Early Childhood Newsletter 3.4.2024

Dear PCS Families,

What a beautiful weekend we ended up having! The SLT weather is keeping us on our toes. With this being our final full week of school before Spring Break, we thought we would focus on the excitement that is our annual book fair. Have you experienced a book fair with your child before? If not, we are hoping you will take some time next week to swing by and meet Mrs. Ramsey, our librarian. Your child will no doubt love to introduce you to her and maybe you will be able to get a book at the bookfair too. Below is a small piece of an article that serves as a good reminder for us on how important it is to read with our children. Incidentally, they are never too old to be read to, so find a cozy place to snuggle up and enjoy a book together this week.

“Children learn to love the sound of language before they even notice the existence of printed words on a page. Reading books aloud to children stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of the world. It helps them develop language and listening skills and prepares them to understand the written word. When the rhythm and melody of language become a part of a child's life, learning to read will be as natural as learning to walk and talk.

Even after children learn to read by themselves, it's still important for you to read aloud together. By reading stories that are on their interest level, but beyond their reading level, you can stretch young readers' understanding and motivate them to improve their skills.”

Adapted from: Helping Your Child Learn to Read. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

Book Fair Information:

March 11th-14th in the library (Building C)

Mon. & Tues. 3:30-5:30

Wednesday 3:30-6:30

*Thursday 12:00-2:30 (please note we will close earlier than usual on Thursday!)

Can't make it after school? Your child may visit the book fair during school. Open an ewallet account (bit.ly/pcsfair) or send cash in an envelope with your child's name and the amount written on it.

We need your help to make the book fair a success! Click here to sign up for a shift at the book fair (and earn $5 book fair credit!)

Contact Mrs. Ramsey (vramsey@premiercharterschool.org) with any questions!

Our annual coin drive is March 4-8. Every cent raised goes toward purchasing books (for PCS classroom libraries and the Impact One library)! Send in your loose change each day of the week (Monday-pennies, Tuesday-nickels, Wednesday-dimes, Thursday-quarters, Friday-your choice). The class that raises the most money will get a pizza party!

March Madness Read Aloud Tournament:

In the month of March, the early childhood building will be doing our annual March Madness Read Aloud Tournament! All pre-k, kindergarten, and first grade classes submitted their favorite read aloud book from this year. Each class will now read all of the building favorites and vote until we find our winning book. We invite you to stop by the book bracket on the way to your child's conference to talk about the books they've read so far and to add your family's favorite book to the board!

Arrival and Dismissal Procedures:

We would like to remind parents of a few of our arrival and dismissal procedures. In the morning we ask for parents to refrain from walking their child into the school building, except for Pre-K students. Our Kindergarten and 1st grade students are doing a great job and know where their classroom is located. Teachers are preparing for the day and are unable to chat with parents at the door each morning. This also helps with the congestion in the building.

As we move into the last part of the school year I wanted to send a reminder about the school times. Kindergarten dismissal is at 3:15 and 1st grade dismissal is at 3:25. All students should be picked up no later than 3:35 each day. I have more and more students being picked up late each day. As a reminder this is our school policy in regard to late pick ups.

Late Pick-Ups

Dismissal begins at 3:15 for our Early Childhood building and 3:25 for our Elementary and Middle Schools. Dismissal duty ends at 3:35 and any students who have not been picked up are brought back into their respective building.

We understand that transporting your child to and from school is a commitment you must make in order to attend Premier Charter School. However, we do not have the ability to safely supervise children who are consistently late in being picked up. If your child has not been picked up by 4:00 on 5 separate occasions, he or she will be withdrawn from school and enrolled into virtual learning and will need to re-enter and be re-selected in the school lottery in order to return to in-person learning.

Facilities

Click HERE to view the Lead Testing Results letter from our Head Of Operations.

Ms. Walsh’s Counselor Corner:

Frustration Tolerance

The more we can embrace the fact that, regardless of our efforts, we will make mistakes and have struggles, the better we set ourselves up for growth and success. This is why normalizing difficulties, accepting mistakes as an opportunity to learn, and building frustration tolerance is so important for children. Maintaining a healthy frustration tolerance is essential, because the more children can accept that these uncomfortable feelings are part of the growth process, the longer they can stick with a complicated math problem or a challenging writing assignment. This also translates outside of academics in that being able to tolerate frustration is necessary for managing disappointments, having difficult conversations with people, and even sticking with personal goals. Thus, our ability to tolerate feelings of frustration is often directly correlated with our achievements!

Understanding that we all have our limits on any given day in regards to just how much information we can take in and process is important to recognize. And, knowing ways in which we can increase our level of tolerance is of equal importance. Although I have most often heard of this referred to as a “window of tolerance,” this social emotional tip from Big Life Journal refers to it as a “tolerance cup.” I thought this depiction of tolerance might help guide a discussion between you and your child in regards to frustration management.

Please feel free to reach out if you’d like more information on this topic. I have plenty of sources to pull from!

Best to you,

Jennifer Walsh

EC School Counselor

PCS Campus Beautification:

The PCS Beautification Committee is back with our Spring schedule! We are looking for volunteers to help with the exciting projects we have planned for spring.

A little about the group: we work with the Teacher Beautification Committee and our goal is to make the outdoor space at PCS beautiful to be enjoyed by our community, while building community!

Last year we worked in the PCS garden and planted all those new trees you see around campus.

We have big plans this year: more plans for the garden, including new beds to help reduce weeding!! Taking the beautification indoors with a makeover of the teachers lounge and more!

Take it from me, when I say there is truly no experience necessary!! So please let me know if you are interested in more information and I will add you to the list. All are welcome, we always have a bunch of kids playing and gardening so bring the family!!

PCS Night at Busch Stadium

Come see our amazing choir, led by Mr. Padgett, perform Take Me Out To The Ballgame during the 7th Inning Stretch at Busch Stadium on Tuesday, May 21st. The St. Louis Cardinals will be facing the Baltimore Orioles and the game starts at 6:45pm.

PCG will begin selling tickets to the game soon. In the meantime, please save the date!

Spring Panorama Survey:

Dear PCS Families,

This week we are going to begin administering our Spring Student Survey to our 3rd-8th grade students and wanted to invite you to complete our related Spring Family Survey.

We administered similar surveys in the fall and after reviewing responses and gathering additional information from students and families, we implemented strategies to respond to what we heard. The results from the Spring Survey will give us some information about how much progress we made, where we are doing well and opportunities for continued growth. Upon completion of the survey, all results will be posted to our website www.premiercharterschool.org.

You can complete the Spring Family Survey here.

Facilities:

Click HERE to view the Lead Testing Results letter from our Head Of Operations.

Upcoming dates: