September Newsletter Room 302 Monday, September 24th, 2018

Dear Parents,

Thank you very much for signing up to assist with our laundry, flower arrangement, and community snack program. Thank you also so much for purchasing materials for our class to use from our Amazon wish list. Your support helps and keeps our classroom a joyous learning place for the students to work. Thank you also for having your child bring milk cartons to our classroom. We have made little “cubbies” for the students’ sewing work as you can see in the picture.

I forgot to mention in the last newsletter to you how we celebrate the children’s birthday as a class. We are going to write a card to the birthday child and mail the card to her/his home. I always enjoy receiving letters/cards in the mail and I would like to pass this joy on to my students. Those students whose birthdays are in the same month will make a treat at the end of the month and celebrate all together as a class. We actually have 8 birthdays in the month of October this year! Since we have some food allergies and restrictions among our students, suitable birthday treats will be selected.

We have just celebrated Autumn Equinox this past Friday afternoon in Washington Park. Thank you to the parents who chaperoned for the trip! Our students enjoyed the new playground in the park and had a blast.

We have had a couple of Origami sessions this month. Some of the third graders are great helpers for me since we have done origami several times in the past. I love doing Origami because I have grown up with it and would like to share my culture with my students. I have learned there are a lot of benefits doing Origami. Some of the benefits are: developing eye-hand coordination, sequencing skill, attention skill, concentration skill, etc. When we do Origami, we also talk about the importance of precision. There are a lot of origami books available at the public library and I would like to encourage you to try origami at home with your child as well.

Thank you for signing up for our Parent/Teacher Conferences. If you haven’t signed up, please look at the schedule and sign up as soon as possible. Please let me know if you haven’t seen the email or, if none of the times work for you, we can set up a time that works for you. I will try my best to accommodate you. During the Parent/Teacher Conferences, I would like to share what your child has been working on and learning over the last two months, and let you know any concerns I have, if any. I would also like to share what you could do to help your child at home. Please come to the conference with your wish for your child for this school year and any concerns you might have, if any. Looking forward to talking with you all!

We do not have school for children on Friday, September 28th. In October, there is no school for children on Friday, the 19th, Monday, the 22nd and Tuesday, the 23rd.

Thank you very much for your support always. Please let me know if you have any concerns or questions before our conferences.

Sincerely,

Atsuko O’Keefe