September 2008 PIP Newsletter Dear Parents: A warm welcome to the Preschool Intervention Program. We are so privileged to work with your wonderful children. There are many things to communicate to parents, and I will try to cover them in this newsletter: 1. First of all, we want to let you know that monthly newsletters and monthly theme plans will be on the teacher section of our school’s plone website (after Tuesday, Sept. 9). You can access them online by going to http://plone.rockyview.ab.ca/rjhawkey. Click on Parents to access Teacher Pages for Faith Campbell and click on the hand. We will continue to send a paper copy of each newsletter and monthly theme plan at the beginning of each month, but you will be able to get information online if you should need to, during the month. If you do not want a paper copy, but only wish to access things online, please inform us. Also, we will continue to keep a few copies of notes in envelopes on the bulletin board just outside of our classroom, in case you should need to access printed copies. 2. We want to introduce our staff. Faith Campbell is the PIP Teacher. We have three assistants. Kathy Hersche works in our AM program. Carrie Murray and Lynn Tyers are fulltime assistants, working in both the AM and PM classes. (Mrs. Murray has broken her foot and is away for a few weeks while she is on crutches). Our Speech Language Pathologist is Jennifer Busaan. She will generally be here on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and approximately one Wednesday morning per month). Our Occupational Therapist is Kim Paradoski. She will generally be here on Mondays and Wednesdays. Cathy Petek is our Physical Therapist (on contract) and will generally be in our class one day per week (generally Wednesdays). Lynda Hemsworth is the Psychologist assigned to the Early Intervention Team and the Education Center. She will be involved in our program in a consultative manner. 3. We have two classes (AM and PM). The AM Class time is 9:15 – 12:00 and our PM Class is 12:40 – 3:25. (I asked about changing PM times due to congestion at the Kindergarten door, but it doesn’t work for the school schedule). Kindergarten enters at 12:28 each day, so if PIP parents are careful not to be early but arrive right at 12:40, we should have less congestion at the entry door. Also, I have been assured that the kindergarten entry will take less and less time once the children are into their routine. We run our classes Monday through Thursday. Our program emphasizes acquisition of language, fine motor, gross motor, and social skills in a play-based learning environment. We believe in integrating skill development by using kid-centered learning tasks. What sometimes looks like just play to adults can be a focused learning time where a child practices specific language, motor, and social skills in fun activities. We seek to integrate development of skills in all activities. 4. The school phone number is 403-948-3939. Our extension is #204. Please call the school absence line which is 403-948-3941 to report student absences (24 hour service).
5. Each child should have a backpack (big enough for artwork and notes), indoor shoes that stay in mailboxes at school, and a healthy snack and drink each day. Please keep a change of clothing, including underwear or pull-ups (along with wipes) and socks, in the bottom of the backpack. Mark your child’s belongings with his/her name, so that we may locate things more easily. In addition, we are asking each family to help stock our classroom by sending 2 packages of kid wipes, 2 boxes of tissues, and 2 containers of disinfectant wipes. We may also ask for these products later in the year to replenish our supplies. 6. Please contact Faith if you have any allergy or medication information for your child. At present, it does not appear that we have peanut allergies, so there will be no snack restrictions at the present time. I will inform parents if this changes. 7. I have already sent R.J. Hawkey registration forms, volunteer forms, and FOIP forms for parents to fill out and return to school as soon as possible. I am enclosing a school calendar with holiday dates, Professional Learning dates, and other information for our school. Please ask Faith if you are unsure of anything on the calendar. Please make special note that our students will not be in school on Monday, September 22, as staff are in a Professional Learning Day. 8. We will be using the north door facing the street (kindergarten entrance). Staff members will open the door at 9:15 and at 12:40. Parents are welcome to come in and help their child transition to the classroom setting each day. Staff will bring students to meet their parents at the outside door at the end of class each day (12:00 and 3:25). 9. Please consult our daily schedule (attached), so that you will know the routines. Please remember that we meet Monday through Thursday. Students come in and to settling activities for about 10 minutes. We then meet on the carpet in a circle for opening songs, calendar, etc. We have focused teaching groups (language, gross motor, fine motor, social skills) for about 30-40 minutes. We then have a bathroom visit and enjoy snack. We have story time and then center (free play). We finish our session with songs and good-bye routines. On “good weather days” we try to have playground time for both groups, so please send outdoor clothing with your child. 10. Each month, I will send a Special Helper/Show and Share List. When your child is the Special Helper, he/she may bring something from home to share with their classmates. In September, we ask that children bring family photos for their first Show and Share. When your child has a birthday, we attempt to put their Special Day on the birthday. Parents sometimes want to bring snacks for the whole class on their child’s special day. Please feel free to do so but do not feel that you must. We love having parents in our classroom. You are particularly invited on your child/’s Special Helper Day. Parents find that helping out on their child’s special day gives insight into the structure and activities of the program.
1. As was outlined in our PIP application, we have Family Oriented Programming Sessions (FOPS) for parents and children who are funded with Program Unit Funding (PUF – severe disabilities). Children in our program who are identified with mild/moderate needs do not attend these sessions. Also, children who are in both kindergarten and PIP (called dual programming) will not be in these sessions. As you will recall, you signed a commitment letter about FOPS in order for your child to be PIP. The sessions are wonderful opportunities to have small group interaction time with our therapists and teaching staff. These sessions happen in the classroom on selected Fridays (called In-School FOPS). There are also home visit (called Home FOPS). We have two In-School FOPS scheduled for September – Sept. 12 and Sept. 26, so please mark your calendar. 12. All children in PIP with M/M or PUF designations will have an Individual Program Plan. We build this IPP as a team. I will soon send out a Parent Questionnaire for you to fill out, in preparation for building your child’s IPP. I will meet briefly with new parents during the week of Sept. 15-19 (for returning parent s I will collect questionnaires and schedule short meetings if you request one) to determine priorities before we write the IPP. Then, in late October, we will ask you as parents to attend an IPP Parent Meeting where we will look at a draft form of the IPP and determine changes together. 13. If your child is sick with any communicable disease, please carefully consider keeping him/her home. We have children in our class with compromised immune systems and want to be “germ wary” for all of our children. We attempt to keep healthy, but tend to pass illnesses around the class members. When a child becomes ill at school, we will call parents so that a child may recover at home. 14. Parking is available for parents across the street from the school. The area in front of the school is a drop zone where parents must stay in their vehicles. It is very important that we keep the area in front of the school clear so that we do not impede the buses, the pedestrian crossing, other students, and the safety patrol (and the police do give tickets for being out of vehicles in the drop zone). This is the reason that our start and end times for PIP are different from the rest of the school. 15. School picture day is Thursday, September 25th for moth morning and afternoon classes. Re-takes (should they be needed) are scheduled for October 29th. Please contact Faith Campbell if you have any questions or concerns. We anticipate a great year together! Faith Campbell (for the PIP Airdrie Team)