CrozetOur Crozet school is located on Park Ridge Dr for your convience. We are in a neighborhood setting and very easy to access. The teachers at Crozet have an average of 12 years of education experience and less than a 5% employee turnover rate. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Sunday, 28 March 2010 11:23
Newsletter March 26, 2010BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL
Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984 www.brightbeginningsva.com Crozet Newsletter
March 26, 2010 Upcoming Events:
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:
Happy Spring! Thank you all for turning in your orders for our Original Works fundraiser! These projects always turn out great and we are looking forward to getting them back! Please check out our updated slideshow that has new pictures of Grandparents and Special Friend’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and pictures from the VA Festival of the Book week! This week we are excited to open our Media room in the Octopus classroom. Both our three and four year old classes will have time in this room during the day. In this room we have a computer lab, listening center, music center, and library. The kids have really enjoyed it so far and we are working on expanding it even further! We are working to open a photography center as well (any donations of old, even broken, camera’s would be appreciated!) Weekly Financial Memo:
April tuition is due. Please pay by the 30th to avoid late charges.The cost of lunch is $3.00. Please write your child's full name and date on the lunch envelope. Without this information we are unable to accurately apply charges and payments to your account. Thank you for your referrals. Several families will be receiving a free week this month and you can too! Refer a family that enrolls and you will receive a free week after they have been enrolled here a month. Book of the Week:
The Very Clumsy Click Beetle
Small readers will recognize and empathize with the clumsy little beetle’s eagerness to learn what the older beetle can already do so well. They will discover his frustration when at first he fails. And they will surely rejoice in its eventual triumph! Eric Carle offers young readers a message of hope and encouragement! Hear the Beetle Click as it flips through the pages of this book and learns how to land on its feet!By: Eric Carle Speech Weekly Notes from Stacy Torrence:
These are the skills that were addressed this week. It was a great week with speech and language groups! We had a blast! Toddlers and young 2’s We began by reading a noisy story, which I feel is really beneficial for the little ones. We read the little snake and focused primarily on the /s/ sound. We also used the ball toy to request a specific ball and hammer and were asked to use sign language as well. Becca Bunny and Buddy Bear books were used to address shapes and answering “wh’ questions. The bubble machine was used at the end of our session. Older 2’s We read “Polar Bear Polar Bear” with our Velcro story pieces. Each child pretended to be a specific animal and helped read the story. Be sure to ask your child to ‘Snarl like a leopard, roar like a lion, and whistle like a zookeeper”. It was hilarious! We also used our bear and bunny books to answer “wh” questions. The octopus bubble machine was used and the end of the session to address the /p/ and /b/ sounds. 3’s and 4’s We began buy reading “Polar Bear Polar Bear and worked on sequencing, first, last, second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. Then we answered specific questions from our oral language box. Each child had to pick a card and answer a specific question in front of the class. Some examples of the questions were: Name things you would take to the beach? What special clothes might you wear in the winter? What does an author do? Name something that is gigantic? Talk about a time when you were frightened. Name several things that live in the ocean. We also worked on the phonics ladder to address letter sounds if time allowed. Stacy Torrence M.S. CCC-SLP Class Notes:
The Pelican Class The Pelicans enjoyed pulling cotton balls out of a bag and feeling how soft it felt; Sami and Ashlyn tried eating the cotton! We rolled around to our favorite music which made Gray laugh lots! We also had fun watching balloons float around the room and we even tried to catch them! Keaton kept his eye on them hoping to catch one. “One nose, two eyes” is a game we played to see who could blink their eyes and pinch their nose. Pictures of flowers brighten up the room and catch our eye. We used the flower pictures to explore our sense of sight and touch. We also explored our sense of sound by dropping noisy toys into containers. This week we also got to spend more time with our friends in the Kangaroo room! We’ve been having so much fun in the baby room! Ms. Sue The Kangaroo Class This week was a blast in the toddler room. As our infant friends are growing and getting older they are spending more and more time with us! In our Gross Motor unit we played a bowling game where we lined all of our pins up and rolled different sized balls to knock them down! We also liked to knock them down with our hands! During our Fine Motor unit we painted with yarn and created shaving cream art. We also played “Fill and Spill” where we filled up empty containers with different materials and then spilled them! In our Practical Living and Self Help Skill time we made a rock collection and played in housekeeping! Have a great weekend! Ms. Jen The Bunny Class Hello Bunny families! What another wonderful week it’s been in the Bunny class. We stayed busy discovering and exploring new things this week! During Math time we discovered that we could use rubber bands to make shapes on geo boards. Emily loved making squares and triangles on her board and Martin had fun making all sorts of silly shapes. For Science this week we discussed where animals live. We discovered that all animals have a special place where they live, like “fish and sharks live in the water” (Nathan). Conner liked telling the class what kind of animals you’d find on a farm and in a zoo. During Art time we worked really hard on our original art project. We also made a zoo book and noodle necklaces. For Social Awareness we continued our learning of cooperation. We practiced really hard this week on sharing and taking turns. Addie and Makayla discovered that sometimes it is more fun to play with a friend and to do that you must share! Jake and Elara learned that waiting your turn can be really hard but if you do it makes it easy to share! Thank you for a great week in the Bunny class! Have a wonderful weekend! Ms. Whitney The Peacock Class Hello Peacock families and friends. This week in the Peacock class we had fun with numbers, learning 1-10 in Spanish and English; we also used our fingers to count! We have been focusing on the letter S this week and had fun making snakes out of paper plates as well as playing with sand! This is one of the easier letters to pronounce in the alphabet so we did little focusing on the sound, rather focusing our attention on words and objects that start with S. We also had fun learning the differences between circus animals and farm animals in reading our classroom books during group time. This week for Language Arts we have started working on name recognition. We are beginning with our first names only and then will move on to recognizing our last names. We are learning lots and having fun at the same time! If you ever have any questions feel free to stop by! Thanks, Ms. Lee The Walrus Class Happy Spring! The trees are blossoming, the birds are singing, the sun is shining and the Walrus kids are learning lots! In Math we have been working on shape and number identification. We played a game called "What Shape Is It?" where we identified the shape of a few different objects around our classroom. We also have been working on being able to differentiate numbers from letters. We've been using our calendar numbers in order to familiarize ourselves with what numbers look like and have been discussing all of the different places we see numbers. In Science we read a story called "This Is My World" which was an informative book about different ecosystems. We've been taking advantage of the good weather by going for nature walks! We love to walk around the school searching for signs of Spring! Bree loved the beautiful purple flowers we found and Cate pointed out the changes in the trees! For our Project Green lesson we discussed how it will take all of our helping hands in order to protect Earth's many habitats. In Language Arts we've been focusing on the letter S. We are practicing making an S sound and working on the difference in sound between the letter S and TH. We also did an LEA activity where we all had an opportunity to share the class what we thought was funny! In Art we made animal tracks and a popcorn collage! During these creative lessons we discussed texture and used our sense of touch to describe our art! In Social Awareness we worked on building a "kind classroom". We read a variety of books about what it takes to build a caring classroom. The books focused on cooperation, being a good friend, respect, fairness and listening skills. In Children's Humanities we are continually working on our character building! We discussed the importance of using manners and appropriate ways to handle ourselves when we are having a problem or feel upset (as opposed to throwing a temper tantrum). We have enjoyed the recent sunshine and love playing outside on our playground! One of our favorite outdoor activities is having races! We all line up and Ms. Erin tells us when to go...then we're off! We also enjoy swinging on the tire swing and digging in the dirt! Have a great weekend! Reminders and Information: If you do not bring sheets for your student on Monday's they will use extras supplied by Bright Beginnings and those will be sent home with your student in order to be washed and returned. Please do not send sippy cups to school with your student. If you sign up to bring cooking projects items in please remember to bring them in either prior to or of the morning of the cooking project; we usually start cooking around 9:15. Please take all of the items out of your student's cubby each day! Thanks, Ms. Erin The Rooster Class This week the Roosters were busy learning in Language Arts! We continued working with the letter of the week, Ss. We brainstormed words containing Ss and drew a picture of an Ss word. We also continued our work with nursery rhymes, learning and retelling “Baa Baa Blacksheep”. Finally, we reviewed sight words daily and played a fun sight word game, “Happyman”. This is essentially the game known as “Hangman” but we play using our sight words and either happy faces or sad faces! In Math this week we reviewed shapes and colors, focusing on recognition. In Science we focused on animals and discussed the habitats where we would find certain animals. We researched jungle, desert and sea environments and the animals that live there using our Encarta computer software. For Art we worked on a variety of projects that develop our fine motor skills. We created popcorn collages and painted using potatoes. We also made bead necklaces using beads generously donated by Ms. Kathe! Finally, we made crazy hats on Wednesday! In Social Awareness/Studies, we focused on two topics: cooperation and animals. We have already discussed cooperation and this week we played several cooperative games like operator and a three-legged race. We also discussed our favorite animals and played a game of animal charades. Finally, I hope everyone picked up our weekend skill building activity, patterning with shapes and colors! Enjoy it and have a great weekend! VAECE Visit As many of you know, I visited the Virginia Association of Early Childhood Educators conference in Richmond last Friday and Saturday. This was such a great, rewarding experience! I attended several workshops including a class on cooking in the classroom, storytelling to large groups, movement and music and critical thinking skills through language arts. I have already started using ideas and activities from the workshops. One change you may have noticed is our “Star Moments” board. This idea came from a wonderful workshop on behavior management and positive reinforcement. Whenever a child is caught being good, like cleaning up when asked, following directions, good listening or being kind to a friend, he/she will receive a star moment. A star is placed in the child’s envelope on our star moment board and he/she receives a sticker on the day note. We are trying to make a big deal out of good behavior in our class! It encourages the behavior to occur again and increases self-esteem. Ms. Amanda
Friday, 19 March 2010 08:02
Newsletter March 19, 2010BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL
Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984 www.brightbeginningsva.com Crozet Newsletter
March 19, 2010 Upcoming Events:
Friday, March 19th, Children’s Night Out, 5:30-8:30“Shining Shamrock” Monday, March 22nd, Parent Advisory Meeting! 5:00-6:00PM 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:
What’s Cooking?
TASTE A RAINBOW Ingredients: White cake mix Food coloring (red, blue, green, and yellow) Baking cups Whipped cream (optional) Instructions 1. Prepare your favorite white cake mix, and then divide the batter evenly among six small bowls. Following the chart below, dye each bowl of batter a rainbow color. 2. RAINBOW COLOR DROPS OF FOOD COLORING Purple: 9 red and 6 blue drops Blue: 12 drops Green: 12 drops Yellow: 12 drops Orange: 12 yellow and 4 red drops Red:18 drops 3. Line 16 muffin pan wells with baking cups. Evenly distribute the purple batter among the cups, then the blue, and so on, following the order shown. As you go, gently spread each layer of batter with the back of a spoon to cover the color underneath.
4. Bake the cupcakes according to your recipe directions. Before serving, remove the paper wrapping, and if you like, top each cupcake with a whipped-cream cloud. Speech Weekly Notes from Stacy Torrence:
Oral Motor Exercises to Try at Home Class Notes:
Friday, 12 March 2010 14:41
Newsletter March 12, 2010BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL
Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984 www.brightbeginningsva.com Crozet Newsletter March 12, 2010 Upcoming Events:
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 What’s Cooking?
Kiwi Lime Pie
Ingredients * 1 cup graham cracker crumbs * 3 tbsp. butter, melted * 1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk * 4 egg yolks * 1/3 cup lime juice * Thin chocolate cookie wafers * 1 kiwi, peeled and sliced Instructions 1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the graham cracker crumbs and butter in a bowl. Firmly press the crumbs against the bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie pan. Bake for 5 minutes. 2. In another bowl, stir the sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks and lime juice until well mixed. Pour the mixture into the crust and bake for 15 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. 3. Once the pie cools, push cookie wafers into the filling along the edge. Top with kiwi slices arranged to resemble a shamrock. Serves 8. Speech Weekly Notes from Stacy Torrence:
3.12.10
We had a great week with language groups. It was exciting to see the toddlers talking more and using sign language while speaking. My octopus bubble machine was a big hit in all of the classrooms. Toddlers and young 2’s We began by reading a “Noisy Story” to practice our speech sounds. We read the Noisy Story about a “Baby on the Farm”. We worked on the following sounds /m/, /g/, /b/, /r/, and /n/. Buddy Bear books were used to read books and answer simple “what” questions. We also introduced the story “Elmer” about a very special elephant. The book is filled with great language concepts such as (old, young, tall, short, thin, big, etc. The children had to listen to the story and place their story piece on the flannel board when appropriate. The octopus bubble machine was introduced and the children had to say, “pop bubbles” while the machine was on. Older 2’s We also read Elmer and focused on specific opposites and language concepts listed above. We played with our bubble machine and the children had a great time. Buddy Bear books were used to answer specific “what” questions. 3’s and 4’s We read Elmer and stepped it up a notch with the language concepts. We discussed the meaning of a herd, what it was like to be the same as well as different, answered many “wh” questions while reading the story and again focused on tall/short, thin/big, same/different, old/young, happy/sad, etc. We then continued to work on rhyming words with our rhyming houses and the children did a fantastic job putting their pictures in the appropriate rhyming house. Stacy Torrence M.S. CCC-SLP Class Notes:
The Pelican Class We were lucky to have some warm weather this week and got to go on a buggy ride! We talked about the changing of weather from cold to worm and looked to see if any birds were flying or tweeting yet! We love squeezing toys to hear the sound; this is one of Sami’s favorite things to do! She laughs very loud when she can make it squeak. Gray is really having fun stacking the nesting cups or mixing bowls while I count to him. Finding the cereal on the table while having snack is all of the children’s favorite activities! This week we tore different color paper up and threw it all over the floor to watch it fall, Ashlyn loved this game (sometimes she would even try to eat it!) Keaton loves to watch bubbles as they fall on him! We like listening to music a lot! To enhance our creativity we like opening and shutting our hands to the music! Sami and Gray love to repeat words that we say in the classroom, especially “baby.” So, we point to the baby and say it over and over again! The letter of the week is “D” and I have shown the children pictures and said “D” words over and over. We have tried to say, “Doll, Dog, and Dad!” It is so much fun just to see how our children are growing up and doing different things. Have a wonderful weekend and be safe! Ms. Sue The Kangaroo Class This week in our Gross Motor unit we played “Jack in the Box.” We had a lot of fun pretending to pop out of the box! We also played with a bean bag toss game! In our Fine Motor development unit we made several art projects. We made clown faces and talked about the circus. We also made a nature collage with materials that we collected from our playground. We also used sponges that were cut out in different shapes at our water table. And, we borrowed some legos from another class and tried to build a big tower! During our Practical Living/Self Help time, we pretended we were at the beach, which wasn’t too hard earlier this week! We also pretended to build a sandcastle with our blocks! We really enjoyed knocking it down! Ms. Jen The Bunny Class Hello Bunny families! What a beautiful week we have had. It’s been so nice to get some fresh air and run around outside! This week during math we worked really hard on number recognition. We focused on numbers 1,2,3. I would write the number on the white board along with the corresponding dots and have the children make a guess as to which number it is. This is a concept that has just been introduced this week so we will continue to work on it! For science we continued to talk about circus animals. Emily and Nathan loved pretending to be their favorite circus animals, and Addie and Elara really enjoyed the stories we read about the circus! For language arts this week we focused on two themes. This week we often read rhyming books. Connor and Jake worked really hard to come up with great rhyming words! Our other literary theme this week was the circus, which we all loved reading about! During social awareness we were introduced to the concept of cooperation. We discovered that it is very important to have cooperation in order to have a happy classroom! Martin and Makayla did a great job demonstrating that this week by sharing and taking turns! We also had a birthday this week, happy 3rd birthday Makayla! Have a great weekend! Ms. Whitney The Peacock Class Hello Peacock families and friends! What a beautiful week we had! We were lucky to be able to enjoy some outside play time. This week we took advantage of Mr. Sun and did a lot of outdoor activities. We went bird watching with our classroom binoculars, took a nature walk, colored beautiful pictures outside, and of course just playing on our fun playground! This week we also learned about the circus. We talked about the types of animals in the circus as well as the differences between animals that live on a farm and wild animals that live in jungles/rainforests. We had a lot of fun learning through some manipulative games this week like M&M matching colors game, bean sorting, as well as noodle and rice play too! In language arts this week we have been practicing our ABC recognition with flash cards. This seems to be going very well. We are all doing a great job of participating. We also used our puppets several times this week to help tell stories and sing songs. We still are very busy working on decorations for our classroom for St. Patrick’s Day! We are talking a lot about green! We learned what two colors make green (blue and yellow!) We colored, painted, and drew with green colored pencils, chalk, and markers! What a fun and exciting week it’s been in the Peacock classroom! Ms. Lee The Walrus Class Spring is right around the corner and the Walrus kids are continuing to blossom! We've had a fun week full of laughs and learning. In Math we played "clown lotto" which gave us practice recognizing and identifying shapes. Specifically, we focused on the triangle and circle as those are the shapes we found on a clown's face! After we identified the shapes we then put them on a paper plate to make our very own clown face! We added a hat and a smile to complete our silly clowns. We also played an M&M color matching game. We identified which M&M colors we had and then matched them to the corresponding construction paper M&M. In Science learned all about elephants, tigers and monkeys! We love learning new things about animals and use Encarta for Kids in order to conduct our research. We are fascinated with watching animals in their natural habitat and enjoy learning fun facts about all different types of animals. We learned that monkeys have very flexible hands and feet and that they use their tails to hang from trees! Our Project Green lesson focused on the concept of shrinking habitats. We used an area in our classroom to demonstrate an actual shrinking habitat. We first discussed different species that lived in our habitat and what things were vital to their existence. Then we began taking those important things away to illustrate how certain ecosystems are gradually shrinking. After the demonstration we discussed ways to protect ecosystems and prevent shrinking habitats. In Language Arts we drew pictures of things that start with the letter D and did BIG DOT tracing of the letter D. We also practiced writing D all on our own! Lucy, Bree, Cate and Ava Jordan all enjoy writing letters and are doing a fantastic job of it! In Art we made clown face collages which tied in with our Math lesson on shape recognition. We also did marble painting and discussed color mixing! Finally in Art, we made heart shaped shamrocks using sponged tip paint bottles! These allow us to use our fine motor skills as they are small squeezable bottles that need lots of fine direction when being used to paint! In Dramatic Play we pretended to be a band! We learned how to use different instruments and played them in a music parade! We also pretended to walk on a tightrope which helped us develop our balancing skills! In Social Awareness we focused on learning to work cooperatively in teams! We did puzzle and peg races as well as worked in two separate teams in order to complete our giant class puzzles! In Children's Humanities we are using literature in order to learn about building our character! We learned about being courageous as well as what it means to be a good friend! We are enjoying being outdoors and every day are seeing new signs of Spring! Have a great weekend! Reminders and Information: Please do not send toys or sippy cups to school with your student! If you have to send in medication with your child please drop it off with Ms. Sue rather than with Ms. Erin as she is MAT certified and will be the one to administer the medicine. If your student will be eating breakfast at school please remember to have them wash their hands before they sit at the breakfast table! If you have not done so, please send in a writing journal for your student. Ms. Erin The Rooster Class This week the Roosters were busy with math! We worked with shapes, sorting and patterning with them! We also worked with colors and color recognition. We played “I spy…” using color hints and sorted M&M’s by color. They were also a nice little treat for our hard work! In language arts, we continued working with letter of the week, “Dd.” We brainstormed “D” words and practiced writing “Dd” without tracing! We also worked with our names, writing our first and last names and decorating them with tissue paper. Finally, we reviewed our sight words daily and played a fun sight word game, matching sight words! This is a fun game that can easily be recreated at home for sight word practice: simply write the sight words on two index cards and place them face down. Have your child play “memory” and match the pairs! For art, the Roosters continued with the circus theme. We painted a big top tent mural as a class and made monkey puppets. We also drew our own pictures of a clown using a rhyme for directions and guidance. This was also a great language arts activity! In social studies/awareness this week, we worked on character building. We discussed manners and brainstormed polite words. We also read books about listening and showing respect to others. We are working hard on being good and polite friends! Finally, you may have noticed a bin in the room today (Friday) labeled “Weekend Skill Building.” Each Friday I will put this bin out with one or two activities that will reinforce a language arts or math activity we worked on in class. Your participation is completely voluntary! I will not collect or grade these activities. They are simply to help build and reinforce the skills we are working on in class. They are also helpful because they are an easy way to prepare your child (and you!) for homework! If you have any questions feel free to speak with me! Ms. Amanda
Friday, 05 March 2010 11:23
Newsletter March 5, 2010BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL
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 School News and Notes:
Reminder: Scholastic Book Orders are due March 18th!
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. 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 |
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434-823-7129
1645 Park Ridge Drive