Grace Garden Preschool

Dear Caterpillar Families, 

The Caterpillars lost no time getting back into the groove of our class! It was great to
see them walk through the door with big grins and hugs for their friends and teachers.
After that it was right to work! This group of kids amazes me with how well they get
their work done in the mornings. If they see their journals on the table, they sit right
down and start writing, with no questions asked! It’s the little things like this that affirm to me how successful they will be as Kindergartners in just a few short months.

This week and next our unit is Community Helpers. We started our unit off by talking
about the concept of a community in general. We talked about our family communities,
our neighborhood communities, our school communities (both inside our class and the
school as a whole), and kept right on going until we got to the global community! The
Caterpillars enjoyed seeing the concentric circles I drew to illustrate the network of
communities that we are a part of.

Once we were all clear on what a community is, we talked about all the different tasks
that would be necessary to keep a community running smoothly. The Caterpillars were
“en fuego” with making these crucial connections and it was awesome to hear their thoughts come alive.  Comments such as, “Not everyone can do every job, especially in a BIG community,” and “Itʼs like WE are the community helpers in our class community!!”  Lots of light bulbs going on!  We also made a list of all the community helpers we could think of like the police department, the fire department, mail carriers,
teachers, the HEB clerk, etc., etc.  Police were an especially interesting branch of community helpers for the Caterpillars.

Books we have enjoyed this week are ABC of Jobs by Roger Priddy and What Do People Do All Day? by Richard Scarry. One of the Caterpillars brought in a very informative book about police to share with the class.

Next week, we will delve even further into the world of community helpers!

Thanks for a great week!
Ms. Katie