October 2024 Newsletter

Dear Families,

Welcome to preschool! We are delighted to share that our school implements The Creative Curriculum® for Preschool. The curriculum is designed to build each child’s confidence, creativity, and critical thinking skills through hands-on, project-based learning and focused, daily opportunities to build essential foundational skills in literacy and math.

Here are a few of the things that make The Creative Curriculum® the right choice for children, teachers, and families.

The curriculum and its materials are intentionally designed to help teachers . . .

1. Build classroom community.

First and foremost, we want everyone at our school to feel safe, happy, and included.

2. Develop children’s important skills through play.

The curriculum is designed to build each child’s reading and math skills, while also helping children discover that learning is empowering and school is fun.

3. Guide interesting, long-term project learning.

The curriculum helps us dive deeply into science and social studies concepts through hands-on “studies” of interesting topics, using everyday materials in ways that maximize children’s natural curiosity and eagerness to grow.

4. Pay attention to each child’s strengths, needs, and interests.

The curriculum’s daily resources help us make sure each child is gently challenged but not frustrated.

5. Offer many ways for families to be involved.

We want every child’s family to be our partners in guiding children’s development and learning and building a solid foundation for future success in school and in life.

6. Celebrate children’s learning.

Together, we will honor the excitement of learning and the joy of growing up.

We will continue to share important information with you about your child’s learning as the year progresses. Meanwhile, you can learn much more about The Creative Curriculum® for Preschool and its many important tools and resources by visiting teachingstrategies.com/solution/preschool. We look forward to learning and growing together this year!

This year we will be using the ASQ-3 and ASQ-SE as our developmental screening tools. Because your child’s first 5 years of life are so important, we want to help you provide the best start for your child. As part of this service, we will use the Ages & Stages Questionnaires to learn more about your child’s development. You will be asked to answer questions about some things your child can and cannot do. The questionnaire includes questions about your child’s communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving, and personal-social skills.

During our Parent/Teacher Conferences in November, we will review the results with you and provide some activities designed to encourage your child’s development. If the questionnaire shows some possible concerns, we will discuss possibilities with you about getting a more involved evaluation for your child. Information will only be shared with other agencies with your written consent.

Thank you to the families that have already completed and returned the questionnaire. If you have not yet done so, please complete the questionnaire as soon as possible and return it to your child's teacher.

With Cool Culture, you are joining a diverse community of 50,000 families throughout the 5 boroughs that have a cultural key to the City. This includes a personalized Cool Culture Family Pass that will provide 5 family members with free admission to our nearly 90 museums partners, botanical gardens and zoos, as well as family festivals, art activities, artist-led art making sessions, our museum database, and invites to connect to group activities with your new community of Cool Culture families and children. This form can be completed in one sitting and will only take about 10 minutes. We'll ask some questions about your family, what school your child(ren) attends, and any past experience you may have visiting museums and zoos in NYC. This information will be summarized to help us plan events tailored to our community and advocate for funding to keep the program free for families.

In theatre class we are working on our enhancing our acting, dancing and singing abilities. The students have been doing a great job establishing our class routine and are on their way to becoming stellar Thespians! During Theatre Class in the month of October we will be focusing on:

· Fall Songs & Vocal Warm-Ups

· Tempo: Fast & Slow

· Mirror Activity

· Theatre Ensemble Games

· Cues

· Actor Neutral

· The use of facial expressions, gestures and body movement to express our emotions

Pre-K and kindergarten

Through the titles “ Little Blue and Little Yellow” and “Pezzetino” by Leo Lionni students are beginning to create collages. We are experimenting with new materials including tissue paper and glue sticks; and asking questions about the characters students see and invent.

Thursday, 10/3 and Friday, 10/4 - Rosh Hashanah

Monday, 10/14 - Italian Heritage Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day

Friday, 11/1 - Diwali

Looking Ahead...

Thursday, October 30th - 3K/Pre-K Fall Festival - More details to follow! 🎃

• As the weather begins to change, please make sure all jackets, sweaters, hats and extra clothing is labeled.
• Continue to practice zipping, buttoning and snapping pants, sweaters and jackets with your child.
• Your child should have a complete change of clothing at school.
• Please remember to send washed blankets back to school on Monday.
• Please continue to read with your child each day.

As always, thank you for your cooperation.

Ms. Mahr - (PK) JMahr@schools.nyc.gov

Ms. Garrity (PK) - MGarrit2@schools.nyc.gov

Mrs. Pavich (PK) - MPavich@schools.nyc.gov

Mrs. Moran (PK) - WMoran@schools.nyc.gov

Website: www.PS160q.org

Location: 109-59 Inwood Street, Queens, NY 11435, USA
Phone: (929) 398-3140