Voted #1 Daycare 2007, 2008, 2009

Voted #2 Daycare/Preschool Albemarle Family

BABBLE

March 26, 2010

Virginia Festival of the Book

What a huge success we had celebrating the Festival of the Book last week.  The children enjoyed an ice cream celebration and read many stories about Ice Cream.  All week we had Mystery Readers which included:  Officer Fried, Detective Underwood, Milkman Uncle Wayne, Mom Mandy Strider, News Broadcaster Mark Tenia, WVPT representative Brye Brown and State Farm Bear with Jean Harlow, NBC 29 sportscaster Jerry Miller.  We dressed as our favorite Fairytale characters on Thursday.  Friday we ended our week at school with Free Pizza for everyone and read Pete’s Pizza.  We joined the Mayor of Charlottesville on Saturday to march down Sesame Street.  The mayor declared the Downtown Mall as Sesame Street for the day (what fun).  We look forward to the celebration next year.

Parent Advisory

We had our quarterly meeting this week.  Thank you to Mandy, Becce, Nicole and Renata for taking the time to discuss items with Ms. PJ.  We were able to plan out many upcoming events, ideas for next years Virginia Festival of the Book, Fundraisers, Referrals, testimonials.  The parent advisory is a great way to be part of the day to day fun at Bright Beginnings Preschool.

Technology is great!  My computer is back.  But again I am still unable to activate cards at this time.  A virus attacked the Kantech system and wiped out the server.  ADT will be coming in one day next week to reset up the program.  I wanted to give a little history of the problem since it has been on going problem for a month.  The computer died in February during one of our snow storms. It was fixed then the ADT box went bad they finally arrived after ordering the box and getting here.  For one day everything worked (yeah).  Then the computer died again and it just was returned from the computer shop.  I am very sorry for the delay on getting access cards to new families and to families that have lost theirs.  Thank you for your patience and understanding that there is nothing I can do at this time.  As soon as everything is up and running I will access the cards for all families.

ENROLLING

We are busy enrolling for the fall.  Make sure you get your re-registration in for the 2010-11 school years so you don’t miss out!  The re-registration fee is $100.00.  It will be billed on March 29 to all accounts (except rising Kindergartners) you have until August 1 to pay.  But I strongly encourage paying to secure your spot. 

Were preparing for Kindergarten.  Here are some tips at home.

The Chameleons and Zebras have been hard at work preparing for Kindergarten in the fall. Here are a few things we have been doing and some ways you can practice them at home. We have been working on letter recognition and upper and lower case identification. Story time at home is a great way to improve these skills in a fun way. As you read to your child, point to a few letters and ask them if they can tell you if the letter is upper or lower case and the name of the letter. We have also been working on writing our names; a fun way to work on this at home could be to allow your child to practice writing their name in bubbles or shaving cream during bath time. Phonemic awareness is another skill we have been working on here at Bright Beginnings. This can also be practiced through story time at home. As you read with your child, ask them if they know the sounds the letters make. You may even want to ask for their help sounding out a few simple words. Counting is another skill we have been working to improve in our program. This can be done at home by counting a few objects or counting orally as you perform a few tasks, such as taking a bath, brushing teeth, etc. A few websites that may help supplement information included:

www.getsetforschool.com

The Pre-k Pals website

The Zeaner-Blozer website

Virginia Association of Early Childhood Educators (VAECE):

Ms. Mara and Ms. Kristin attended the Virginia Association of Early Childhood Educators (VAECE) conference in Richmond last week. Workshops were offered Friday and Saturday from 8am – 5pm. This year’s conference was called “The Power of Play”, which emphasized the importance of knowledge through play-based activities.

            The workshops Ms. Kristen attended included “Ready, Set, Sign” (using sign language to express emotion, as well as for transitions and phonics), “Activities in High Quality Programs, “Language Arts: Beyond the Worksheets”, and “Learning in it’s Natural Environment.” Favorites included “Handwriting through Music and Movement” from motivational speaker/author/musician Debbie Clement. During this workshop, teachers learned how to incorporate fun music and sign language into daily lessons while encouraging letter recognition and fine motor skills for handwriting. “Is it Play or Science?” taught teachers some fun new ways to investigate the world around us and “Benefits/Barriers to Block Play” emphasized that math, science, social skills, and language can be learned while building. Look for many new scientific experiments and block accessory boxes in Pre-K!

Monkey

This week in the monkey room we will be working on our language skills. We are practicing our flashcards daily. We are also practicing many new words from our “Big Word Book”. We have many exciting art projects planned for this week! We are going to be painting with yarn, using toy animals to make animal tracks with, doing shaving cream art, making noodle necklaces and potato prints! We plan to use the sensory table this week and talk  about the different textures of the noodles and rice. We are going to be making an indoor pond and we will be pretending to catch fish and other things you may find in a pond. We will be having puzzle time this week as well as time for building.

Giraffe

This week the Giraffes will be exploring animals and shapes. We will go over where certain animals live, what they eat and the sounds they make. The children will also go on a shape hunt, in and outside the classroom. They will use the sensory table to play hide seek of both animals and shapes. Our art activities will be related to both the above themes. We will also continue to practice for Family Picnic. The children also loved all the Crazy Hats, thank you!!

    I'm very sorry to keep repeating myself but I need to post the following:

    -all choking hazards need to be sliced in order for your child to eat it example-grapes, hot dogs, apples, pears, ....

    -popcorn CAN NOT be served to this age group

    -all children that are napping should have a top and bottom sheet.

I know your child may not need things sliced at home but the above rules are from licensing not Bright Beginnings.

Lion

This week the Lions are roaring about Spring! We have enjoyed nature walks and, outdoors observing the flowers we planted outside. The Lions continue to talk about circus animals as well by playing animal charades and singing “I Went to the Animal Fair. Our letter of the week is “S” like Sam and Snake. Ask us about Ss sounds and writing the letter S in our journals. We continue to count 1-10 in English and Spanish. We also have been practicing patterns with colors. We have had a great first week of Spring!

Elephant

This week we continued to practice the letter S and add to our word list. We talked all about the Spring weather and what happens in Spring (warmer weather, flowers growing, and more animals come out to play). We planted some flowers and took a nature walk, and made springtime art!

Tigers

This week the Tigers have been discussing animals and enjoying Crazy Hat Day on Wednesday. For Math this week the Tigers worked on number recognition by playing 1-2-3 Bingo and flashcards 1-20. The tigers discussed Triangles and for art made their own triangle out of glue and popcorn. The Tigers also made animal tracks, elephants, noodle necklaces and potato prints for art. The Tigers also enjoyed show and tell, community meeting, and a visit from the reading specialist this week. The Tigers would like to wish Asher and Arianna a Happy 4^th Birthday!!

Zebra

Our week was filled with lots of zoo fun! On Monday, we talked about our own zoo experiences and drew our favorite zoo animals. On Tuesday, we read zoo animal sight word cards – bat, elephant, lion, and snake to name a few. And yes – the children read them (how exciting!!). We used these cards to draw during animal charades. Black and white paint was made available to create zebras to hang in our room. Some of the other activities involved sorting animals in three categories: land, water, air. We used animal crackers in our graphing activity, talked about the words “attract” and “repel” when using magnets, and discovered some new sink and float items in the water tub. Dramatic play was encouraged by bringing the block center outside to create a zoo using plastic animals and plastic blocks. Our Language activities included a zoo trip class story, where we wrote the story first and then illustrated our ideas during art.

Chameleon

Our Polar Bears are here! In February we raised thirty dollars from pizza money that went toward the adoption of a Polar Bear! We received a certificate and two cuddly Polar Bear toys, a mommy and a baby. During circle time we voted on what we could name them. We chose to name the baby Lucky and the mommy Sparkles. Come check them out in our classroom! We have also been talking about Spring this week. We read the story, Skunk’s Spring Surprise, a story about a skunk whose friends surprise her when she wakes up from hibernation. We also worked on the letter S in our journals and with the word wall. We also wrote about clues that let us know it was Spring and the things we like to do in Spring. We also planned our own surprise party for skunk. For art we made blooming trees and noodle necklaces. We also planted an herb garden in our classroom and investigated seeds and pinecones in the Science center. For Math we worked on Shapes, measuring, and scientific reasoning. Wednesday was crazy hat day, and on Tuesday we had a visit from the reading specialist, MS. Fischer. She helped us create and illustrate alphabet books.

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.

Oral Motor Exercises to Try at Home


Here is a list of effective oral motor exercises you can practice with your toddler to get the muscles in the mouth strong and ready for all of those speech sounds.  I will be doing more oral motor exercises in upcoming language groups. 

Blowing Bubbles

This is a great exercise for breath control as well as pursing the lips.

Blow a Harmonica or Kazoo

Here is another great oral motor exercise for breath control and lip pursing, but with this one you get to make some noise!

Using a Straw

Practicing with a straw will obviously work on sucking skills; however it also involves pursing those lips again.

"Thin" liquids like water or apple juice are good starters.

As you progress you might want to try a "thicker" liquid like a milk shake.

The following oral motor exercises provide tactile stimulation. Tactile Stimulation refers to stimulating or "waking up" a muscle area by sense of touch.

Brushing

Using a toothbrush, brush the upper and lower lips. You can purchase toothbrushes with different levels of stiffness. Try to use different levels ranging from very soft to stiff.

Icing

Putting ice on the lips will certainly help "wake up" those muscles. You can use a plain ice cube for this exercise, but ice pops are easier to use and add some flavor as well.

Licking Ice Cream

Who wouldn't enjoy this activity? Put some ice cream in a cone and let it melt a little. Then practice using just your tongue (no lips) to lick the dripping ice cream.

• Songs can be used to teach new ­concepts and to introduce new ­vocabulary. 
• Songs give children the opportunity to explore adult roles. Children playing with dolls in a dramatic play area will sing lullabies to their dolls or hum while cleaning, emulating what they have seen their parents do. 
• Movement to music develops ­children’s awareness of their bodies and what they can do.  It can also help to develop feelings of self-confidence and fine motor skills.
• Listening to music can help teach children about the basic proper ties of music:  loud, soft, fast tempo, slow tempo, and pitch.  It can also lead to further creative expression.

Exchange Curriculum Resources