Mill CreekBright Beginnings Mill Creek is located 1.5 miles from the Charlottesville downtown mall and close to Monticello High School, Cale Elementary and the University of Virginia. This location has a Children’s Garden and a large Nature Trail that runs the length of the 2.5 acre property. The preschool is located near the popular sub-divisions of Mill Creek, Mill Creek South, Foxcroft, Lake Renovia, Redfields and Mosby Mountain as well as condominium neighborhoods including Lakeside and Stoney Creek. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Friday, 12 February 2010 17:23
Newsletter February 12thBRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984 Millcreek Newsletter February 5, 2010 School News and Notes This week was short but fun here at Bright Beginnings! Sorry for the inconvenience of any delays or closings that we had this week. We will be closed Monday, February 15th for staff training. The Grandparent’s/Special Friends Day was rescheduled for Wednesday, February 17th due to the weather and delay. Upcoming Events: Wednesday, February 17th – Grandparent’s and Special Friends February 15th – Closed completely for Staff Development and Training Tuesday, February 16th – Parent Advisory Committee Meeting at 5pm Friday, February 19th – Children’s Night Out “Celebrate Diversity” Thursday, February 25th – Staff Appreciation Day Financial Memo Weekly and bi-weekly payments are due by the close of business on Mondays. Late charges will be applied to accounts on Tuesday if payment is not received. If you forget your pass card to enter the building, please remember to sign your child in or out at the front desk. Earn a free week! Refer a friend or coworker and if they enroll you will receive a free week's tuition. Laura Tomaine Executive Director/CFO Class Notes Sea Turtle Hello there again! This week was fun and exciting. We learned about Valentine’s Day! We also made more Valentine art, which we all love to make. Thank you to all the parents for making our Valentine Day parties a success! For art we made Valentine cards, finger painted and painted hearts! What a week! Parents, we have rescheduled our Grandparent’s Day brunch for Wednesday February 17th at 10:00 am. Also, we will be closed on Monday February 15th for our staff training. Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day weekend, see you on Tuesday! Ms. Erin
Penguin This was a short but fun week in the Penguin Class. We really enjoyed our Valentine Day parties! Thank you for everyone’s help with the snacks and treats. We did lots of reviewing at circle time. We reviewed our colors, numbers, ABC's, shapes a lots more! For arts and crafts, we made our mailbox bags, colored hearts, made heart prints using cookie cutters, and heart shaped stamps. We made happy faces and played a heart matching game. We talked about our bodies and teeth, looked at ourselves in the mirror and asked, "Who do you see?" We had puzzle time and did lots of exercising as well. Yes, we made this week a great week. Thanks again for helping out the toddlers’ class with the parties! Ms. Danielle Starfish The Starfish have had a wonderful week! During her last visit, Ms. Stacey encouraged the practice of sequencing. Ordering three pictures is a great pre-reading skill, an excellent fine motor activity for those little neurons, and, above all, a lot of fun! The Starfish love the pictures, the fun names given to the characters and the accompanying stories; we cannot wait until Ms. Stacey visits again to show her the progress we have made! On our “Math Their Way” curriculum, we are directed to explore problem solving—this is a fantastic mandate as problem solving is everywhere for this age group. In each activity where there is a challenge, the Starfish are problem solving: does this puzzle piece go here? How can I build a big tower without it falling over? How can we both use this toy? In art, we have had a busy week. We crafted adorable Valentine bear-hug cards for our parents, colored Valentine cards for our classmates and painted beautiful orchid cards for our special friends. The latter introduced a new way of painting—simply dusting with dry paint rather than painting with wet. We also incorporated the other aspect of “Math Their Way” by creating mirror-image finger-paintings. The Valentine collages we made are beautiful—please check them out in our hallway. On Thursday, we played with our own heart “patterns”. We found where our heartbeat is located in our chests, felt it beat as we sat still and saw that jumping around generated a faster, harder “pattern”. Ask you Starfish to show you where in his or her body they can feel a “thump, thump”. We also made snow melt—pouring hot water over a bucket of snow was like magic! Instead of graphing height and boys and girls, we discussed who is tallest, shortest and counted (good practice) how many boys and girls were in our class. Finally, in both humanities and social studies/science, we got to practice some different forms of exercising! As a yoga enthusiast and runner myself, I love to impart the value of endorphins! We learned how to do jumping jacks (a favorite), have done lots of yoga, pretended to be bicycles, sang action songs and, of course, have done heaps of dancing and running around. J Thank you to the parents who brought in party items for our Valentine’s Day festivities. Our book of the week is No, David! by David Shannon. Cheers from the Starfish! Ms. Victoria Hello again from the Seal room! We had a lot of fun this week! The children did last minute preparations for grandparent’s day and special friend’s day. This week we learned a new rhyme and finger play. We also reviewed rules, ABC’s, shapes, and colors. We talked about things we love. The children told me what they loved and I wrote them down. Some of the skills we practiced this week were listening, following directions, colors, walking in a line, ABC’s, counting, and manners. This week we also had our Valentine’s Day parties and handed our Valentine’s to our classmates. This has been a fun but full week! Thank you to everyone for bringing in supplies for the parties this week. The children had a ball. In art we made our gifts for our grandparent’s or special friend’s and made mailboxes for Valentine’s Day. The children pretended they were delivering mail to their friend’s mailboxes. We made valentine cards for the child to give out to someone in their family. The children made heart necklaces and heart crowns. To celebrate Valentine’s Day the children made a collage of hearts. For gross motor we pretended we did the chicken dance and other dances. We marched to the beat of the music and played follow the leader. We exercised and practiced hitting the ball with our hand to our friends. When we had time we went on a bear hunt around the room. Parents I wanted to remind you we will be CLOSED for staff training on Monday February 15, 2010. This is a reminder, if there is bad weather and we are closed or delayed there will be a message posted on our website detailing so. Have a great weekend and see you next week! Ms. Cheri Dolphin This week, the Dolphin Class did a lot of lovin’! We looked at heart patterns, made Valentine’s Cards, decorated our Valentine’s mailboxes and learned about Liberia. We had so much fun! Kids love playing and often times they get messy or forget to go potty and have an accident. Please make sure your child has seasonally appropriate extra clothes! I have put all the bags under the microwave to conserve space but I will leave a note if they need more clothes. Also, even if your child rarely has accidents, it is still good to leave at least one extra set of clothes in case they spill. Often times, children are standing when they have accidents, so please put socks in as well and if they have an extra pair of shoes, that is helpful as well, but not necessary! Thanks so much for your help with this! In math, we talked about what we love, and a chart of our heights, talking about the use of windmills to reduce carbon dioxide for Project Green, did some heart patterns, and matched some hearts. In letter’s time, we focused on the letter “R” again this week. We read a story and talked about the characters, had reading time with Ms. Fisher, wrote in our journals, hunted for the letter “R” in our class and learned a nursery rhyme! In art, we decorated our mailboxes, painted with red, did Happy Face art, made Heart “H’s,” and put together a Valentine’s Day collage. In social studies, we had a unit on Liberia. We talked about it being in Africa, found it on the map, learned about Liberian languages, talked about similarities and differences between the Liberian and African flag, and talked about Liberian food and dress. In humanities, we made Valentine’s cards, did yoga poses, and stretched our muscles! We had a great week, and our parties were fantastic! Thanks so much for all or your help! Ms. Kimberly
This was a bit of a short week for the Walrus crew, but we still had a blast. We were able to make our mailboxes for our valentine's, make happy faces with paint, and do some work for our portfolios! The students did a great job recognizing lower case letters and some of their numbers. Since counting by tens is a breeze for the children now, we are going to focus more on recognizing our "teen" numbers next week! We had a great time matching heart patterns, and being creative during free art! As we discussed dental health, I was surprised on how many students liked the dentist! Some of the toothpaste flavors that the children have had are banana, cherry, and princess flavored. The Walrus Class also reminded me of the great game of musical chairs and we had so much fun! The class really showed great sportsmanship during this game. I think everyone was happy that we had a shorter week because our Valentine's Day parties came quickly! Thank you so much to everyone who brought in goodies and valentines for all of our friends! Just as a reminder, Grandparents/Special Friend's Day was rescheduled for Wednesday, February 17th. Have a wonderful weekend! Ms. Ryland
Monday, 08 February 2010 17:27
Newsletter February 5thBRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL Millcreek Newsletter
Wondering about school closing? Check the voicemail of your school’s location for any cancelations or delays.
Wednesday, February 10th – Grandparent’s and Special Friends Day/Sweetheart Brunch Financial Memo: Tell a Friend-If you refer a family that enrolls you are eligible for a free week. You will receive a credit on your account after the referred family has been at Bright Beginnings for a month. Thanks for your referrals! Need to extend your day? Need to add a day to your schedule? No problem! We offer Drop in care for currently enrolled families. See your director for these additional services. Executive Director/CFO Class Notes
Welcome back! This week we got to explore about winter. We learned about snow and animals in winter. The children also sorted pasta of different sizes. We played in the water table, which was a lot of fun! For our cooking project, we made heart shaped sugar cookies! For art this week, we made string art, glitter art, Valentine hearts, we painted, and we made our own Valentine bags! Parents, please sign up for our Valentine parties on February 11th and 12th. The sign up sheet is on the door. Also, do not forget about Grandparent’s Day on February 10th at 10 am. Have a great weekend! Ms. Erin
Welcome Aaron! We are thrilled to have a new student in our class and each starfish has been welcoming and warm. Our week together was a bit short but we were productive nonetheless. Ordering pictures, sequencing, is a great exercise for the mind. Using a variety of stories, we are practicing "frist," "second," and "last." We have also been working on our counting, and with the help of elmo flashcards, we are getting really good! In ar, we made a spinning-foot painting to follow-up last month's "Art in Motion" theme. To celebrate the hard to quanitfy rich diversity in our world, we made Africa-feet flags. For Speicial Peron's Day, we made love-bugs- be sure to give one to your Grandparents or speical person. we have done lots o yoga. Thank you parents for making "Book of the Week," a success! The current book of the week is, "No, David!" Cheers from the Starfish! Ms. Victoria
Hello again from the Seal room! We had a lot of fun this week! The children are gearing up for grandparent’s day and special friend’s day. It will be held February 10, 2010. Please sign your child’s grandparent or special friend that is coming so we know how many presents to make for each child to give. You may sign up outside the door. This week we learned a couple of new songs and a new rhyme. We also reviewed rules, ABC’s, and colors. The children got to do an experiment with shadows. We learned about the letter R and what makes certain colors. We did this by watching how two different colors mix together in water. Some of the skills we practiced this week were; listening, following directions, colors, walking in a line, ABC’s, counting, and manners. In art we made groundhog puppets this helped them practice their fine motor skills and following direction skills. They also used their imagination and created a beautiful picture made out of sting and glue. The children decorated a house picture with flowers. They glued the fake flowers on the picture. We also made our invitations for the grandparent’s and special friend’s day. The children made heart people. They put eyes, mouth, arms and legs on a heart. It was great fun! For gross motor we pretended we were on an obstacle course, where the children walked on their tippy toes, jumped and crawled through it. Since there was real snow outside, we played with pretend snow (cotton balls) inside the room. We also played follow the leader and danced the day away. Some of the days we could go outside so we did exercise to get the children’s blood pumping and spend some of the buildup energy. The children loved doing exercises. Parents I wanted to remind you we will be CLOSED for staff training on Monday February 15, 2010. We will have our valentine’s parties Thursday and Friday (Feb 11 and Feb 12). On February 12 we will also be handing out valentines. Here is a list of the children in our class: Heba, Emma, Piper, Gregory, Gabrielle, Naomi, Joshua, and, Logan. If you are going to bring valentines for your child to pass out please bring enough for every child to get one. Have a great weekend everyone! See you next week for more fun! Ms. Cheri
This week, the Dolphin Class was ready to learn all sorts of things! We looked at ourselves in mirrors, read our “R” book, made groundhog puppets, learned about Groundhogs Day, and had a yummy cooking project! We are looking forward to Valentine’s celebrations next week! Valentine’s week is a great time filled with parties, singing, and gift/card exchanges. Just as a reminder, we are handing out Valentine’s on Friday. I will be out of school Thursday and Friday, but I will leave detailed plans with the sub! Another party that is always fun is the Grandparents/Special Friend’s Day! The Grandparents/Special Friends will have a special snack with the kids in the room. The kids will perform songs, and hand out homemade gifts! In order to prepare for the gifts, we need to know who is coming, so please make sure you sign up your child’s sweetheart! In math/science, we went ice fishing, and counted our ice, matched mittens, talked about using natural gases to reduce carbon dioxide for Project Green, looked at ourselves and other things in a mirror, and graphed the boys and girls in our class. In letter’s time, we read books and talked about beginning letters and sounds of the first word. We also read our Sesame Street “R” book, had speech with Ms. Stacey, and practiced our easel “R’s.” In art, we painted watercolors, made our Grandparents/Special Friend’s Day gifts, made groundhog puppets, had music class with Ms. Melissa, and decorated our mailboxes for our Valentine’s! In social studies, we talked about what happens on Groundhog’s Day, learned about the special groundhog that determines it, found out if he saw his shadow, discovered the history of Groundhog’s Day, and then reviewed. In humanities, we were not able to play freeze tag or regular tag because of the snow. However, we played with puzzles, made yum yum crackers for our cooking project, and had some free play! Overall we had a fantastic week! We cannot wait for our Valentine’s Day parties! Ms. Kimberly
The Walrus Class really did some wonderful things this week. We have started back up on writing our numbers and once we get to number ten, I will make it into a book. The students have counted to a hundred and backwards from twenty before, but this week we focused on counting by tens. The letter of the week was “r” and after we wrote up a long list of “r” words, we wrote four of them in our journals. Some of the words written were road, race, roll, rabbit, and rain. To acknowledge Groundhog’s Day, we made puppets and they turned out so cute! We took a brown paper bag, cut out oval eyes, round ears to put on the sides, a round nose, and gave it lots of fur by cutting short and long strands of brown construction paper. We had some great pictures to look at to help us along the way. The students did some more cutting and pasting and made pig houses! They loved their birdhouses so much; we decided to make some houses for pigs! After they put all the detail they wanted in their outdoor scene, we cut out a few pictures of pigs and placed them in their homes. We got some new puzzles in our room, which are much harder than some of our other ones, and the students had no problem mastering them. It was amazing to watch them put them together. We have been finding other ways to get our energy out during the day since we cannot go outside. You may find us in the Octopus room playing around with the parachute, doing some exercises to help get our hearts pumping, or stringing boards and making shapes with a partner. The Walrus team is continuing to learn new things everyday and finding new ways to challenge our selves. Thank you for all of the support! Ms. Ryland
Monday, 01 February 2010 15:58
Newsletter, January 29th BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL
School News and Notes: Please do not forget to sign up for Grandparents/Special Friend’s Day next week! The Valentine Day Parties start on the 11th and 12th, and there will be a sign up sheet to bring in goodies, so keep your eyes open for it! We always welcome new parents to our Parent Advisory. The Parent Advisory helps plan and implements new activities throughout the year. There will be a sign up sheet in the front office if there is anyone interested to join the team! Have a great weekend!
Upcoming Events: Friday, February 5th- Children’s Night out “Sweethearts Ball” Wednesday, February 10th- Grandparent’s and Special Friends Day! Thursday and Friday, February 11th & 12th- Valentine’s Day Parties! Monday February 15th – Closed completely for Staff Development and Training Financial Memo: February tuition is due by January 30th to avoid late charges. Simply your life with Automatic Credit Card payments for tuition. Complete an authorization form and we'll take care of the rest! Our Federal Tax ID # is: 54-1529854
Speech Weekly Notes from Stacy Torrence:
Hello everyone, and welcome back! This was a great week for the Penguins. We did finger painting, marble painting, free art, and have been working really hard on our gifts for our Grandparents or Special Friend’s Day! Do not forget to sign up to let us know how many people will be coming. It will be on February 10th, at 10:00 am. We also read some really nice books like, The Puddle , by David McPhail, which was about a little boy who went out after it rained to sail his boat. This was a great one to read because of all the rain we just had, and it was definitely a class favorite. We reviewed the letter “Nn” by naming things in the room that started with “Nn,” and incorporating activities that started with that letter like “noodle art.” We also pretended to be different animals by getting down on the floor, crawling around, and making sounds. We worked on building a wall with the blocks, then finding different ways to knock it down. We did a lot of rolling into it, and falling on to the wall. We had a fun week. Remember to check cubbies and day notes daily.
Ms. Danielle
Nice to see you all! This week we have learned more about the letter “Nn.” We have also learned more about sharing! They had fun learning about “up and down” by raising their hands up and by touching the ground. We are also getting ready for Grandparents Day and we have started to pick out a couple of songs, make decorations, and the invitations! Grandparents and Special Friend’s Day is on Wednesday, February 10th, at 10:00 am. We encourage all of you to come and have a wonderful time. Please see the signup sheet on the door. It has been a fun week, see you all on Monday!
Ms. Erin
What a great week the Starfish have had as we continue to dance our way through these dreary winter days! Our class could not be fuller of energy and passion. We sing, we dance and we laugh. A lot. In lieu of our African flags banner, we will be making a continent of Africa banner to celebrate the rich, diverse and impossible-to-finitely-capture history the United States shares with that and other parts of the world. We will make this banner on Thursday or Friday using our feet. It will be great--look for it in the hall. In other art, we painted with both bananas and ice! We are a creative class and will continue to generate art that exhibits movement with our "spinning-painting" on Friday. As we paint our feet and make slow-motion spinning footprints across mural paper, we will make something "moving" and beautiful to fill our walls! In science, we learned about magnets and will go back to them throughout the week so that we can really be amazed by how incorporated magnetism is in the world. We played with magnets to see how they attract their opposite poles and repel their like forces. We used the same magnets to pick up paper clips and further learn that metal objects held by a magnet do themselves become polarized and hold magnetic property. Science is great as, without the complicated explanations, it can appear to children as magical. This illusory component was not lost on the Starfish as we pulled iron (invisible black specks (wow!)) out of sand with our magnets. Beyond magnetism, we also learned about static in the gross motor by rubbing the balls against our hair and making it stand on end! In literature, we have successfully kick-started a Book of the Week program. The children appreciate the positive-reinforcement for their behavior in front of their peers at lunch, and I know parents find the program a good opportunity to bond. Please look for our wonderful art and check your day-notes to see the books we have been reading....and do not forget to sign up for Grandparents or Special Person Day on February 10th, 2010 (see flyer posted on the door outside of our classroom). Until next week, may the "forces" be with you--both magnetic and electrostatic. :) Cheers. Ms. Victoria
Hello again from the Seals! We had a lot more fun this week and learned a lot of cool things. We reviewed the prepositions; on, between, under, behind, and in front. We were introduced to this by Ms. Stacy the speech teacher. The children learned a new finger play called Houses. The children practiced their shapes, colors and ABC’s. We also practiced counting by counting the number of times we could do jumping jacks. During gross motor time we played follow the leader. The children pretended they were; lions, tigers and bears, oh my! During this time we also danced and played with our cotton ball snow. Also when we had time we went on a bear hunt. The child loved going on bear hunt around the classroom. Outside when the weather was nice we played red light green light, did races and did free play. In Art we painted with bananas. Yes I know, it sounds silly but the children loved it! They took unpeeled bananas and used them as paint brushes and drew with them on black paper. We used blue, green and pink paint. The children loved how when they mixed the colors; blue and pink it turned into purple. We also painted with kool aid and ice cubes. The children also went into the night sky to catch a shooting star to place in our room. We decorated them with glitter and sequence. Since it is the winter season we made trees using our hands. Then glued cotton on it to make it look like it was covered in snow. The children have been working on their numbers so we made their very own counting book. Thanks for another great week Seals! Keep up the good work! Have a great weekend. See everyone next week! Ms. Cheri
This week, the Dolphin Class is thinking about winter! We did mitten matching, ice painting, ice experiments, and talked about our favorite things to wear in winter! We had a fantastic time and we even got to do it all inside where it is warm! As you know Valentine’s Day is coming up and lots of things are happening around Bright Beginnings to celebrate! On February 10th, we are having our Grandparents/Special Friend’s Day. We will be singing some songs, presenting some special gifts, and eating special food (grandparents only). Please make sure you sign up your child’s sweetheart up on the door so we can make a gift for them! The two days after that (February 11th and 12th) will be our Valentine’s parties. We will be making mailboxes using shoeboxes in order to deliver our Valentine’s to our friends. Please bring a shoebox! In art, we made our invitations for our Special Friends Day (they will be coming home soon!), painted with bananas, rubbed ice on kool-aid to make cool pictures, made shooting stars, and made a counting book for our classroom! In math, we discussed what our favorite thing is to wear in winter, did an experiment with ice and salt, talked about energy efficiency in the bedroom, graphed what we like to do outside, and matched mittens. In letter’s time, we read lots of books while talking about directionality and picture vs. print, did easel “N’s,” and wrote in journals. In children’s humanities, we did balancing skills, played games in our extra room, pinned the nose on our snowman, made snow sculptures, and had some free play! In social studies, we did a unit on Ghana. We touched on the idea of slavery because a lot of slaves came from Ghana, and talked about how they were not nice to the slaves and the slaves were not equal. We tied it to our unit about Martin Luther King Jr. We also found Ghana on the map, talked about the language, looked at the flag and saw pictures of their food and dress! We had some great fun and we are looking forward to next week! Ms. Kimberly
Hello! January is over and we are ready for February! For this last week, the students were able to do some sequencing from largest to smallest with different objects around the room. We had a great discussion on how to ask a friend for something that they want (toys), and also ways that person who has the toy can respond back to their friend. We had an ice experiment and the students predicted whether the ice would melt faster in a cold bowl of water or a warm bowl of water. The predictions were about 50 50, but they enjoyed feeling and seeing the ice melt before their eyes. For Project Green we talked about earthquakes and what happens when there is an earthquake. Some of the students were aware of the earthquake in Haiti. We still worked with the letter “Nn,” and we wrote “nice,” and “neighbor” in our journals. Everyone loved working with the letter books that Ms. Stacey gave to us, which helps us a lot with our letter sounds and our vocab. The parachute was introduced this week, and it was a huge hit. It helped everyone with working together as a class. Everyone should have received some information about the Grandparents and Special Friend’s Day. We are really looking forward to it and hope everyone can make it! The students have already started memorizing their songs, and made great invitations. I hope everyone has a great week, and we are looking forward to the events to come!
Ms. Ryland
Friday, 22 January 2010 15:55
Newsletter January 22nd BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL School News and Notes: It was a cold and rainy week here at Bright Beginnings, but that did not stop us from having a great time! The staff kept the children busy this week and everyone did a wonderful job. Keep it up! Please remember to bring in sheets and blankets on Mondays. Noses are still running, and teachers may be running low on tissues. Please ask your teacher if she needs some more tissues to share with the class, or just bring in a box! Have a wonderful weekend! Upcoming Events:
Friday, February 5th- Children’s Night out “Sweethearts Ball” Wednesday, February 10th- Grandparent’s and Special Friends Day! Thursday and Friday, February 11th & 12th- Valentine’s Day Parties! Monday February 15th – Closed completely for Staff Development and Training Financial Memo: Year end statements for 2009 have been printed and placed in your child's cubby. Please note that the Federal Tax ID # is located at the bottom of the page. Payments for lunch, drop in, and late pick up are due at the time of service. Laura Tomaine Executive Director/CFO
Speech Weekly Notes from Stacy Torrence: The following are skills we worked on this week. The children had a great time and I was very pleased to see the children progressing with their language skills. I was also impressed to enter several classrooms and the teachers discussing the language skills they were addressing from our last language session. Toddlers and young 2’s We began by working with manipulatives to focus on simple prepositions (in, on, under, in front). The children were asked to place an object in the correct position as well as tell me where the object was placed. We then read “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” and worked with our Velcro pieces to help tell the story. Finally Becca Bunny came to visit and we discussed feelings and made happy, angry, sad, surprised, proud, etc. faces. Older 2’s We reviewed prepositions, “in, “on”, “under” and “in front”, “behind”, and “between” using manipulative. The children did a great job! We also read “The Old Who Swallowed a Fly” with the flannel board. The children had a help tell the story when it was their turn. Becca Bunny was used to address feelings. We also began simple sequencing (first, second, last). We will continue sequencing in upcoming weeks. 3’s and 4’s We utilized our alphabet books and focused on phonemic awareness skills. We reviewed several prepositions this week. We reviewed “in, “on”, “under”, “in front”, “behind”, “between”, “above”, “below”, and “beneath” while following multi-step directions. We also read “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” and the children helped tell the story by placing the Velcro pieces on the board as well as telling their friends their part of the story. Sequencing was also addressed. We will do more sequencing in the upcoming weeks. The phonics ladder was also used to find words that began with specific sounds. Stacy Torrence M.S. CCC-SLP Penguin
This was a wonderful week. We had lots of fun talking about cold weather and snow. We also did some sorting of big and small things. For art, we made snowflakes, dot art, a big and small circle collage, free art, a shapes collage, and lots more! We played lots of cool games, as well as a lot of singing and dancing. We learned how to dance to the music then freeze when it stopped. This helps the children with their listening skills and body control. The children really enjoyed playing doctor this week, and we let everyone have a turn wearing the doctor’s coat! We had a lot of fun this week and everyone is doing a great job! Sea Turtle Hello again! This week we have learned more about winter. We have learned about animals that hibernate and winter weather. We enjoyed making a snow storm out of cotton balls. We also learned about the letter “Nn.” Their favorite word was “no.” We read, A Winter Day, which is one of my favorite books. For art this week, we made BIG and small art, dot art, painted the letter “Nn,” and we made masks! Have a wonderful weekend and see you on Monday! Ms. Erin Starfish The Starfish have had another great week. The fun culminated with the making of pinecone birdfeeders on Thursday. It was fun to get messy and we all loved to watch the birds eat our creations! In math, we have been focusing on two things: 1) counting and; 2) size. Counting bears and our calendar stickers helped us this week to practice the former and sorting blocks by big and small with the latter. In literature, we have been reading the books that we chose from the book mobile. We made illustrations to go along with "Ladybug at Orchard Avenue" -- paper plate ladybug puppets. This book was chosen to help teach us about hibernation--ladybugs, like other animals we have been learning about, i.e., bears, go to sleep when the weather gets cold. All of our science lessons this week had the overarching theme of cold weather animal adaptations. Orchard Avenue taught us that ladybugs sleep and our birdfeeders were accompanied by a lesson on migration--birds that do choose to stay in cold weather climates can have a difficult time finding food and our efforts to feed them contribute to their overall survival. The Starfish love art and highlights from this week include the dot paintings we made as well as the feather masks. As we work towards finally (!) finishing our alphabet books, we paper-matched the letter "N" for newspaper and learned the order of colors in the rainbow for "R". Please look for our banner of flags from different African countries as we celebrate diversity! The book the "New Girl" has helped us to understand that we are all different and learning about another's differences enriches our being. Ask your child about the book with the iguana and what they learned. A final note from this week, we have perfected the fire-drill line! We are ready to go in an emergent situation or a walk down the hall--we have become great liner-uppers! Cheers from the Starfish. Ms. Victoria Hello again from the Seals. I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! This week we did a lot of fun activities and learned some cool things. We talked about our dreams and when we dream. I wrote down their thoughts on the subject. We learned about the differences between something big and something that is small. We practiced making an educated guess as what as under the blanket. The children also reviewed and practice their colors, numbers, shapes, rules, and abc’s . We also learned about what things start with N. We also had a visit from the book mobile and had a fire drill. For art we used the skills of fine motor, listening, following directions and colors. In art we tried to make a dot picture using Q-tip, but the children had other ideas. The children had fun that was the main thing. We also made cookie cutter snowmen, by dipping the cookie cutter in white paint. The children made snowflakes again but this time they put sequence on them to make them sparkle. Towards the end of the week we made two different kinds of masks. This week we also pretended we were towing a boat and sang songs. The children went outside and played. We practiced throwing and catching a ball. In addition to the children played in pretended snow and made snow angels. Outside the children played in the real snow. We also danced and played follow the leader. I hope everyone had fun this week. Have a great weekend! I will see you next week for more fun activities. Ms. Cheri Dolphin
This week, the Dolphin Class slipped and zipped in to all sorts of fun activities! We did everything from talking about dreams, making headdress masks, talking about the letter “N,” and discussing Martin Luther King Jr.! We had loads of fun! Coming up in a few weeks, we will be having our Valentine’s celebrations! In order for kids to be able to collect, we are going to make mail boxes! Please bring a shoebox for your child by February 5th so we can decorate them! Thanks so much! This time of year is a sniffly, sneezy, coughy time! Kids use a lot of tissues, which is why we have run out! It would be great if you could bring in a box to be shared by the classroom! Thanks! In math, we did big vs. small, made our dreams for next week, talking about energy efficiency in the bathroom for Project Green, talking about same vs. different, and compared different things by more or less and longer or shorter. In letter’s time, we did read alouds and talking about sounds, made a list of “N” words, had speech class with Ms. Stacy, and read our “N” book. In art, we mad headdress masks, used Q-tips to make dot art, decorated drums, had music class with Ms. Melissa, and painted with water colors. In social studies, we talked about Martin Luther King Jr, went on a freedom march, read a book about MLK’s life, listened to part of his “I Have a Dream” speech, and looked at his picture. It has been a crazy, fun-filled week, and we are looking forward to next week! Ms. Kimberly Walrus
This week was jammed pack with activities and we had our usual visitors, Ms. Stacey, Ms. Melissa, and the amazing book mobile friends that visited us! The children were able to practice prepositions, sing fun new songs, and pick out any book they wanted. We started off the week learning about Martin Luther King Jr. and what his dream was which brought up a discussion about our dreams. There were dreams of going to kindergarten, seeing little ponies, bears, and an upside down helicopter! It was important for the kids to recognize that all of the dreams were different but they were all good ones! The students are able to locate four of the seven continents on our world map- North America, South America, Africa, and Europe! The children are able to find them by looking at the first letter of the continent, the color of it, or the shape. Our letter this week was “Nn.” We made a list of “Nn” words and chose a word off the list to write in our journals. The title of our Ready Reader was “Rabbit Can Knit.” Please practice reading it and have them point to the words as they read them aloud. The Walrus’ have made their own musical instruments before, but this week we focused on the African Drum. We looked at pictures and the steps it takes to make a drum. Masks were another big hit this week. After looking at photos of some of the elaborate headdresses they have in Africa, we decided to make our own. I am so impressed with the children each day, and I am looking forward to the weeks to come! Ms. Ryland Discussion Questions and Answers from the Walrus Class What are African Drums made of? Wood- Quin Plastic- Jennifer Sticks- Vivi Little balls on the stick so they can boom!- Virginia There are zig zags around the sides- Zach Cardboard- Ryan L. A pan- Tiana
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