BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL

Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984

www.brightbeginningsva.com

Mill Creek Newsletter
January 15, 2010

School News and Notes

We had a wonderful week here at Bright Beginnings! As more and more snow begins to melt, the students will be spending a lot more time outdoors. Please make sure your child has the appropriate attire for playing outside and a change of clothes. Be on the lookout for the signup sheets for Children’s Night Out. They are taped to the front desk. It is every other Friday with a different theme each time. Do not forget that the scholastic orders are due this Wednesday, January 20. If ordering online, please sign in as “parent,” the user name is “MsKimberly” and the password is “dolphin.” Pay close attention when typing “MsKimberly,” there is no period after “Ms.” Also, please make sure that your child’s finger nails are trimmed, especially for the younger ones when learning to share and taking turns. This will help prevent those little scratches on themselves and others. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and thank you for all your support!    

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, January 16^th – Book Fair at Barnes and Noble!

Friday, January 22^nd – Children’s Night Out

“Winter Solstice”

Tuesday, January 26^th – Chili Cook Off!

Financial Memo:

Security Card Replacement Fee:  A $30.00 fee will be assessed for each replacement card.  You may purchase an extra card for grandparents, sitters or nannies for $5.00.  Accounts will be charged $30.00 per card if not returned upon termination.

 Late fees will be assessed to accounts that are past due. Monthly payments are due by the 30th of each month. Weekly and Bi-Weekly payments are due by the close of business on Mondays.

Laura Tomaine
Executive Director/CFO

Speech Weekly Notes from Stacy Torrence:

Help Promote Speech and Language Skills at an Early Age 

The following are ten ways you can nurture the five different areas of speech and language development in typically developing infants and toddlers.

Social Language

1) Eye contact. When communicating with your child, look at his or her face and eyes as often as possible. This helps your child learn that it is appropriate to look at people during communication. Children learn a lot about you through facial expressions and acquire articulation skills by watching the movement of your mouth.

2) Taking turns. Talk to your child and then pause to give them a moment to verbalize. This teaches them the art of turn taking.

Expressive Language

3) Give your child space. When your child is trying to communicate with you and you know what they want, give them a few seconds before you instantly meet their needs. This will give them the opportunity to vocalize (coo and babble), point, or attempt a word.

4) Give your child choices and then let them express their choice by pointing, vocalizing, or attempting words. The feelings of confidence a child gains by expressing their own choice are building blocks for further exploration of expressive language.

Receptive Language

5) Get your child to follow instructions. Start with simple requests that only involve one element, such as "smile" or "kiss." Then increase to two elements when one element becomes easy for your child (i.e. "Hand up," or "Touch your nose," and so on).

6) Read simple books to your child with one or two pictures on each page. Ask them questions that can be answered verbally or by pointing to the correct picture. Try not to put too much pressure on them. If your child does not respond after about 10 or 15 seconds, model the answer for them with a positive tone of voice.

Vocabulary Development

7) Reinforce and demonstrate. If your child produces a verbal attempt that resembles a word, praise them with a pleasant tone of voice and then model the word that you think they attempted. For example, if the child says "ba" for ball, say "You said ball. Yes, it is a ball!"

Articulation

9) Observe how often other people understand your child's speech. This will give you an idea of how clear his or her articulation really is (parents usually understand their children more than an outside listener).

10) Articulate your words clearly when you communicate with your child. Speak slowly and remember to look directly at your child's face.

Child Development Notes from Ms. Brittany Veith:

http://www.naeyc.org/files/tyc/file/Children's%20books%20on%20friendship.pdf

Penguin Class

This week in the Penguins' Class, we learned about birds, made a bird feeder, colored snowflakes, we did some "snow storm art," finger painted and q-tip art. We also played in the water table with the water toys. We pretended to make snow angels, and learned a new "movement song," which we added each child's name to. They loved it! We also reviewed our colors, shapes, ABC's, and counted using our counting turtles and did some sorting by color. We also had a new friend join our Penguin Class, Sebatian!  We had a cooking project this week. We made chex mix! Yummy! That is what the Penguins' were busy doing this week. Remember to read your day notes to learn more about your child's day and upcoming events. Thank You!

Ms. Danielle

Sea Turtle

Welcome back! I want to welcome Camilia, our new Sea Turtle to our classroom. This week we enjoyed reading many different books. From Cinderella to Are You My Mother? We also learned about combining paints together from making orange and purple. Also we are learning more about sharing. For art, we painted with cotton balls, had free art, made our names with glitter, made snow flakes, created our own class snowman, and colored some candles. Since the snow has not melted, our class combines with the Penguin Class and we exercise, dance, and do morning stretches. Have a great weekend and see you on Monday!

From Ms. Erin

Starfish

The Starfish have had a great week. In honor of Martin Luther King Day, January has been named African American Appreciation month in our curriculum. From Morocco, Africa, we made khasma hands which are generally made from tinfoil, are quite decorative and symbolize good luck. Next week, among other related crafts, we will string together the flags of different African countries. In keeping with Ms. Stacey's lesson and our goals from last week, we have worked on our prepositions and introduced the words "between" and "over". Each Starfish has done very well at demonstrating an understanding of these words. In literature, we have been reading a lot, as always, and have focused this week, particularly, on Nursery Rhymes. We are putting together a book (to be finished on Monday) with our own illustrations to some of our favorites. In art, there has been nothing but action, action, action! Aside from the life-size snowman puppets hanging on the Creativity Happens Board, we have been using objects to create art that exhibits motion. The textures created with paint by rolling marbles, splattering toothbrushes, stomping boots or slapping hands have generated the element of movement in our images; art is an active process and that action can linger long after the work is complete. In science, we have been learning about animals in the winter. In particular, we have learned that while some birds migrate, others stay in colder climates. It is extra important that we feed these non-migratory bird species as it is otherwise hard for them to find the food they need for energy. Later in the month, we will be making bird-feeders for this purpose. In math, we have continued to learn about size and have been regularly sorting objects into things that are "bigger", "biggest", "smaller", "smallest" and "same". Please check the growth chart on the backside of the door to see any changes in growth over the last week! Cheers from the Starfish. Have a good weekend.

Seals Class

Hello again from the Seals! We had another fun week of activities. This week the Seals were back in the kitchen making something yummy! We made muffins! The children helped mix them up and sang songs while they baked. 

We worked on a number of skills this week. We worked on sorting things from a grocery bag. The children sorted the food into piles that we drink and eat. The Seals reviewed our rules again. We talked about birds in winter, conserving water and power. We also reviewed our colors and numbers. We did some fine motor activities as well as some gross motor activities.

 In art we used the skills of fine motor, following directions, listening, sharing and waiting for our turn. We made cups of hot coco made of construction paper. Then we glued hot coco mix to the paper cup.  Since it is the season of winter we made snowflakes and snowmen. We also did finger painting with white paint. The snowmen are being put on the door. They have the children’s picture on them. Check them out!

For Gross motor we sang a movement song. This practices the gross motor of standing up, reaching up on our tippy toes and sitting back down. We also practiced walking slow and fast.  We played in cotton snow and made snow angels! The children had so much fun. To get some of their energy burned up we also went on a bear hunt around the room. The children had a ball!

I hope everyone had a great week. Have a great weekend everyone! I will see you next week for more fun activities. 

Dolphin Class

This week, the Dolphin Class soared through lots of interesting activities like making pinecone bird feeders, fishing for ice cubes, writing H's on our easel, and learning about mom and dad's jobs. We also did lots of book reading, which the kids loved!

A great way to promote literacy and learning is to be reading at home. What better way to do that than online through our Scholastic book orders? You can go onto www.scholastic.com/clubsordering. Click on "Parent." The user name is MsKimberly and the password is dolphin. Our school gets a free book coupon every time someone orders online! If you do not feel comfortable ordering online, there are paper copies up in the front of the school. Happy ordering!

In math, we talked about birds migrating, went ice fishing, learned about energy efficiency in the kitchen, and played Bingo!

In letter's time, we read books and found the "h" words as well as summarized the stories. We also wrote "H's" on the easel, wrote in our journals, and learned out nursery rhyme of the week, Jack Be Nimble.

In art, we colored snow with q-tips and watched it melt to make pretty colors, made frosted window panes, created snowy hand-print trees, made class snowmen with our pictures on the bottom, and made pine-cone bird feeders with soy nut butter.

In social studies, we talked about jobs kids and parents do at home, discussed where different people work, matched certain tools to their jobs, matched uniforms to their jobs, and played a game to learn what jobs our parents do.

Overall, we had a fantastic week and we are looking forward to next week! See you then!

Ms. Kimberly

Walrus Class

The Walrus students' did an amazing job this week. We discussed the types of birds that we see in the winter and why it is important for us to leave bird seed out for them. The children voted on which winter bird they liked the best and we made an addition problem out of it, and added up all the votes to see how many students we had that day. For art, the students then made their own bird houses out of scrap paper. I gave them a pencil, scissors, and some glue, and they went to town. They were able to draw what they wanted first on the scrap pieces of construction paper, and then cut and paste. The students were so creative with this project and they turned our amazing. Please check them out on the cork strip outside or our classroom, and pay special attention to the details.

 We made a great cocoa recipe as a group and some of our ingredients were marshmallows, chocolate sugar or bars, milk, a pot, a microwave or oven, and a sink to help us clean the dishes afterwards. We all really wanted a cup after talking about it! Even though we did not make cocoa, we did make triple berry muffins for our cooking project! The students enjoyed seeing all the colors inside the muffins.

We still worked on "h" words and wrote more in our journals! Our Ready Reader this week was called "Make It." Please go over it and see how much your child remembers.

The Walrus Class has done a great job finding Africa and North America on our World Map, and they all understand that we live in North America. The next country we will be finding is South America.

The children have done a fantastic job this week and we are excited for the weeks to come!

Thanks for all of the support.

Ms. Ryland