Message from the Principal
Dear Merryhill Families,
As some of you may have noticed, it has been hard for me to contain my excitement when we talk these days! I am so excited about what we have before us!
This month specifically, we will be hosting our Mother’s Day Hat Fashion Show & Tea Party on May 8th from 3:00-4:30 PM! This grand event is to honor the special women in our lives. All Moms, Aunties, Grammies, or even close family friends are welcome to join us for a special recognition for the important role that they play in our
children’s hearts. The children are working so hard on their Links to Learning Curriculum and are handling the extra expectations quite well, as they know it’s all worth it!
Cinco de Mayo is always a fun celebration. Be sure to ask your child’s teacher what they have planned for this fun and festive day! We will also host our annual St. Jude’s Trike-a-Thon on May 27th. So, please be sure to keep an eye out for fundraising envelopes in your child’s cubbies! During this National Bike Month, we will also welcome our local Firefighters and their truck on National Firefighters Day (May 4th) and Police Officer Montano and fellow officer on May 19th, during National Police Week.
I am so happy to get this month started! I love to take the time to honor the important people in our students lives, which includes the amazing team of teachers here at Merryhill Davis. We will host our Teacher Appreciation Week on May 11-15. Keep an eye out for more fine print details!
As always, if you have any questions or
comments, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Jherica McEndree
Principal
Calendar of Events:
National Bike Month
National Salad Month
May 4: Firefighters Day: Fire Truck Visit!
May 5: Cultural Study: Cinco de Mayo
May 8: Mother’s Day Celebration 3:00pm
May 11-15: Teacher Appreciation Week
*May 13: Dress Like a Super Hero Day!
*May 14: Potluck Lunch for Teachers
May 15: National Armed Forces Day
May 17-22: National Police Week
May 19: Police Officer Visit
May 22: World Turtle Day
May 25: School Closed: Memorial Day
May27: St. Jude’s Trike-a-Thon: Fundraising Due Today!
Save the Dates:
June 12: Father’s Day Celebration (3:00 PM)
June 18: Pre-K Graduation & Luau Celebration (5:00-7:00 PM) & Last Day of School Year
June 19: School Closed: Teacher-in-Service Day
News from our Classrooms
Infant Classroom
Hello Parents and welcome to the month of May!
Hello we have being very busy this month with our curriculum and excited that we are including circle time this gives us the opportunity to sit with our infants and sing songs read books. Thanks to Ms. Jerrica for the new collection of colorful hard books.
The first week of May we celebrate Firefighters Day on Monday a fire truck will visit!, Cultural Study (Cinco De Mayo) and Friday the 8th mother’s day celebration starts at 3 pm don’t forget to wear your favorite hat, as the infants prepare a mothers gift! The second week of May is Teachers Appreciation week, on the 3rd week is National Police Tuesday a police officer will visit our school! Monday the 25th School is closed for Memorial Day.
As we approach warmer weather please provide an extra change of lighter clothes. Our baby sign of the month is “Diaper” (place your hands near your waist, with each hand, tap your index and middle finger against your thumb repeatedly.)
We will practice our fine motor skills by introducing thick crayons so our infants can color on paper to our youngest we will practice holding one item when give another.
We hope you are enjoying the new season and have a great beginning of summer!
-Ms. Maria and Ms. Raquel
Toddler Classroom
Dear Toddler Parents,
In this beautiful month of May we will be exploring Spring themes and introducing some of the final skills the children will learn this school year. We will also have a few different celebrations throughout the month such as Mother’s Day and firefighter week. To celebrate our mothers, the school is having a Mother’s Day Celebration on Friday, May 8th. We invite everyone to this event which begins at 3:00. Be ready for some snacks and a hat fashion show!
The children will have the opportunity to expand on their current skills and we will reinforce them with review as well. The children will practice pointing to and naming their colors aloud. We will practice this during circle times when reading new books, art time, and even outdoors by pointing to familiar objects and asking the children what color they see. World turtle day is May 22nd and our class will work on a turtle related art activity and read a few turtle books. The children will work with the color green and we will count how many legs a turtle has. We will also discuss the different environments turtles live in. If you have anything turtle related at home, feel free to bring it in this day!
Lastly, please make sure your child has at least one change of clothes in their cubby as we will have a few water activities later this month!
Sincerely,
Ms. Olga, Ms. Jacky, Ms. Savanah, and Ms. Ally
Beginner 1 Classroom
We are excited to be so close to the end of the school year and have so much planned for this month. This month brings us many different celebrations. To name a few, we will have Mother’s Day, a firefighter visit, and a fundraiser for St. Jude’s! We’re sure the children will love helping with these activities and the others we have planned. As far as some skills the children will work on mastering, they will practice naming familiar pictures and objects, laces lacing cards with support and stringing beads.
We will talk about how to care for our mommies and prepare a surprise gift. The other projects we will work on will support things we learn in our books of the week. During reading times, we will strengthen their language and literacy skills by asking them questions on the books we are reading. And we will continue to review all numbers, shapes, colors in English and Spanish. We will spend a day on fire trucks and police cars this month, as well as have visits from both. While outdoors, we will engage the children in water color painting and chalk play. While reading the book of the week, Caterpillar Spring, the children will have a chance to plant flower seeds, and create caterpillars and bugs from various art materials. Also please bring an extra change of clothes as we will probably have a few water activities this month as well! Thank you!
-Ms. Li and Ms. Francis
Beginner 2 Classroom
April was a very fun month filled with exciting things. The children had so much fun with our Easter egg hunt and Easter party. We celebrated Week of the Young Child with watching the Lorax the Friday before. Thanks to all those who came to our week of the young child celebration on that Saturday. We would also like to welcome Ms. Cindy to our Beginner 2 class as well.
We have been learning so much on the butterfly life cycle. The children had been observing the caterpillars change into cocoons which are now beautiful butterflies. We released the butterflies at the end of April and the children absolutely loved it. We also have a lady bug farm that the Roger family has bought for our classroom so we have been also learning about ladybugs as well. The ladybugs are almost ready to be released also.
This month we will be making secret gifts for Mother’s Day. If you have not signed up for the Mother’s day hat fashion show and tea party please do, it’s an RSVP event. There is a signup sheet on our class door. The books we will be reading are On Mother’s Lap, The Father Who Had 10 Children, Oonga Boonga and Caterpillar Spring. We will be celebrating Cinco De Mayo on May 5th. We will be making ponchos out of paper bags. I ask that you please bring a paper bag for your child so he/she can decorate it and wear it that day. Thank you!
-Ms. Jalisha, Ms. Kayla K., Ms. Cindy, and Ms. Jo
Intermediate Classroom
Hello Intermediate Parents!
This school year is just flying right by! Last month the children had so much fun during our Week of the Young Child and our Easter activities. The children improved their skills of counting to 40 and are recognizing numbers to 15.
This month the children will be learning lots of new skills including learning to count to 50 and recognizing numerals up to 20. We will learn to repeat patterns of three objects as well as sort objects by physical attributes (color, size and shape.) We are going to explore sounds and textures in nature as well as identify land and water on a map or globe. Our May Spanish words are oruga (caterpillar) mariposa (butterfly) hormiga (ant) and araña (Spider).
Some important dates to remember in May, May 4th firefighters day a fire truck will visit our school. May 8th is our Mother Day celebration at 3pm. The week of May 10th is teacher appreciation week. The week of May 17th is national police week and on the 19th we will have a police officer visit, May 25th we will be closed in observance of Memorial Day and finally May 27th is our St. Jude’s trike-a-thon.
We are very excited for the new month and what we have planned for the children. Just a little friendly reminder to only bring blankets and pillows that easily fit into your child’s cubby as well as leaving all home toys at home except for a small stuffed animal for nap. Thank you and we hope you all have a wonderful month of May.
—Ms. Kayla & Ms. Linda
Pre-Kindergarten 1
Dear Pre-K Parents,
May is here and we have some fun activities planned. We have had fun learning all about bugs and we are going to be changing our dramatic play center into a garden where the students can dress up like bugs and birds and pretend they are flying around the garden looking for food or pollinating the flowers. If you have any type of bug costume such as wings or antenna we would love to borrow them for a couple of weeks.
The first week of May we will talk about birds. And we will use paper grocery bags to make our own set of wings. We will also learn about the different types of nests that birds make.
We will be reviewing what the parts of a plant are and we will be talking about plants found in the desert, in the rainforest and plants in our area.
This month we will also be talking a lot about the importance of a balanced diet and what healthy foods are. We will be making our own food chart, putting foods into categories such as proteins, fruits, vegetables and grains. If anyone has some old magazines with any food pictures we would love them so students can cut out pictures to put on their chart.
Our Spanish words in May are different fruits. Later in the month we will have a sign up where students can bring some fruit and we will make a fruit salad.
In art we will have fun doing some 3d art. We will use small marshmallows to hook toothpicks together. We will also use some of our recyclables to make 3d sculptures.
In music we will listen to music of different genres from jazz to country to Broadway to classic rock and roll. We are learning some songs for graduation in June. Two of them we will sing and one we will do some movements to. If your child would like to practice these at home bring Ms. Stacy a blank cd and she will burn them for you. We will continue to work on sight words and writing as well as number recognition and simple adding and subtracting.
—Ms. Cristina and Ms. Stacy
Pre-Kindergarten 2
Hello Parents!
Our Links to Learning Spanish curriculum this month will introduce new Mayo(May) vocabulary: Mini poster was sent home in your child’s Links to Learning folders at the end of January. We will be focusing on learning how to address our immediate and distant family members, as well as reviewing areas of the home and items found in our home.
In mathematics we will be concentrating on Understanding multiplication concepts, as well as counting to 100 independently. Students will also be introduced to determining numbers as lesser or greater.
We will continue to focus on phonics this month, identifying sounds, blending sounds and segmenting out sounds as well. Our Letter Buddies curriculum we have been working with is a great way for children to practice isolating and grouping letter sounds.
As the end of our school year is quickly approaching, we will begin to review all phonological Awareness stages, including: rhyming, syllable I.D., and Sight Word I.D.
This month our classroom will be focusing on gardens of all kinds and the process of metamorphosis. The students will also be inviting our moms to a special Mothers Day event on the afternoon of May 8th. We hope you all can join us!
We will also be having a Cinco de Mayo Celebration on Monday, May 5th. Children will be learning some Mexican history, as well as a traditional dancing. A build-your-own Nacho snack will follow. Sign up sheet will be posted closer to the date, if you would like to contribute to our class nachos, Ole!
—Ms. Jill and Ms. C
News from the Education Department
Developing Writing Skills in Young Children
– From Crayons to Concepts –
- In the early preschool years, writing starts with practicing fine motor skills and progresses to include concepts such as vocabulary, sentence structure and inventive spelling. Our curriculum builds the foundation for writing beginning with our infants. Our teachers not only instruct students how to write, but they also help instill a love of writing and self-expression.
- Below are activities we implement in our classrooms to get children excited about writing, as well as fun activities to try with your child at home.
INFANTS/TODDLERS
- In the classroom: Our infants and toddlers practice picking up and placing objects into containers, building hand strength and coordination.
- At-home activity: Give your child plastic cooking utensils, such as spoons and spatulas, along with a large bowl. Place appropriate finger foods in the bowl, and encourage your baby to pick up the utensils and use them to move the food around. Choose utensils with different sized handles so your baby learns how to grasp and hold objects in various ways.
BEGINNERS (Ages 2-3)
- In the classroom: During imaginative play, teachers provide pens, markers and crayons to encourage students to practice writing. For instance, they pretend to own a restaurant and write food orders, and pretend to be doctors and take notes about the condition of their stuffed animals.
- At-home activity: Incorporate writing activities during playtime. Bring sidewalk chalk outdoors and ask your child to write what they see. Don’t correct spelling or proper letter formations. Show enthusiasm in any efforts he makes, as this is how children learn that words are powerful and have meaning.
INTERMEDIATES (Ages 3-4)
- In the classroom: Different writing tools and surfaces make writing more interesting for children. Our Intermediates use chalk on a chalkboard, form letters using modeling clay, and finger paint on canvas.
- At-home activity: Three year olds enjoy mimicking adults in their daily activities. Allow your child to engage in a new writing activity with you, such as writing a grocery list or a thank you card. Explain to him what you are writing and the purpose it serves.
PRE-K/PRE-K 2 (Ages 4-5)
- In the classroom: Teachers make writing fun for our older preschoolers by creating a classroom post office and asking the children to write and mail letters to each other. Through this activity, students practice communicating thoughts and ideas on paper, using proper grip, writing first and last names in correct case, and writing words independently by using inventive spelling. Inventive spelling encourages a love for writing and reinforces phonics. Traditional spelling is encouraged as students move into more formal writing in early elementary grades.
- At-home activity: After a family outing, invite your child to write about his day in a journal. Encourage him to use uppercase and lowercase letters. If he asks for help writing more challenging words, have him attempt to spell them by sounding out the word and writing the letters that make that sound. Invite him to read his journal entry to you.
- We provide many opportunities for our preschoolers to develop and practice their writing skills. By setting this foundation, they will be better prepared to communicate thoughts and ideas through writing in elementary school and beyond.
– Lauren Starnes, PhD- Director of Early Childhood Education
May Newsletter
Message from the Principal
Dear Merryhill Families,
As some of you may have noticed, it has been hard for me to contain my excitement when we talk these days! I am so excited about what we have before us!
This month specifically, we will be hosting our Mother’s Day Hat Fashion Show & Tea Party on May 8th from 3:00-4:30 PM! This grand event is to honor the special women in our lives. All Moms, Aunties, Grammies, or even close family friends are welcome to join us for a special recognition for the important role that they play in our
children’s hearts. The children are working so hard on their Links to Learning Curriculum and are handling the extra expectations quite well, as they know it’s all worth it!
Cinco de Mayo is always a fun celebration. Be sure to ask your child’s teacher what they have planned for this fun and festive day! We will also host our annual St. Jude’s Trike-a-Thon on May 27th. So, please be sure to keep an eye out for fundraising envelopes in your child’s cubbies! During this National Bike Month, we will also welcome our local Firefighters and their truck on National Firefighters Day (May 4th) and Police Officer Montano and fellow officer on May 19th, during National Police Week.
I am so happy to get this month started! I love to take the time to honor the important people in our students lives, which includes the amazing team of teachers here at Merryhill Davis. We will host our Teacher Appreciation Week on May 11-15. Keep an eye out for more fine print details!
As always, if you have any questions or
comments, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Jherica McEndree
Principal
Calendar of Events:
National Bike Month
National Salad Month
May 4: Firefighters Day: Fire Truck Visit!
May 5: Cultural Study: Cinco de Mayo
May 8: Mother’s Day Celebration 3:00pm
May 11-15: Teacher Appreciation Week
*May 13: Dress Like a Super Hero Day!
*May 14: Potluck Lunch for Teachers
May 15: National Armed Forces Day
May 17-22: National Police Week
May 19: Police Officer Visit
May 22: World Turtle Day
May 25: School Closed: Memorial Day
May27: St. Jude’s Trike-a-Thon: Fundraising Due Today!
Save the Dates:
June 12: Father’s Day Celebration (3:00 PM)
June 18: Pre-K Graduation & Luau Celebration (5:00-7:00 PM) & Last Day of School Year
June 19: School Closed: Teacher-in-Service Day
News from our Classrooms
Infant Classroom
Hello Parents and welcome to the month of May!
Hello we have being very busy this month with our curriculum and excited that we are including circle time this gives us the opportunity to sit with our infants and sing songs read books. Thanks to Ms. Jerrica for the new collection of colorful hard books.
The first week of May we celebrate Firefighters Day on Monday a fire truck will visit!, Cultural Study (Cinco De Mayo) and Friday the 8th mother’s day celebration starts at 3 pm don’t forget to wear your favorite hat, as the infants prepare a mothers gift! The second week of May is Teachers Appreciation week, on the 3rd week is National Police Tuesday a police officer will visit our school! Monday the 25th School is closed for Memorial Day.
As we approach warmer weather please provide an extra change of lighter clothes. Our baby sign of the month is “Diaper” (place your hands near your waist, with each hand, tap your index and middle finger against your thumb repeatedly.)
We will practice our fine motor skills by introducing thick crayons so our infants can color on paper to our youngest we will practice holding one item when give another.
We hope you are enjoying the new season and have a great beginning of summer!
-Ms. Maria and Ms. Raquel
Toddler Classroom
Dear Toddler Parents,
In this beautiful month of May we will be exploring Spring themes and introducing some of the final skills the children will learn this school year. We will also have a few different celebrations throughout the month such as Mother’s Day and firefighter week. To celebrate our mothers, the school is having a Mother’s Day Celebration on Friday, May 8th. We invite everyone to this event which begins at 3:00. Be ready for some snacks and a hat fashion show!
The children will have the opportunity to expand on their current skills and we will reinforce them with review as well. The children will practice pointing to and naming their colors aloud. We will practice this during circle times when reading new books, art time, and even outdoors by pointing to familiar objects and asking the children what color they see. World turtle day is May 22nd and our class will work on a turtle related art activity and read a few turtle books. The children will work with the color green and we will count how many legs a turtle has. We will also discuss the different environments turtles live in. If you have anything turtle related at home, feel free to bring it in this day!
Lastly, please make sure your child has at least one change of clothes in their cubby as we will have a few water activities later this month!
Sincerely,
Ms. Olga, Ms. Jacky, Ms. Savanah, and Ms. Ally
Beginner 1 Classroom
We are excited to be so close to the end of the school year and have so much planned for this month. This month brings us many different celebrations. To name a few, we will have Mother’s Day, a firefighter visit, and a fundraiser for St. Jude’s! We’re sure the children will love helping with these activities and the others we have planned. As far as some skills the children will work on mastering, they will practice naming familiar pictures and objects, laces lacing cards with support and stringing beads.
We will talk about how to care for our mommies and prepare a surprise gift. The other projects we will work on will support things we learn in our books of the week. During reading times, we will strengthen their language and literacy skills by asking them questions on the books we are reading. And we will continue to review all numbers, shapes, colors in English and Spanish. We will spend a day on fire trucks and police cars this month, as well as have visits from both. While outdoors, we will engage the children in water color painting and chalk play. While reading the book of the week, Caterpillar Spring, the children will have a chance to plant flower seeds, and create caterpillars and bugs from various art materials. Also please bring an extra change of clothes as we will probably have a few water activities this month as well! Thank you!
-Ms. Li and Ms. Francis
Beginner 2 Classroom
April was a very fun month filled with exciting things. The children had so much fun with our Easter egg hunt and Easter party. We celebrated Week of the Young Child with watching the Lorax the Friday before. Thanks to all those who came to our week of the young child celebration on that Saturday. We would also like to welcome Ms. Cindy to our Beginner 2 class as well.
We have been learning so much on the butterfly life cycle. The children had been observing the caterpillars change into cocoons which are now beautiful butterflies. We released the butterflies at the end of April and the children absolutely loved it. We also have a lady bug farm that the Roger family has bought for our classroom so we have been also learning about ladybugs as well. The ladybugs are almost ready to be released also.
This month we will be making secret gifts for Mother’s Day. If you have not signed up for the Mother’s day hat fashion show and tea party please do, it’s an RSVP event. There is a signup sheet on our class door. The books we will be reading are On Mother’s Lap, The Father Who Had 10 Children, Oonga Boonga and Caterpillar Spring. We will be celebrating Cinco De Mayo on May 5th. We will be making ponchos out of paper bags. I ask that you please bring a paper bag for your child so he/she can decorate it and wear it that day. Thank you!
-Ms. Jalisha, Ms. Kayla K., Ms. Cindy, and Ms. Jo
Intermediate Classroom
Hello Intermediate Parents!
This school year is just flying right by! Last month the children had so much fun during our Week of the Young Child and our Easter activities. The children improved their skills of counting to 40 and are recognizing numbers to 15.
This month the children will be learning lots of new skills including learning to count to 50 and recognizing numerals up to 20. We will learn to repeat patterns of three objects as well as sort objects by physical attributes (color, size and shape.) We are going to explore sounds and textures in nature as well as identify land and water on a map or globe. Our May Spanish words are oruga (caterpillar) mariposa (butterfly) hormiga (ant) and araña (Spider).
Some important dates to remember in May, May 4th firefighters day a fire truck will visit our school. May 8th is our Mother Day celebration at 3pm. The week of May 10th is teacher appreciation week. The week of May 17th is national police week and on the 19th we will have a police officer visit, May 25th we will be closed in observance of Memorial Day and finally May 27th is our St. Jude’s trike-a-thon.
We are very excited for the new month and what we have planned for the children. Just a little friendly reminder to only bring blankets and pillows that easily fit into your child’s cubby as well as leaving all home toys at home except for a small stuffed animal for nap. Thank you and we hope you all have a wonderful month of May.
—Ms. Kayla & Ms. Linda
Pre-Kindergarten 1
Dear Pre-K Parents,
May is here and we have some fun activities planned. We have had fun learning all about bugs and we are going to be changing our dramatic play center into a garden where the students can dress up like bugs and birds and pretend they are flying around the garden looking for food or pollinating the flowers. If you have any type of bug costume such as wings or antenna we would love to borrow them for a couple of weeks.
The first week of May we will talk about birds. And we will use paper grocery bags to make our own set of wings. We will also learn about the different types of nests that birds make.
We will be reviewing what the parts of a plant are and we will be talking about plants found in the desert, in the rainforest and plants in our area.
This month we will also be talking a lot about the importance of a balanced diet and what healthy foods are. We will be making our own food chart, putting foods into categories such as proteins, fruits, vegetables and grains. If anyone has some old magazines with any food pictures we would love them so students can cut out pictures to put on their chart.
Our Spanish words in May are different fruits. Later in the month we will have a sign up where students can bring some fruit and we will make a fruit salad.
In art we will have fun doing some 3d art. We will use small marshmallows to hook toothpicks together. We will also use some of our recyclables to make 3d sculptures.
In music we will listen to music of different genres from jazz to country to Broadway to classic rock and roll. We are learning some songs for graduation in June. Two of them we will sing and one we will do some movements to. If your child would like to practice these at home bring Ms. Stacy a blank cd and she will burn them for you. We will continue to work on sight words and writing as well as number recognition and simple adding and subtracting.
—Ms. Cristina and Ms. Stacy
Pre-Kindergarten 2
Hello Parents!
Our Links to Learning Spanish curriculum this month will introduce new Mayo(May) vocabulary: Mini poster was sent home in your child’s Links to Learning folders at the end of January. We will be focusing on learning how to address our immediate and distant family members, as well as reviewing areas of the home and items found in our home.
In mathematics we will be concentrating on Understanding multiplication concepts, as well as counting to 100 independently. Students will also be introduced to determining numbers as lesser or greater.
We will continue to focus on phonics this month, identifying sounds, blending sounds and segmenting out sounds as well. Our Letter Buddies curriculum we have been working with is a great way for children to practice isolating and grouping letter sounds.
As the end of our school year is quickly approaching, we will begin to review all phonological Awareness stages, including: rhyming, syllable I.D., and Sight Word I.D.
This month our classroom will be focusing on gardens of all kinds and the process of metamorphosis. The students will also be inviting our moms to a special Mothers Day event on the afternoon of May 8th. We hope you all can join us!
We will also be having a Cinco de Mayo Celebration on Monday, May 5th. Children will be learning some Mexican history, as well as a traditional dancing. A build-your-own Nacho snack will follow. Sign up sheet will be posted closer to the date, if you would like to contribute to our class nachos, Ole!
—Ms. Jill and Ms. C
News from the Education Department
Developing Writing Skills in Young Children
– From Crayons to Concepts –
INFANTS/TODDLERS
BEGINNERS (Ages 2-3)
INTERMEDIATES (Ages 3-4)
PRE-K/PRE-K 2 (Ages 4-5)
– Lauren Starnes, PhD- Director of Early Childhood Education