Our 1st quarter is already finished!

We have completed the first fourth of our Kindergarten year. The first report card has gone home and we have Parent/Teacher Conferences scheduled for next week. How much more exciting can things get?!! Be sure to look carefully at your child's report card and get those questions ready for our conference time. I so look forward to meeting together to talk about your child and what we can do together for him/her.

Fall is a wonderful time for learning. The children are into the routine and understand a bit about school. We have our patterns established and in general, we all know what to expect. That makes it a great time for opening little minds to new information. Be looking for new letters and sounds, new words, new numbers and new concepts to come home every week.

And old minds can learn new things, too! I went to a brain research workshop at the Reading Conference I attended. I learned all kinds of new things! The one that has impressed me the most is about the connectors that children's brains grow when they learn something new. When something new is introduced to a child, a 'spot' of protein is planted on a cell in the brain. Then the child has an 18-hour window for the connectors to grow and make it this knowledge permanent. This growth can only occur during sleep. This means that for children to remember what they are learning, they must be getting regular sleep so those connectors can grow. If you are interested in learning more about this, please ask me about it.