BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL
Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984
www.brightbeginningsva.com

Crozet Newsletter
May 21, 2010

Upcoming Events:

Monday, May 31st, closed completely for Memorial Day
Friday, June 4th, Children’s Night Out (5:30-8:30) Get ready for a night filled with Space Adventures!

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. If you would like sunscreen reapplied on your child during the day make sure you fill out a permission slip and bring in a community sunscreen. If your child has an allergy and can only use one type of sunscreen make note of that on the permission slip! You can find these on the front white board at the front desk!

Blessings:
Everyday before the children eat their snacks and their lunches they say a blessing together. If you have not ever heard your child say this, it goes a little something like this…

We say please and thank because it’s polite.
We wait for our friends to take our first bite.
We love our bread, we love our butter.
But most of all we love each other.

Weekly Financial Memo:
Pay the 2010-2011 re-registration fee now to ensure your child a spot in our program. Be sure to use your pass card upon entering the building. If you forget your card, please sign in at the front desk.

Speech Weekly Notes from Stacy Torrence:

Toddlers and young 2’s
We began by reading a repetitive story while acting out the movements in the story.  We also fed our baby cookies that were in the shape of a circle, rectangle, heart, semicircle, triangle, and square. Next we focused on a sharing activity in which the children sat in a circle and requested a toy by using at least 3-4 words.  We read “Buddy Bear Goes on Vacation” and described all the places Buddy Bear went such as the desert, ocean, jungle, forest, etc. We worked on sign language throughout the entire session.

Older 2’s
We began by reading “Polar Bear Polar Bear” and described several animals as well as actions.  We then read “Buddy Bear Goes on Vacation” and described places such as the forest, jungle, beach, desert, ocean, etc.  We also fed our talking baby shape cookies.  The children did a great job with the different shapes.  We also worked on a sharing activity in which the children requested a toy from their friends using at least 5-6 words. 

3’s and 4’s
  This week we focused primarily on phonemic awareness.  The children received a plate filled with shaving cream to practice their letters.  I made a sound and the children had to “write” the corresponding letter in the shaving cream.  Then we discussed words that began with specific sounds as well as came up with rhyming words.  Next we began blending sounds to make words.  We used the tabletop to make simple words and integrated several letters to make new words.  The children are going to have a great start to Kindergarten.  In the upcoming language groups I would like to continue the “Road to the Code” phonemic awareness program to continue sound blending. 
Have a great weekend. 
                       Stacy Torrence M.S. CCC-SLP

Reading Specialist:
On Tuesday, May 18th, an appropriate book for the rainy day was read a-loud, The Rainy Day,   by Anna Milbourne.  The Pre-kindergarteners used the literacy skill of letter knowledge to match the seven letters of the word “rainbow.”  Matching the letters also matched the seven colors to form a class rainbow! It may have been rainy outside, but it was beautifully bright inside!
Mrs. Edith Fisher

Class Notes:

The Pelican Class:

Monday started off being a very rainy day. We set up the tent to crawl threw and blew bubbles all around the room. Watching the rain fall down out over our window was fun too. We sang the Bumble Bee song and Good Morning to you during community meeting. Ashlyn and Keaton love playing with the animals so we dumped them out and counted them one at a time as we cleaned up. Playing with the puppets to make different sounds made everybody laugh. Making the sound “O” made everyone watch the shape of our mouth, some children tried to make their mouth the same shape. We thank you all for bringing your children to the picnic. It was so nice to see each of them perform. Enjoy your weekend and see you on Monday!

Ms. Sue

The Kangaroo Class:

This week the Kangaroos enjoyed playing with potting soil, fake bugs, fake flowers and hand shovels. We made ladybugs, drew a picture of our pets, colored a cat and drew a picture of ourselves. We pretended to go to school and ride the school bus. We lined up chairs in a row and pretended to drive. We talked about water reduction and ways that we can help, turning the water off while we brush our teeth for example. We worked on rolling balls and tumbling. The children especially enjoyed hotdog rolls. We played I Spy with my little eye and played can you do what I do. Have a great weekend.
-Ms. Jen

The Peacock Class:

Hello Peacock families and friends, this week in the Peacock class we had fun learning about farmers and farms. We talked about how farmers work with animals and plants. We discussed jobs that farmers have, for example feeding animals, taking care of animals and riding tractors. We were able to look through some of our classroom magazines to see pictures of real farms, farmland and farm animals! This week in our community meeting with the Bunny class, we had a lot of fun talking about bees and singing one of our favorite songs, “Baby Bumble Bee.” In our social awareness section this week, we have been learning our mommies and daddies first names, so if you hear your name come up, don’t be surprised because we are learning them in class. Fun, fun, fun in art this week with watercolors, finger-painting, coloring and tissue paper art! If ever any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to stop by! Thanks for all of your support at the family picnic! I hope everyone enjoyed the performance!

Ms. Lee

The Bunny Class:

Hello Bunny families! I hope everyone enjoyed our picnic last week. I would like to thank everyone for their participation and for making the picnic such a success. The Bunnies have been working very hard this week. We’ve been doing a lot of practice with our counting, especially in Spanish. We have become very good at counting all the way to 10. We’ve also been working on number recognition, numbers 1 to 3. Emily and Makayla love using Dora to help with our Spanish counting! During science this week we’ve been talking about all sorts of animals. We discussed the types of animals that could live on a farm and the types of animals that could live in your house. Martin, Elara and Nathan did a great job sorting farm animals and house pets! In language arts, we are continuing to discover poetry. All of the Bunnies have enjoyed listening to poems; Jake especially liked the ones that rhymed. During social awareness, we discovered Spanish culture. We learned about the different types of food, the different language and the different customs. For children’s humanities, we discovered the 3R’s- reduce, reuse, recycle. Addie and Conner enjoyed coming up with ideas for each us to do. Next week we will continue to discover ways to make our planet healthier! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! See you Monday!

Ms. Whitney

The Walrus Class:

The Walrus Class did a lot of fun activities this week! In language arts we read and learned about poetry and how words rhyme! In Science, we created our own adventure of imagination by discussing all sorts of animals and the sounds they make! In math, we played games and read counting books to help us with our blast off numbers one through ten and even made rocket ships! In social awareness, we focused on rules, teasing, and behavior to all friends! In art we made animal masks and put on a show for each other! We had a great new week in our new room! We created our very own class constitution that we are learning to follow!! Thanks for a great week!!

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Ann

The Rooster Class:

Thank you all for attending the family picnic. I hope everyone enjoyed the performance!
In language arts, we continued working with letter of the week “O.” We talked about words that contain the letter “O.” We brainstormed words that begin with “O” and illustrated our words. The Roosters enjoyed creating and acting a class story with finger puppets. In math/science this week, we discussed the value of a penny, nickel, dime and a quarter. Each child was given a coin and went shopping in our class store. We enjoyed a game of animal sort and count. On Friday the class made strawberry shortcakes. They made for a yummy snack! This week the Roosters were busy with social studies/social awareness. We talked about “what is a pet”? We discussed which animals would be a good pet and why. We voted for our favorite pet and graphed the results. For art, we continued with the pet theme. We cut hearts to make fish. We had fun lacing cat’s whiskers. The Roosters really enjoyed making cat and dog prints.
Please mark your calendars for June 9th at 11 A.M., we will be having our Pre-K Graduation. Enjoy your weekend!

Ms. Amanda and Ms. Sherri

School News and Notes:

Family Picnic:
We had a wonderful time at our Annual Family Picnic!! We would love to hear your feedback on the event. Did you like having it on Sunday instead of after school one day? Did you enjoy the program? Please give us your feedback via email or in person. We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

Water Park Update:
We are waiting on the fencing people to come and set up our fence again. Once that is complete we will open our playground and sprinkler park!! We will have a grand-ribbon-cutting-opening! As soon as we know when the fence will be up, we will let all of you know when that special day will be! Some parents had voice a concern about the concrete. We just wanted you to know that we have been working very closely with our licensing inspector and the concrete has been approved. A rubber or plastic surfacing is not a good surface, because it causes children to slip and fall. We used a rough texture on the surface to keep the children from slipping (but not too course that it would hurt their little feet). Once the concrete has settled and cured, we will be painting the concrete with concrete paint. This will not make the concrete slippery, but will add a little more color to the sprinkler area. Concrete paint is used at most water parks around the country! ACAC outdoor pool has the same type of surface for their baby pool area.

When the park is open, we will have a sprinkler day everyday of the week. This will allow ALL the children to be able to participate! For those parents who are not familiar with sprinkler day we would like to give a little more information: Each day the children will have a sprinkler play time to go out and play in the sprinklers. We ask that parents sunscreen their child and send them with a bathing suit and towel. Please label your child’s bathing suit and towel, so we make sure everyone has the right one. We will hang the bathing suits to dry during the week and send them home on Fridays to be washed. (If you would like to take the bathing suits each day that is perfectly fine too!)

Water Park Rules:
1. Please do not touch the sprinklers.
2. Please let a teacher turn on the water.
3. A teacher must be present at all times.
4. If the sprinklers are up, please leave the bikes parked along side of the building.
5. Use gentle hands and feet.
6. Use your walking feet.
7. Please put all the toys away before you leave.
8. Have FUN!
The water park is only open during school hours.

We will still have bike day and it will still take place in the parking lot. For those new parents who have never had a bike day, we block off the parking lot from cars and have the children bring their bikes to school on that day. Parents can bring the bike/tricycles and park them on the sides of our front porch.