Welcome to KM!

Archive for August, 2010

Welcome to the 2010-2011 school year in KM! I’m looking forward to meeting all of my new friends on September 7! This web page was created as a way of (nearly instantly) communicating with the children in my class and their very busy families in this age of daily computer use and smart phones!

Included on the home page is my classroom blog which includes everything from current curriculum highlights to reminders about school spirit days. Using the buttons at the top of the page you will find links to our calendar, which includes both school wide and classroom specific events, Westwood’s Kindergarten Curriculum Standards, lists of books I recommend that are available for purchase through the current Scholastic book club order form, some fun and interesting sites for kids and families to check out, a photo gallery (the password for which will be given to parents on Curriculum Night), and a page with all the information you need to contact me. Down the right hand column you will also find links to the school’s, district’s, and DOE’s websites as well as the website where you can order books from Scholastic online, which may be useful throughout the school year.

There are several ways to stay up to date with this site. You could just bookmark the page…but…then you have to remember to check it often which can be difficult to do for today’s busy families. In fact, in the past I’ve found very few people remember to do this and it makes me feel sad when no one visits! A much more efficient way would be to enter your email address in the subscribebox on the right and you will receive an email when I post something new to the blog. I typically only post a few times a week and no one but myself (and my wonderful husband who helps with the code for the site when I get stuck) will have access to the email addresses you enter. So don’t be afraid of being bombarded with junk email! You can also unsubscribe yourself at any time and I will unsubscribe my former class every summer. Subscribing this way will also allow you to enter home and work emails for both mom and dad so you’ll never miss a beat! Another way would be to subscribe through an rss feed reader (like Google Reader) if you use one and are familiar with how they work. The rss feed button is at the bottom left hand corner of the page.

I would really appreciate your feedback about the site itself and about the content I post so I welcome families to post comments or questions back to me (or to each other) through the site! Don’t be alarmed if your comments do not appear right away as I must approve them to keep out inappropriate spam!

A little about me: I’m Mrs. Amy Monteiro. The 2010-2011 school year will be my 17th year working in early childhood education and 11th year teaching Kindergarten (my 10th in Westwood). I grew up in RI with my Mom, Dad, and older sister. I am still very close to my family. My Dad has worked in the computer field my whole life which is why I tend to be an “early adopter” and LOVE to find ways of integrating technology in my classroom. My Dad and I have another thing in common. We are both licensed skydivers! In fact, skydiving is how I met my husband! I have been married to Mr. Monteiro for 6 years and I have two wonderful children. Lauren, who will be 4 in November, and Carter, who will be 2 at the end of September. I’m sure you’ll hear all about my family as I tend to share a lot of stories about them with the class. I’m really looking forward to getting to know your children in the coming months, hearing their stories, and playing, and learning, and watching them grow!

I hope you are enjoying your summer! I am having a blast spending lots of time with my kids, Lauren (3 1/2) and Carter (almost 2). While they nap I am spending some time trying to update my web page. Please be patient while it is under renovation…I’m running into a few coding problems! See you in September!