Ms. PJ, the director of Bright Beginnings at Forest Lakes and our Assistant Executive Director will be out at Crozet two days a week to start cross-training with some of our staff.

We have opened 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!) Thank you to the Evans’ family for donating a camera!

Re-registration Fees have been charged for the 2010-2011 school year.  This fee is charged at this time to allow our current families first priority.  The spring is a busy time for us showing prospective families to our school and want to make sure that your child's spot is reserved before we sell the spot to someone else.

Word of Mouth works!  Referring a friend or co-worker who enrolls 5-days fulltime will benefit you with a Free Week! (You may refer as many friends as you wish.)  Free week applies only to currently enrolled families.

All families MUST provide us with a valid Visa or MasterCard number before your child’s start date.  Any late fees or outstanding balances will be charged to credit card after the 30th of the month.




1.  Heat the oven to 375 degrees and line a 12-cup muffin tin with baking cups. Use a dry measuring cup to measure the flour, then pour it into a small mixing bowl. Stir the baking powder and salt into the flour and set aside. (Tip: To measure flour precisely, your child should hold the full cup over her canister of flour and use the flat edge of a knife to level off the flour.)
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and stir in the vanilla extract. Add the flour and milk alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture, stirring well after each addition. Peel the bananas, place them in a separate small bowl, and have your child use a fork to mash them until smooth. Measure out 1 cup of mashed banana. Fold it into the cupcake batter until thoroughly combined.
3. Fill each muffin cup three quarters full. (You will have some excess batter.) Wipe off any spills with a paper towel. Bake the cupcakes for 20 to 25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle of one comes out clean. Cool in the muffin tin for 15 minutes and then transfer the cupcakes to a plate.
4. While the cupcakes are baking, make the cream cheese frosting. Cream together the sugar and cream cheese in a large bowl. When the mixture is smooth, beat in the vanilla extract. To tint the frosting, mix in a few drops of food coloring.
5.  After the cupcakes have cooled, your child can use a plastic knife to slice the top off each one and then carefully cut each top in half. (Tip: To help prevent crumbling, make sure the cupcakes have completely cooled.) For each butterfly, frost the cut surface of the bottom of the muffin top, then arrange the two semicircles into wings on top (with the round sides of the semicircles touching). Frost the wings, then use decorators' icing to squirt on designs. Add a gumdrop head and licorice string antennae. Makes 12 Butterfly Banana Cupcakes. Refrigerate any leftovers


Speech and language groups will be held next Monday-Wednesday.  I will be screening students that are new to Bright Beginnings (age 3 and up) as well.
Bubble Play for Early Sound Development

Bubbles are always a big favorite with infants, toddlers and preschoolers.  The kids absolutely love bubbles and I often bring them out for the last few minutes of a language group.  The older kids think it's a reward and will work well with the promise of bubbles. I love them for several reasons.  If the child is old enough, I have them practice blowing the bubbles as part of the activity.  This works on oral motor strength and coordination.  I use bubbles to encourage sign and gesture usage for "more," "please," "done," "bye," "yes," etc.  I use related words to encourage all early developing sounds such as /h,p,b,d,m,n,w/.  Some bubble play related words are: bubble, more, up, bye-bye, pop, done, please, gone, blow, wow, uh-oh, high, yes, no.

When blowing bubbles with the child...use the key words repeatedly. For example: "Look....bubble..up-up-up...bye-bye bubble....pop-pop-pop...."  "More bubble...pop-pop-pop....all gone..."  "More bubble...uh-oh...pop-pop-pop...."  "Bubble...wow!....up-up-up... uh-oh...pop!"   "Wow...high bubble....bye-bye." This is also a chance to ask questions of your child and encourage responses either verbally or with gestures.   Ask child "Do you want more?"  Encourage them to use head gesture for "Yes," sign for "More" or use words if they are able to say "more" or "more bubble." So get those bubbles out and have fun!  The learning opportunities are endless.

Stacy Torrence M.S. CCC-SLP


The Pelican Class

We started off our week with bubbles flying all around the room so that Sami and Ashlyn could chase them; they had so much fun!  Keaton has been talking to himself in the mirror noticing his face and lips.  Sami enjoys looking with Keaton and finding his face.  We felt cotton and made clouds which were Gray’s favorite activities this week; he even tried eating the cotton!  Everyone had fun playing with water and pudding this week!  We threw beach balls around the room and tried chasing them.  We enjoyed taking buggy rides and enjoying the fresh air.  We love to watch cars, trucks and people go by!  We made cheerio necklaces which was great fun (even though more cheerios went in our mouths than on our necklaces!)  Have a great weekend and we’ll see you Monday!
Ms. Sue

The Kangaroo Class

This week in Gross Motor we went bowling and the children loved it! They enjoyed rolling the ball and knocking the pins over. We played red light, green light, and tried to walk on our tip toes, it was very fun to watch! In music and movement, we danced to the Wiggles, thanks to Maegan Sandridge’s mom for the CD, the children loved it! In fine motor we played in the water tub, what a splash of fun! We played with empty containers as well, the children enjoyed filling and dumping them. We also played in our nice new sandbox we have on our playground! We really love to explore outside on the playground and on buggy rides. For art, we painted with yarn. We painted baskets, and made clouds, we also made a spring color collage. In practical living we made an indoor duck pond where we played with ducks, rocks, and seashells. We had a blast this week looking for signs of spring and playing with the insects in the discovery table!

Have a great weekend!

Ms. Jen

The Bunny Class

Hello Bunny families and friends!  The bunnies were happy to welcome spring and the warm weather that it brings!  With the beautiful weather we get to spend a lot of time outside exploring nature.  Addie and Elara liked finding flowers that had started to bloom!  We also found other signs of spring; Emily noticed the birds chirping and Nathan would always remind us that it’s warm and we don’t need our jackets!  During Math this week we worked really hard on counting in both English and Spanish.  In English we’ve mastered counting to ten.  Now we are working our way up to 15.  In Spanish we can count to five and now we are working on counting to 10.  In Language Arts we continued working on rhyming words.  Conner did a great job listening and finding rhyming words in the stories we read.  During Social Awareness we discussed recycling.  We talked about what sorts of things can be recycled and why it is important for our environment to do so.  Jake and Martin liked finding things in their lunch or around the classroom that could be recycled.  We also did many fun art projects this week!  We painted in pastel colors, made cotton ball bunnies, which was Makayla’s favorite and we made recycling collages!
I hope everyone had a wonderful week and enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend!

Ms. Whitney

The Peacock Class

Hello Peacock families and friends!  This week in the Peacock class we have learned all about spring!  The weather, baby animals, Easter, eggs and flowers were all part of our lessons!  In Math and Science this week we had fun going on a nature walk looking a the signs of spring all around us, like birds singing, grass and trees turning green and flowers blooming.  We also had several activities with counting and sorting plastic Easter eggs!  In Language Arts this week we had fun learning new songs like “Little Bunny Foo Foo” and “1, 2, 3 Little Bunnies” as well as reviewing our positional words like over, under, in front and behind.   Lastly we practiced our ABC’s with our flash cards and new floor puzzle!  In Social Studies and Social Awareness we learned about baby animals and their mommies of spring.  We learned about birds, lambs, and ducks.  We also talked about cooperation and teamwork inside the classroom.  In Art this week all of my friends have really enjoyed getting to mix and mix and mix paints!  Yay!  We mixed black and white paint to make gray bunny masks.   We also mixed white paints with other paints to decorate beautiful pastel color paintings.  We also had fun with painting clouds and raindrops as well as decorating our very own Easter eggs!

If you ever have any questions or concerns please feel free to stop by.  Hooray for springtime!

Ms. Lee

The Walrus Class

Welcome April and all of the showers you bring!  The Walrus kids are continually learning, growing and having plenty of fun!  In Math we are working on number matching and correspondence.  In order to practice this skill we have been playing matching and correspondence games with our math manipulatives (i.e., math men, unifix cubes and links).  We also are continuing our focus on number identification/recognition as the math concepts we are learning are built upon core knowledge of numbers.  We played a file folder game called "Owl Pals" which worked on number recognition and numerical order through 12.  In Science we have been learning all about nature!  We discussed signs of spring and plant care.  We planted two sunflower seeds in our classroom that we have been caring for.  We discussed all of the things that are needed in order to keep our plants healthy and help them grow.  We really enjoyed planting and this week have been taking turns watering the seeds.  This teaches us responsibility as well as gentleness as it is up to us to keep the sunflowers alive!  For our Project Green lesson we discussed Migration Barriers.  We learned their purpose and even created a mock migration barrier in our water tub!  In Language Arts we have been working on finding sight words in our classroom books.  During read a loud time Ms. Erin points out when a sight words is read and shows the class where it is in the story.  We also were introduced to the letter A.  We conjured up a list of words that start with A and practiced tracing A in our journals.  Caitlin, Mia and Lucas are doing a fabulous job tracing letters!  Ms. Erin is extremely proud of the work we've been doing with our letters!  Some of us are writing our own names as well as writing friends' names; Bree even wrote Ms. Erin's name!  We are also working on recognizing our names and those of our classmates when written.  In Art we learned what pastel colors are and painted with our pastel dot paints!  We also created collages and cotton ball hares in celebration of the arrival of spring!  Our Creative lessons give us the opportunity each day to express ourselves through arts and crafts.  It also allows us to spend quality time with each other while encouraging uniqueness and individuality.  In Dramatic Play we pretended to be hopping bunnies and explorers of nature!  In Social Awareness we continue to build our Caring Classroom through stories and activities based on character building.  We have been discussing ways in which we can earn stamps/stickers on our day notes as well as things we can do in order to earn coupons.  Natalie and Ava Jordan were both awarded bookmark coupons for constantly helping out around our classroom.  Their kind and nurturing actions are much appreciated by the class as well as Ms. Erin; thanks girls!  In Children’s Humanities we have been playing some fun cooperative games!  We love playing a "Jeopardy"-style game with our flash cards.  We all sit together and call out answers to questions posed by our Sesame Street flash cards which focus on opposites, colors, shapes and letters.  Gryff and Emily get especially excited during this game!  For our cooking project we made Strawberry Sparkles!  We worked on color identification through this project as we dyed sugar different colors.  We also discussed seasonal fruits and the upcoming fruitful bounties of spring and summer!  Have a sunny, smiley weekend!

Reminders and Information:  Spring break is 4/8 and 4/9 and school will be closed!  If you have any extra plastic grocery bags that you would like to get rid of please send them in for "accident" bags! 

Ms. Erin

The Rooster Class

We are so happy to welcome spring in the Rooster classroom!  The spring weather has allowed us to be outside more and celebrate spring in our activities!  In Science this week, we observed and brainstormed the signs of spring and what animals do during the springtime.  For Project Green we brainstormed how we are “in this together”-or ways we could celebrate nature without hurting her.  We all said recycle!  In Math, we continued our spring theme and measured “spring” items (i.e., eggs, jellybeans, etc.) using our unfix cubes.  We also measured ingredients for our cooking project!  We made bird’s nests using coconut and jelly beans as eggs!  They were festive and delicious!
In Language Arts we read spring books about eggs, ducklings, bunnies and lambs.  We continued working with sight words, adding are, as and on to our list.  We also worked with a new letter of the week: Aa.  We brainstormed words beginning with Aa and practiced writing Aa in our journals.  Finally, we worked with the fable/nursery rhyme “The Tortoise and the Hare”, acting out the “famous race”.
Our spring theme continued in Art where we worked on a variety of projects.  We worked with pastels, painting Easter eggs and baskets.  We also made spring flowers for the April board in the front hallway.  Finally, we created bunnies using cotton balls.

Finally, in Social Studies we discussed and shared our ideas about the Easter bunny: In a word-Candy!  We also discussed the seasons and voted for our favorite season.  Finally, we learned about clouds and shared what we saw when we did some cloud-watching!

Classroom reminders:
-Sippy cups are not allowed on the Pre-K side of the hall.
-Our curriculum beings at 9am.  Please try to come to class in time so your child does not miss anything-we start with circle time and Language Arts!

Ms. Amanda