September Newsletter

Hello, my name is Ms. Lisa and I'm the preschool teacher at the Billings Family YMCA.  I am very excited to teach your child this year.  I want to tell you a little about myself.  I have an Elementary Education Degree with a Reading Specialist Minor.  I have 20 years of experience with children of all ages including 6 of my own.  I have taught at Head Start, Ashland Public School and summer camp at the YMCA. This will be my fifth year at the YMCA teaching preschool.

 

I am excited to start this adventure and to be a team with you and achieve the same goal, I to prepare your child for Kindergarten and to teach the skills that will be a foundation for life.  I love teaching children and I learn from them as much, or even more than they learn from me.  I know that you are your child's first teacher and you know him or her better than anyone.  I hope you will feel comfortable enough to share what your child needs and how to reach their potential. To help your child learn the boundaries needed to be successful in school I will have the following in pace for the structure of my classroom.  If a child does not want to sit on the carpet or in the chaire the following procedures are in place:

I will have an X on the floor and your child will have two choices:

1. To sit in the chair or on the carpet or to sit by an X

2. Those are the only two choices as we have snack and story time.  This will also draw the boundary for a child to feel safe and secure at school.  This is not a negative behavior tool, but fosters children to make choices and learn self regulation and will increase in the children.

 

Our three class rules are:

  1. Keep hand and feet to self
  2. Walking feet
  3. Speak kind words

Along with this we will also be using a good behavior program to increase productivity and to get the children's attention.  This program is called PAX and stands for peace, productivity, health and happiness.  It is implemented by blowing a harmonica to get children's attention and then they respond by holding two fingers up to show they are listening.  When the whole class is listening they get to pick a wacky granny prize which may be something fun to do for a set amount of time. For example; if you are having a behavior that is negative you can turn it into a reward for a set amount like a talking class you can reward them with a fun prize like talking to a neighbor for a set amount of time.

 

Sincerely,

Ms. Lisa