting really excited about making Sound Books to bring home to read to you. Please encourage them to practice by reading their Sound Book to you, their siblings, pets, their stuffies! The more they make those letter/sound connections, the better! You can even go on letter and sound hunts while in the grocery store, at home, or on a walk. For example, “Let’s find all the things that begin with the sound for ‘D’. Also, getting those Letter Friends up on the wall and practicing their sounds is really helpful.
We read and listened to a book called, When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really Angry. We talked about what makes us angry and what we do when we’re angry, and then, what we do that makes us feel better. The children illustrated their words that they dictated to me and we’ll be turning these into a class book.
We continued to make pages for our Color Poem book. This is such a fun multi-week project. We’re hoping to be finished next week and the children can bring it home to read to you.
We had fun with our Big Buddies today painting each other’s hands to make a handprint poster for our wall. We also had some special animal friends to observe and learn about. Cheyenne (Mr. Robbins’ teacher aide) brought her two tortoises in and taught us some fun facts about them. The buddies sat and observed them and then illustrated their observations.
3:00ers: The children have been practicing skip counting in fun full body ways with bean bags and hula hoops. They practiced counting by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. The 3:00ers also learned some new spelling words this week,all short ‘A’ words and had their first spelling test!!!
Field Trip Drivers: Please stop in the office to update your information. I only have 2 cleared drivers so far.
Also, some parents still need to fill out the google form for car seats/boosters.
Hope to see you at the Farm to Table Dinner tomorrow.
Much Love,
Miss Anna
September 11, 2026
Hello Fabulous Families,
We had a very exciting week as we met our first two Letter Friends!!! Penny Penguin and Bubba Bear! Zoo Phonics is a really fun language program that introduces a letter/sound connection
that engages children visually, kinesthetically, and auditorily. We use the sign language symbol for each letter name along with a movement that represents the animal in some way. I have
included videos if your child needs a reminder, but I encourage you to ask your child to introduce you to their letter friends. Then, find a place to hang them (as they come home) on
the wall, back of a door (somewhere that all 26 letters can fit). These can be used at home to support your child’s learning. From time to time Letter Friends get lost so please let me
know if you need another one.
Along with our Letter Friends we also started our art for our Color Poem book. Ask your child if they can recite “Red is an Apple”.
We continued our collaboration with Ashley’s class singing and signing “Brown Bear, Brown Bear”. It was a lot of fun and we got to perform with them during Village Friday this afternoon.
We also have been continuing our exploration of ourselves and our community. We read a book called, My Name is Yoon about a young girl who moves from Korea to the United
States and she doesn’t like how her name sounds and looks in English. She has a hard time adjusting to change at first but with patience and kindness from her family, teacher and new
friends she begins to like the differences of her new school and country. Yoon’s name means “Shining Wisdom”. We talked about names and what our names mean or how we got our names. I’m
named after my great grandmother. Some children shared they were named after their grandfather, or named after nature. We’d love to hear more about your child’s name and the meaning so
talk with them and they can share with us next week.
We moved our bodies a lot today! We worked in the garden today hauling wood chips and raking them on the path. We also practiced yoga and had a Buddies Day!!! We played hopscotch,
catching and throwing balls, and played parachute games! Whew!!! So much fun!
3:00ers: The children learned some sight words (words that we see a lot in print but can’t always sound out) and practiced writing them in fun ways. After copying
the words they traced over them with rainbow letters, formed them with playdough, traced them in sand, and used magnet letters to spell them. We talked about other ways they could practice
these words at home. They came up with: write with bath crayons, use sticks or rocks, and use toy animals lined up to form letters. The children have the words in their backpack but here
they are if you need them.
Sight Words to Practice:
of
I
a
to
go
the
my
Other ways to support your budding readers is to point out these words as you read to them, or as you are out in the world. For example, “Hey, there’s that word, ‘the’ again.” Or, “Let’s
see how many times we find the word, ‘a’ in this book.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend now that our brains aren’t boiling anymore! Horray for cooler weather!!!
Oh, and speaking of cooler weather reminds me that we have our Apple Picking Date!!!
We are going to Ratzlaff Ranch in Sebastopol on Wednesday, Oct. 7th
Please fill out the google form about car seats/boosters and get your information into the office if you want to be a driver. The more the merrier for this field trip. Also, this is a
joint field trip with the Acorns!
Happy Weekend!
Much Love,
Miss Anna
September 4, 2026
Hello Dear Families,
Wow! What a busy week! We read a book called, All the Colors We Are and learned that we get our skin color in three different ways: from our family and ancestors, the
sun, and from melanin. We discussed where we thought our ancestors might be from based on our skin color. Then the children drew their own self-portraits. We also read a book called, In My Heart I Feel,
which talks about how different feelings are sometimes associated with a color. The children made their own hearts with oil pastels and watercolors and then described how they felt in
their heart at that moment.
We also read a book called, Chrysanthemum about a young girl who is teased because of her long and unusual name. We talked about teasing and how it can make someone
feel and also how to stand up to others who are teasing.
For Math this week the 1:00ers were introduced to ten-frames and worked with numbers 1-4 on a ten frame using playdough and dot markers to represent the number.
The 3:00ers are playing lots of math games like, Sum Swamp, Shut the Box and working on making ten quickly.
Today we went for a short walk on the trail behind school to collect some flowers. We collected Media (Tarweed), Scabiosa, and Chicory. Then the children made flower prints using rocks as hammers to transfer the color onto paper.
We had another lovely yoga session and we got to meet our new Big Buddies!!!
The children were excited and a little nervous at first, but after reading books and playing a fun game of Rabbits and Coyotes (a tag game), the nervousness faded and it was just pure
fun!
I have shared a google doc for field trip dates. If you’re interested in driving please get your paperwork into Emma in the office.
It was lovely to see so many of you at our Potluck and Back to School Night! Please let me know if you have any questions and if you were not able to make it I sent your child home with some handouts.
I hope you all have a beautiful long weekend!
See you on Tuesday!
Much Love and Gratitude,
Miss Anna
August 28, 2026
Hello Dear Families,
Well, we are really getting into the swing of things and busy as bees! The children are learning their routines and we’re having a lot of fun! We read the book, The Colors of Us where
a young girl travels through her neighborhood meeting all of her friends and relatives that are all a different, beautiful shade of brown. We talked about our different skin colors, then
we mixed skin color paints to get our own beautiful brown. Of course, we named them too!
We’ve been learning our colors in sign language with a rainbow song and also signing the colors and animals for the book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear. On Monday, we’re going
to teach Ashley’s class the sign language and they are going to teach us a song to go with the book.
We’ve also been learning about graphs and how to read them. We graphed our eye color and our favorite color.
We’ve been talking about all different kinds of families and we drew family portraits.
I would like to make a class family photo album so please bring in a photo of your family that can stay in the classroom. Some students have photos from last year in the Acorns, but it
would be nice to have an updated photo, if possible.
3:00ers:
We worked on handwriting, adding and subtracting, and we had our first collaborations with Miss Kristen and Ashley’s classes. On Tuesday, with Miss Kristen the children did Music and
Movement. We did a group read in my center and in Miss Lena’s center the children practiced subitizing and “Made a 10” with 10 frames. What is subitizing, you ask? It’s recognizing
a group of objects without counting them. This helps support mental math and builds number sense. Children see how numbers are part of a whole.
On Thursday, we collaborated with Ashley and Miss Kristen for Peer Scholars, and then they did some fun art with Miss Jessica and did yoga with me!
Back to School Night Next WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 2!!!
POTLUCK @ 5:00
PARENT MEETING IN OUR CLASSROOM 5:45-6:15
Have a lovely weekend!!!
Much Love,
Miss Anna
August 22, 2026
Hello Fabulous Families,
Wow! What an amazing first week of school! It was so lovely to see so many of you at the Spiral Dance. It’s such a special way to connect with one another and start the year off with community! After the Spiral Dance, we headed to our classroom to begin our very own connection with our class. Every morning we meet on our rainbow rug in a circle for songs, poems, discussions and calendar. Then, it’s time for Centers. The first day we went on a Campus tour where we met all the teachers, students, and some class pets too. We built with big blocks and had fun playing outside with new and old friends. We read the book, The Kissing Hand, and talked about feelings and goodbye routines with our families. On Thursday, we read a story called, A Seed is Sleepy, out in the garden with Miss Lena. We collected some seeds and made fairy houses. We also read, A Pocketful of Kisses where Chester, (from The Kissing Hand) is jealous of his younger brother and needs some reassurance that he is still loved. The children shared their own experiences as we discussed different feelings and what to do with those changing feelings. On Friday, we talked about healthy living and how there are many ways to keep your body and mind healthy. Miss Lena read about fruits and vegetables and then the children drew their favorite healthy foods. Then, she measured them on our height chart. We did yoga together and practiced our belly breathing with stuffed animals on our bellies. I also taught them a Sun Salutation and then we did some different animal poses and the children even made up some new poses. They are so creative and feel so empowered when they get to teach the class something.
3:00ers: We discussed what it means to be a leader. The children said, “a teacher”, “someone who helps others”, “someone who shows others the right way”. And,
these 3:00ers have been doing this all week as they help our new students learn the routine and our classroom culture. The 3:00ers also read a recipe (they learned that TBL is an abbreviation
for tablespoon, and that there are four quarters in a cup) and made playdough for our class. They worked on their handwriting, sound boxes and reading. Next week we’ll be collaborating
with Miss Kristen and Ashley’s classes which will be lots of fun to work with our old friends.
I hope you all have a lovely and restful weekend.
Much Love and Gratitude,
Miss Anna
August 12, 2026
Hello Fabulous Families,
The first day of school is officially one week away!! 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: School begins on Wednesday, August 19th at 8:45 and dismissal is 1:15 for everyone. If your child is in Kindergarten (1:00er) they will end their day at 1:15 everyday. First graders (or 3:00ers as we like to call them at Village) end their day at 3:15. Aftercare is provided until 5 p.m. every day. If you know your child’s aftercare needs please let me and the office know. You can write this on our class dry erase board outside the classroom.
Things to bring daily:
1. A healthy snack and lunch (protein, fruits, veggies, grain)
2. Water bottle filled with water only!!
3. Extra
set of 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 him soon) and it helps to keep things simple by keeping things from home, at home.
5. Sun hat (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.
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. 3:00ers will hang their backpack on a hook right outside of the classroom. These are not labeled, just choose a hook. 1:00ers have cubbies inside to hang their belongings. 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. I will clap my hands 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 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 amazing. We finish the last day of school this way too, so put it on your calendar if you are interested. PLEASE ARRIVE EARLY!!! Parking is often a challenge on the first day so remember to be patient and plan ahead. We encourage families to drop off their children and then park in a nearby neighborhood and walk back if you want to stay for the Spiral Dance. After the Spiral Dance, we head back to our classroom to begin our day. If you are staying for the Spiral Dance, please say goodbye to your child in the field and we will walk back as a class.
Please let me know if you have any questions. I will have a parent job list at the potluck tonight and will also be posting it outside of the classroom for anyone who is interested in helping out throughout the year.
Much Love,
💜 Miss Anna
