Welcome to PreK!

My name is Mrs. Merry Socha. I am the PreK-4 teacher at St Ann School. 
I have a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Rutgers University. Immediately following my graduation from Rutgers, I returned to school to attend Kean University for my certifications in both Early Childhood Education and Elementary Education (N-8).  I have been teaching for about 15 years, although I took an extended leave from teaching to be a stay-at-home parent to my children.

While this is my fifth year teaching at St Ann School, I have been an active participant in the St. Ann School community for the last 13 years.  My 2 youngest children are St. Ann Students, and my older 2 children attend Notre Dame HS.  I have been very involved with the St. Ann School PTA and continue to volunteer when I am able. When not teaching, I can be found at home with my husband, four children, 2 dogs, and a cat.  I love to read and craft in my spare time. I am very happy to be part of the St. Ann School family as both a staff member and as a parent.  It's not often that people are given the opportunity to do what they love at a place that they love.  I am blessed to have been given just that!  
 
I love teaching young children.  They bring a curiosity and love of learning to each and every day! I am a firm believer in learning through play. Through play, they are developing social skills, oral language skills, and perfecting those fine and gross motor skills needed to enter Kindergarten.  We infuse movement and music into each day through songs, fingerplays (fine motor), rhymes, and gross motor movements.  Our PreK day is a mix of student-led, play-based learning, and teacher-directed lessons and activities. We are very active learners in PreK-4.

Our PreK day begins with a short period of fine motor practice as we welcome our friends to school.  This fine motor practice includes scissor work, pre-writing practice, playdough creations, bead threading, hole punching, and more. It’s a great time for us to socialize a bit while we get our fingers moving.  Afterward, we join our Morning Meeting as a group where we write our morning message together, count the days of the week/month, report our daily weather forecast, and explore fun new facts about our weekly theme. After Morning Meeting, we usually spend about an hour exploring our classroom centers. The students are able to visit centers that include dramatic play, building, art, and sensory play.  They can explore activities at our light table, read a book in our class library, or exercise their fingers at our manipulative table.  During centers, each student will participate in at least 1 teacher-led small group activity.  Small group activities allow us to customize the learning to the students to ensure that they are learning at a level appropriate for them.  Our morning center activities focus on building literacy/writing skills while our afternoon center activities focus on math and science learning. After morning centers, we head outside for a short 10-15 minute recess.  This recess break may include playground play, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, nature walks, or other gross motor activities. After morning recess, we come back inside to enjoy our morning snack before gathering in our circle again for a read-aloud story.  After reading our story, we have a large group writing activity.  Our writing activities include large group-directed drawings, fine motor journals, letter hunts, writing the room, and more. After our large group learning, we head out to the playground to play for an extended time.  We eat lunch together from 12:20-12:40 in the school cafeteria.  After lunch, we gather again in our circle for Shared Reading/Writing time.  During this time, we will explore books and poems together using the help of buddy books, pocket charts, or emergent readers. After shared reading time, we will once again head to centers for about 45 minutes.  We will take one more short 10-15 minute recess time outside before gathering for our closing circle at the end of the school day. Fresh air and movement are so important for our age group.  We go outside every day except in extreme weather. We love jumping in puddles, making snowmen, and searching for rainbows after a light rainfall. 

Please feel free to reach out to me any time if you have questions about our PreK program!  You can reach me at msocha@st-ann-school.org 

"I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world" ~ John 16:33