BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL
Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984
www.brightbeginningsva.com
Crozet Newsletter
March 5, 2010
Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984
www.brightbeginningsva.com
Crozet Newsletter
March 5, 2010
Upcoming Events:
Tuesday, March 9th, Brownie Bake Off!
Friday, March 19th, Children’s Night Out, 5:30-8:30
“Shining Shamrock”
Tuesday, March 23rd, Kindergarten Registration! Registration will take place at the school that you which will be attending. Please see the informational sheets posted on the front Bulletin Boards and Pre-K classroom for details!
Monday, March 29th, Re-registration Fee Charged to Accounts Except Rising Kindergartners
Friday, April 2nd, Children’s Night Out, 5:30-8:30
“Hop into Spring”
Thursday and Friday, April 8th and 9th, Closed Completely for Spring Break
Friday, March 19th, Children’s Night Out, 5:30-8:30
“Shining Shamrock”
Tuesday, March 23rd, Kindergarten Registration! Registration will take place at the school that you which will be attending. Please see the informational sheets posted on the front Bulletin Boards and Pre-K classroom for details!
Monday, March 29th, Re-registration Fee Charged to Accounts Except Rising Kindergartners
Friday, April 2nd, Children’s Night Out, 5:30-8:30
“Hop into Spring”
Thursday and Friday, April 8th and 9th, Closed Completely for Spring Break
School News and Notes:
Reminder: Scholastic Book Orders are due March 18th!
Don’t forget about the Brownie Bake Off next Tuesday!
Don’t forget about the Brownie Bake Off next Tuesday!
What’s Cooking?
Irish Soda Bread
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt
3/4 cup raisins
2 eggs
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine dry ingredients.
Mix eggs and buttermilk and add to dry ingredients.
Add raisins and mix.
Pour dough onto lightly floured board and knead 10 times.
Shape into round loaf adding flour if necessary.
Place into lightly greased pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt
3/4 cup raisins
2 eggs
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine dry ingredients.
Mix eggs and buttermilk and add to dry ingredients.
Add raisins and mix.
Pour dough onto lightly floured board and knead 10 times.
Shape into round loaf adding flour if necessary.
Place into lightly greased pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
Speech Weekly Notes from Stacy Torrence:
Intelligibility Guidelines
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.
Approximate Age
Percentage of
Understood by Parents
18 months
A typical child is 25% intelligible.
2 years
A typical child is 50-70% intelligible.
3 years
A typical child is 80% intelligible.
4 years
A typical child is 90% intelligible.
Stacy Torrence M.S. CCC-SLP
Class Notes:
The Pelican Class
This week the Pelicans mixed food coloring in water to play and splash around in! Gray is testing out the toddler room so that he can get adjusted to their schedule with Ms. Jen and Ms. Kim; so far he is doing wonderfully! Sami and Ashlyn really enjoy the game "Hand and Hand" where you give them a toy to play with and it's their job to try and move it to the other hand without dropping it! In art we made lion's manes and cotton ball lambs. We practice our counting during meal times which Sami has enjoyed learning and even trying on her own! Keaton is really doing well sitting up and loves to play and laugh with is friends!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Ms. Sue
The Kangaroo Class
This was another wonderful week in the Kangaroo classroom! To work on developing our gross motor skills we practiced walking like animals! We hopped like a bunny, walked on all fours like a tiger, slithered like a snake, and even tried to crab walk! We did several art projects helping us work on our fine motor skills including making sheep and even lions! During our practical living time we set up a pretend vet office! This week we also worked on opposites by making smiling and frowning faces!
Have a nice weekend!
Ms. Jen
The Bunny Class
Hello Bunny families! The Bunnies had a great time discovering new things this week! For math we worked really hard on recognizing all of our shapes. We drew them on the white board and played Pooh flashcards. Martin and Addie loved going around the room to see what shapes they could find. During science time this week we learned about circus animals. Emily and Nathan loved the stories we read about different circus animals. We even got to have a pretend circus in our room! For language arts we concentrated on rhyming. We read rhyming stories from the Discovery Quest reading series and practiced saying rhyming words. Jake and Makayla's favorite rhyming story was "Over in the Meadow"! The Bunnies did a lot of great art projects this week. We painted with green, made lemon playdough and created circus animal puppets. Conner and Elara really enjoyed making lion masks this week! Thank you for another wonderful week in the Bunny room! Have a great weekend!
Ms. Whitney
The Peacock Class
Hello Peacock family and friends! We have had so much fun learning and playing in our classroom this week! We have really started to focus on our ABC's. We are learning what the letters sound like and coming up with a few words that begin with each letter we're learning about! For example, we discussed how the word "apple" begins with the letter A and we practiced making the sound, verbally. We are using our ABC books and flashcards each morning in order to help us learn our letters and letter sounds. This week we have also been working on our vocabulary with simple words and uses. In order to better understand this concept we did an activity where we found an object in the room, named it and explained what it is used for (ex. chair-we sit in chairs). In addition to all of these activities we've also been working on sorting blocks as well as shape recognition.
We have had a lot of fun with arts and crafts this week. We used glitter, paint and long yarn in order to create colorful lion masks! We also used a lot of green this week in our coloring and painting activities as we are preparing our room for St. Patrick's Day! We were finally able to get outside this week (yay!)
All of us really enjoyed being able to run and run out in the fresh air! If you ever have any questions, comments or concerns please feel free to stop by! Thanks! Ms. Lee
Ms. Lee
The Walrus Class
Welcome March! Spring is on it's way and the Walrus class was so thrilled to run around on the playground this week! We were happy to find it almost totally clear of snow this week! We've been working hard and learning lots. In math we have been focusing on shapes. We were re-introduced to our shape friends! We met/reviewed Ollie Oval, Tommy Triangle, Cindy Circle and the rest of the gang. We counted the number of sides on the triangle and square and learned that "tri" indicates 3! We also played a few rounds of "Shape Shop" which is one of our favorite file folder games. By doing these activities we are able to visually recognize shapes and identify them by name. In science we've been learning all about dental hygiene! We counted our teeth and discussed what kinds of items are beneficial to our dental growth and strength. Clifford the Big Red Dog helped us out with these lessons as he had us working hard on some of his favorite class activities! We worked together to distinguish healthy vs. unhealthy tooth related items and learned about what each item had to contribute to our dental hygiene. We learned about what an apple a day can do and how milk helps not only our bones but our teeth too! In language arts we had our weekly community meeting with the Rooster Class where we read about "The House That Jack Built". We also were introduced to the letter D. We learned about the sound that D makes and made a list of words that begin with D. Matthew really loves to make D's and reminds us that the word "Daddy" begins with D! In art we made lion masks complete with a beautiful mane! We also painted with toothbrushes and Q-tips! Our art lessons focus on fine motor development as well as creativity and self confidence. We are constantly reminded that each individual is unique and that all artwork is beautiful in it's own special way. In social awareness we have been working really hard on respecting differences. We learned how to say the word "peace" in many different languages and discussed how there are many different faces all over our world. Alan and Remmer love to say "goom gi gi" and Lucy's favorite is "kurtuku" which both mean "peace". We also learned what the word "cooperate" means and how important it is to be cooperative in the classroom. Our project green lessons were all about planting trees! We discussed all the necessary tools needed in order to plant and grow a tree. We discussed what trees provide for us and how important they are in maintaining a healthy environment. For our cooking project we made Irish Soda Bread in celebration of the month of March! We love to cook together and really enjoy eating what we worked so hard on. In children's humanities we have been discovering nature stations and building our character. We played with nuts, rocks and shells in order to learn more about nature. We've read stories about and discussed the importance of building strong character and being the best person that we can be! Have a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine!
Reminders and Information: Please refer to daynotes for reminders regarding upcoming events! We have show and tell every Friday and I would prefer that students not bring any toys from home except for Fridays. We are trying to minimize the amount of toys lost or broken plus we have lots of great toys in our classroom that the children enjoy!
Ms. Erin
The Rooster Class
It was a busy week in the Rooster room! In science, we focused on appreciating nature, especially now that we can venture outside again! We discussed ecosystems in danger and took a nature walk to better appreciate the nature around us.
In math we focused on shape recognition, playing musical "shapes" and creating patterns with shape blocks! We know: circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, hexagons, octagons, diamonds, ovals, hearts and stars!
In language arts this week we began working with a new Letter of the Week, Dd. We worked with the phonics and sounds of D and brainstormed words that begin with D. We also practiced writing D's and d's in our writing journals. Finally, we worked with two new sight words: very, us.
Creatively this week, we worked with two themes: the circus and lemons! We created lion masks and pretended to be lions and lion tamers! We also used cut up lemons to make lemon prints. Finally, we made lemon-scented playdough and sculpted different fruits.
In social studies and awareness we worked on aspects of character building, specifically cooperation and team work. We played a variety of group-based and team building games, such as operator, a three legged race and puzzle races!
The highlight of our week was our Thursday cooking project: shamrocks! We used Pillsbury breadstick dough and formed shamrock shapes by ourselves. We then rolled them in green sugar and baked them! They were delicious and full of the Irish spirit!
Classroom reminders: toys from home are not allowed in the Rooster room except for Fridays for show and tell. Please discourage these as they are distractions from our learning.
Thanks,
Ms. Amanda
434-823-7129
1645 Park Ridge Drive