Panda Pals & Kodiak Kids

Age – 3 years – 4 years
State Ratio – 1:10
MSS Ratio – 1:8

Welcome to the Panda Pals & Kodiak Kids classrooms!  We are very excited to welcome you and your child into our class.  We have a variety of fun and engaging activities planned throughout the school year and are eager to get started.  Starting in a new school and classroom can be overwhelming at times and so this letter will help to inform you of what you can expect.

Preschool is such a fun and exciting time for children!  They are becoming more familiar with themselves, learning their letters and numbers, and developing their social and emotional skills.  In our classroom, we cater to every child’s needs in order to maximize learning.  In addition to learning our letters and their sounds, we will begin writing, using the Writing Without Tears program.  Your child will be engaging with different manipulatives in order to strengthen their number sense.  We also explore science concepts in our sensory table and through different art projects.  Preschool is also a time to develop fine motor skills with the use of scissors, lacing cards, writing/drawing, and other various activities.

One of the most difficult obstacles encountered in preschool is social and emotional awareness.  In the Panda Pals & Kodiak Kids classroom, we use a variety of behavior management techniques including peace-making skills and sticker charts in order to introduce and reinforce good behavior.  We don’t use punishment or ‘time-out’ in order to rectify poor behavior.  Instead, we put more emphasis on positive behavior and continually help the children to find their voice in order to use their words in conflict resolution scenarios as opposed to their hands.  We will be doing a lot of role-playing and modeling appropriate behavior in the classroom in order to help the Pandas learn and internalize these new concepts.

We have a large parent board outside our classroom in order to ensure that everyone is informed of upcoming events in the center as well as things that are happening within the classroom including our current theme, our letter and number of the week.  We have “show and tell” every Friday and we will let you know what type of show and tell to bring in both on the parent board as well as on our Tadpoles app every Thursday.  If you are part-time and do not attend on Fridays, we encourage you to bring something in the last day of the week that you do attend.  Please be sure to check your child’s folders at the end of each day and collect all the papers and projects in it.  Each morning please fill out the information section of the Tadpoles app.  When you check your child out at the end of the day, you will automatically receive an e-mail detailing all the activities conducted during the day, how much your child ate at lunch and how long they napped during rest time.  Please take the time to read the note in its entirety; it is also a great way to prompt your child when discussing their school day.

We are excited to get to know you and your child and look forward to another year of fun and learning in the Panda Pal class!

Sincerely,
Ms. Sarah & Ms. Dawn