BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL


Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984


www.brightbeginningsva.com  

Millcreek Newsletter


March 5, 2010

Upcoming Events:

Friday, March 5^th, Children’s Night Out, 5:30-8:30

“Over the Rainbow”

 Tuesday, March 9^th, Brownie Bake Off starting at 5:30

 Friday, March 19th, Children’s Night Out, 5:30-8:30
“Shining Shamrock”

Monday, March 22^nd, Parent Advisory Meeting, 5:00-6:00

School News and Notes

The sun was shining bright here at Bright Beginnings. Everyone was working hard and I hope everyone can enjoy their weekend! We had a wonderful turnout for the Children’s Night Out! Be on the look out for the next one! Do not forget to sign up for the Brownie Bake Off! The signup sheet is up at the front desk. There will be a Parent Advisory Meeting coming up on the 22^nd of this month. Please sign up to come and chat! That signup sheet is on the board outside of the gross motor room. I know there have been concerns about the gate to the older kids’ playground. The fence company has been called to come next week and fix the latches on the gate to the older childrens’ playground. We have a fantastic project coming up. It is the Original Works Fundraiser! Families will be able to order different items with their children’s art work on them! There is stationary, mugs, t-shirts, tiles, magnets, and more! Art is so important and precious for kids, it is a great idea to save and preserve their art in a whole different way! The gross motor room for the older kids is up and running and we are always looking for donations to put in the room! Have a wonderful weekend and we will see you on Monday!

Speech Weekly

Can you understand what your child is saying?

Does your child speak clearly?

Do you have to translate your child's speech to others?

This is called intelligibility. The term intelligibility refers to how much a listener can understand the speaker. In typical development, as children learn to talk, their comprehensibility to those around them steadily increases.

In young children there is often quite a marked difference between understanding:

Single words vs. conversational speech

Known conversational topics vs. unknown conversational topics 

Parents and close family members are usually experts at understanding their own child's speech attempts. We have seen many parents "translate" even the most unintelligible efforts made by their children! With regard to families, siblings may sometimes be more adept than parents in comprehending what their little brothers and sisters are saying! Unfamiliar listeners, on the other hand, are often unable to decipher a young child's speech. 

 Class Notes

 Penguin

 Hello everyone! We had another wonderful week in class. We were really busy working on our colors this week! Everyone really loved the games we played to help us learn our colors. We also have been busy with arts crafts. The children made cotton ball lambs, tissue paper “D’s,” and made a lion mask. Some of the other projects and activities we did included, pretending to be zoo animals by crawling around on the floor and making their sounds. For our cooking project, we made muffins, and they were sure yummy! We also played in our water table, had bubble fun, and did some awesome puzzles. We read some great books also like, 123 Zoo, Grandpa’s Quilt, Who’s Peeking? and ABC Touch and Feel.  This pretty much wraps up our week. Do not forget to check your child’s cubby and day notes daily.

Ms. Danielle

Starfish

Throughout March, we will be focusing on colors, shapes and number recognition/counting in Math. To help reinforce our knowledge of colors, we have been doing a lot of math and science activities with the rainbow. We used a mirror, a small dish of water and the sunlight to make a rainbow while outside on Monday. We used milk, dish soap and food coloring to make another rainbow on Wednesday. Talking about rainbows is educational in itself, but it also affords us the opportunity to talk about many colors on a daily basis. We matched colored blocks to like-colored paper (R, O, G, Y, B and P) and, on Friday, we will have matched skittles in the same way (as well as used them for a yummy counting activity). Additionally, we have been using our science time to identify new animals. We have been using lots of play and movement to understand sea creatures (this week).  A counting chart has aided in the identification of particular sea animals and helped us to associate a grouping with a number. The same active-activities have helped us to understand feelings (as part of our humanities curriculum).

For Project Green, we are building the foundation to do experiments and activities related to the well-being of the environment and the upcoming seasonal change. We acted out and talked about the qualities of winter and did the same for the spring. 

Although young-twos are learning words at a rapid rate, we have been taking advantage of our reading time this week to point out both familiar and unfamiliar objects; building vocabulary has been a goal of our literature activities. To that end, we have been picking objects out of a bag and naming their function.

Art is always a blast in the Starfish room. Shaving cream art and the lion masks we made were a big hit! We made cotton ball lambs and rainbow suns. On Friday, be sure to look for our lemon prints. An overarching theme of the week has been the color yellow—we had a scavenger hunt to find yellow things, wore yellow on Wednesday and sang a song to go along with our sunshine-clad outfits.

Our book of the week was “The Teddy Bear” by David McPhail.

Ms. Victoria

Seals

Hello again from the Seals! This has been another great week! This week we learned about the letter D and reviewed some of the letters from past weeks. We also played a game called pass the shape where the students had to pass the shape but, before they could pass it to their friends they had to first say what the shape was. We also did some practice with patterns. During this week we practiced the skills listening, following directions, walking in a line, learning our letters, and reviewed placement of body parts. I would like to say goodbye to Naomi whose family had to move. We will miss you good luck at your new preschool and new town! I would also like to turn and welcome Kalen who just started this past Monday! I hope you will have a great time in our class!

In art we made lion masks, roar! The children colored the masks with a brown or tan crayon and then used a pink one to make the nose. Then they glued yarn on for the mane. We also made cotton ball lambs. This used fine motor skills of grasping and placement. The children also made smelly play dough we put some lemon in the dough to make it smell lemony fresh. We also made animal puppets and lemon prints. 

In gross motor we played follow the leader, dance, pretended we were in a circus. We were everything from clowns to lions when we played circus. For the follow the leader we pretended we were wolves, tigers, lions and dogs. Pretending we were lions and tigers helped them to practice their R sounds. Being the wolf let us practice our “ou” sound. We also used the gross motor skills of crawling and stomping. The children also went on a bear hunt and exercised.

I hope everyone enjoyed our fun week! I will see everyone next week. Until then have a great weekend! Reminder: Brownie Bake off March 9! Next Children’s Night Out March 19!

Ms. Cheri

Dolphin

This week, the Dolphin Class roared its way into March! We did everything from going on a nature walk in our classroom to doing letter groups, to making lion masks to learning all about Venezuela! We had a rocking time! 

This last weekend I went to an inspiring, insightful conference through Applebaum institute called "One Heart, One Voice for Children." I learned so much and one of the things I learned is about knowing what kids have eaten for breakfast and when. I am going to start a new chart system that will be on the side of the cubbies. Each day, it would be great if you could fill in an idea of when your child went to sleep, woke up, ate breakfast, and what they had. I know morning times are hectic and rushed and I realize you probably might forget sometimes but it will help me so much in helping your child!

In math/science, I did an assessment of one-to-one correspondence (counting one object at a time). Then they played pass the shape, talked about people building and destroying animals habitats for Project Green, went on a nature walk around our room, and made a graph of our favorite parts of Spring!

In letter's time, we read our "Dd" book, had letter's groups to play letter's games, wrote easel "D's," had a "D" scavenger hunt, and read a book, then talked about the objects in the book.

In art, we painted with water color, made cotton ball lambs, crated lion masks, had music class with Ms. Melissa, and made animal paper bag puppets.

In social studies, we talked about Venezuela, looked it up on the map, learned some Spanish, found the Venezuelan flag, and looked at pictures I took when I was there.

In humanities, we planted fake seeds in rice table, dug a garden in rice table, made lemon play dough, had a cooking project, and sorted yellow things we find in nature!

Overall, we had a blast this week! We cannot wait for another fun-filled week!

Ms. Kimberly

 Walrus

 It is always fun starting a new month! New songs, nursery rhymes, letters, and art projects! The Walrus group started the week off with complex patterns. I was amazed on how well they did. We made the patterns with shapes. I created the first two patterns, then had two of the students complete them. Then I had two students create their own complex patterns and then they picked two of their friends to complete them. We also “passed the shape”, which meant having a friend ask for a shape and their partner had to pick it out of a large assortment of shapes and hand it to them. For project green this week we talked about the destruction of habitats and what happens when animals homes are destroyed and their population begins to shrink. Our cooking project consisted of peanut butter, graham crackers, and raisins, which made our famous peanut butter boats! We made sure we had enough passengers and crew members (raisins and chocolate chips) to help lead those boats right to our bellies! Our letter for this week was "Dd," and we made the longest list yet of "Dd" words! I think we had over twenty words! We wrote some great ones down in our journals. We learned a lot about some furry friends this week including rabbits, kangaroos, fish, and more! It is always fun comparing different animals and really look at why they are built the way they are.  Listening to our friends was a big theme this week. When we listen to our friends, they will listen to us, and that is when we can help each other, work together, and really have a fun time together! I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and we will see you on Monday!

Ms. Ryland