BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL
Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984
www.brightbeginningsva.com
Crozet Newsletter
April 23, 2010
Upcoming Events:
Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984
www.brightbeginningsva.com
Crozet Newsletter
April 23, 2010
Upcoming Events:
Friday, April 23rd Children’s Night Out, “Singing in the Rain!”
Friday, May 7th, Children’s Night Out, “Down on the Farm!”
Monday, May 10th, Spring Semester Evaluations distributed, Conferences can be scheduled with teacher and director as desired
Sunday, May 16th, Family Picnic and Art Show! 4-6pm
Monday, May 17th, Rain date for Family Picnic 6-8pm
Monday, May 31st, closed completely for Memorial Day
School News and Notes:
Friday, May 7th, Children’s Night Out, “Down on the Farm!”
Monday, May 10th, Spring Semester Evaluations distributed, Conferences can be scheduled with teacher and director as desired
Sunday, May 16th, Family Picnic and Art Show! 4-6pm
Monday, May 17th, Rain date for Family Picnic 6-8pm
Monday, May 31st, closed completely for Memorial Day
School News and Notes:
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, including Ms. Whitney who will be starting to work at the front desk some afternoons. Ms. Whitney can answer any questions you may have!
This year, our Family Picnic and Pre-K graduation will be on different days. The Pre-K graduation and Sundae Social is at 11am on June 9th.
We have started construction on our water park/sprinkler play system! Our 2 year old playground will remain closed until all construction is complete. Both the Bunny and Peacock classes have outside times on the 3/Pre-K playground! While we certainly are excited and ready to get our water play area up and running, the construction time is dependent on weather, independent contractors, and the availability of materials. We will keep you posted on the progress of this project!
Sunscreen Policy:
Understand that Bright Beginnings does not provide or apply sunscreen. It is recommended that sunscreen is applied liberally in the morning before arrival.
What’s Cooking?
Berry Muffins
Ingredients:
* 1 c. flour
* 1 c. oatmeal
* 3 tbsp. sugar
* 1 tsp. salt
* 4 tsp. baking powder
* 1 c. blueberries, washed
* 1 egg
* 1 c. milk
* ¼ c. vegetable oil
* nonstick cooking spray
Utensils:
* oven (you'll need help from your adult assistant)
* mixing spoon
* 2 large bowls
* fork
* muffin/cupcake tin
* paper muffin/cupcake liners
* wire rack for cooling muffins
* measuring cups and spoons
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400° F (200° C).
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, oatmeal, sugar, salt, and baking powder.
3. Mix in blueberries.
4. In another bowl, break the egg and use a fork to beat it just a little bit. Then add the milk and vegetable oil, and mix.
5. Add egg mixture to the dry ingredients in the large bowl.
6. Using a mixing spoon, mix about 25 or 30 times. Don't mix too much! Your muffin mixture should be lumpy, not smooth.
7. Line a muffin tin with paper liners or lightly spray with nonstick spray. Spoon in the muffin mix. Fill each muffin cup about 2/3 of the way up.
8. Bake for about 20 minutes.
9. When muffins are finished baking, remove from muffin tin and cool them on a wire rack.
10. Enjoy your berry tasty muffins!
Berry Muffins
Ingredients:
* 1 c. flour
* 1 c. oatmeal
* 3 tbsp. sugar
* 1 tsp. salt
* 4 tsp. baking powder
* 1 c. blueberries, washed
* 1 egg
* 1 c. milk
* ¼ c. vegetable oil
* nonstick cooking spray
Utensils:
* oven (you'll need help from your adult assistant)
* mixing spoon
* 2 large bowls
* fork
* muffin/cupcake tin
* paper muffin/cupcake liners
* wire rack for cooling muffins
* measuring cups and spoons
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400° F (200° C).
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, oatmeal, sugar, salt, and baking powder.
3. Mix in blueberries.
4. In another bowl, break the egg and use a fork to beat it just a little bit. Then add the milk and vegetable oil, and mix.
5. Add egg mixture to the dry ingredients in the large bowl.
6. Using a mixing spoon, mix about 25 or 30 times. Don't mix too much! Your muffin mixture should be lumpy, not smooth.
7. Line a muffin tin with paper liners or lightly spray with nonstick spray. Spoon in the muffin mix. Fill each muffin cup about 2/3 of the way up.
8. Bake for about 20 minutes.
9. When muffins are finished baking, remove from muffin tin and cool them on a wire rack.
10. Enjoy your berry tasty muffins!
Financial Memo:
Pay your re-registration fee now to ensure your child a spot in our program. Re-registration fees are due by August 1st.
Earn a free week! Refer a friend or coworker and if they enroll you will receive a free week's tuition.
Reading Notes from Ms. Edith Fisher:
On Tuesday, April 20th, the book, Bear’s New Friend, by Karma Wilson, was read to facilitate a discussion about friendship. The Class Name Book the Pre-Kindergarten classes have been working on as authors and illustrators was read aloud. There were smiles of pride and pleasure to see their name printed in the book. The Classbook will travel home with each student so each family can enjoy the class project. Class Notes:
The Pelican Class
This week the Pelicans loved painting and counting spots on ladybugs! Bugs are all over the room; their in the water tub and crawling through the sand! They crawled up our arm to make it tickle. During circle time we sang the “Welcome” song to all of our friends. We also sang “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. Hiding the animals and trying to find them all over our room was super fun and had Ashlyn looking all over the place! Making the letter “E” sound made them laugh. We enjoyed reading “Old Macdonald Had a Farm” and singing the song; some of us made the sounds and some just watched! Putting the tent up and letting Keaton sit in it while Ashlyn crawled through was fun! Have a great weekend!
Ms. Sue
The Kangaroo Class
This week the little roo’s had fun dancing with our ribbon sticks and dancing to the Wiggles. They just love the Wiggles! We played in playdough; we pretended to make birthday cakes, by rolling, stretching, and pushing the playdough around. We had so much fun! We took a nature walk on our playgroud to look for birds and bugs. We pretended to go camping! We got our tent and out for our trip into nature. We played in the water and sand table. We made ladybugs and counted her spots. We made snake prints and made a sand castle with glue and sand; very sticky and fun. We built a house out of blocks and played follow the leader. Ms. Stacey came in to do speech with us which were a blast!
Thanks,
Ms. Jen
The Peacock Class
Hello Peacock families and friends. This week in the Peacock class we have had fun learning about insects; ladybugs in particular! We counted spots on ladybugs, we finger painted red ladybugs, and we played a ladybug sorting/matching game that was really fun! During our community meeting with the bunny classroom we had an open discussion about “rain”. We discussed what color it is, where it comes from and when it rains. We had some really cute answers some about with this discussion. The Peacock class also enjoyed Ms. Stacey coming in this week as part of their language groups. This week they were able to feed a pretend baby and talk about what they were doing. For example: are you hungry? Eat up baby, would you like some food? Ms. Stacey also played a very nice sharing game as well! We have begun to sing our nice hands song every day before center time and it seems to be helping us to remember that our hands are nice hands and they are not for hurting. We are also beginning to practice our songs for the family picnic. We will be singing “Mr. Sun” and “You Are My Sunshine”. If you have any questions please feel free to stop by!
Thanks,
Ms. Lee
The Bunny Class
Hello Bunny Families! The Bunnies were very busy this week learning all sorts of new things! For math this week we continued to practice number recognition and number matching. Addie and Makayla worked really hard this week on their number skills! For science this week we continued to talk about bugs, and we also discussed flowers. We explored the different parts of a flower, such as the stem, petals, and that yellow stuff on the inside. All the Bunnies were very curious as to what that yellow stuff was. Then, Emily and Connor reminded that the yellow stuff is pollen. We talked about how you can find pollen on your mommy and daddy’s car, and how bugs carry pollen. During language arts time this week we explored insect and flower books. We also read rhyming stories, and practiced saying rhyming words. Nathan did a really good job this week picking out rhyming words! For social studies we discussed recycling. We discovered the things that can be recycled and why it is so important to recycle! We had a great, messy time during art. We made paper plate lady bugs, and very hungry caterpillars, which Jake and Elara loved doing, to go along with out bug theme! Everyone’s favorite this week was the sandcastle art!!
I’d also like to welcome Ms. Stephanie to the Bunny classroom. She will be in the room in the evenings from 4-6. I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Ms. Whitney
The Walrus Class
May is right around the corner and the Walrus class is keeping busy! In Math we have been focusing on our counting as well as number identification. We counted ladybug spots and played a game where we had to find the given number on a classroom chair! During the ladybug game we also were introduced to the concept of addition. Each time a spot or spots were added to the ladybug we recounted in order to get our total. Gryff did an excellent job both of counting and adding; way to go Gryff! In Science we learned all about ladybugs! Ms. Erin read us some fun facts and then we restated those facts during a class discussion. We learned that ladybugs are beetles, which are insects, that they lay eggs, they live to be 2-3 years old and that there are 5000 different types of ladybugs! Sam and Ava Jordan both enjoyed learning these facts and retelling the class what they learned! In Language Arts we had our weekly community meeting with the Roosters where we sang "It's Raining, It's Pouring" among other songs that we chose. We also have been continuing to work on writing Ee and recognizing Ee words and sounds. In Art we made red ladybugs using paper plates! We also created snake paint! We used our fine motor skills to make curvy lines that resembled snakes. In Dramatic Play we have been practicing our family picnic performance! Ask us what our lines are! In Social Awareness we read a story called "It's My World" where we learned about various different environments. We discussed all of the different plants and animals in each environment and talked about ways to sustain healthy life in those environments! For Project Green we learned a song called "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" and discussed what each of those words mean. We also set up a mini recycling center in our room where we will be using some of our recyclable lunch containers! Have a great weekend!
Ms. Erin
The Rooster Class
Spring is in full bloom! We are glad to be outside and enjoying the warm weather.
In Language Arts, we continued working with our letter of the week,” Ee”. We brainstormed words that start with” E”. We added “can” and “run” to our growing sight word list. The Roosters enjoyed making up a class story. The children were very creative!
The Roosters were very busy in Math and Science. We enjoyed a shape sort. We worked on counting with ladybugs. In science we talked about clean water. The Roosters learned about the life cycle of a caterpillar. Ask your child all about it!
In Social Studies, we did research on ladybugs and snakes. They learned a lot of interesting facts. We talked about our favorite bug! The Roosters enjoyed hearing all about the desert as well!
For Art, we made ladybugs and paper plate snakes. We painted egg cartons to create caterpillars. Sandcastle art was a huge success!
Ms. Amanda and Ms. Sherri
434-823-7129
1645 Park Ridge Drive