Speech Weekly Notes from Stacy Torrence:

Happy New Year! I’m excited to get back into the classroom and perform speech and language groups. These are some of the skills we will be working on this week.

Toddlers and young 2’s

We began by reading another “Noisy Story” to practice our speech sounds. We headed back to the zoo and worked on the following sounds /m/, /t/, /sh/, /s/, and /e/, /r/. We played with our pretend miniature kitchen and worked on the prepositions “in” and “out”. We fed a baby with the meals we prepared and focused on the signs “eat”, “drink”, “milk”, “finished”, and “more please”. We also used 3-4 word sentences and described what the baby was eating. Buddy Bear and Becca Bunny books were used to focus on sorting and prepositions.

Older 2’s

We also read also read the noisy story about the zoo and focused on several speech sounds. We also worked with our pretend kitchen and prepared meals for our hungry baby. We used 4-5 word sentences and described the foods the baby was drinking. To work on prepositions we used several manipulates such as a dog, table, house, bed, car, etc. We worked on the prepositions, “in, “on”, “under” and “in front”, “above”, and “below”. The children were asked to follow specific directions with several prepositions.

3’s and 4’s

We utilized our alphabet books and focused on phonemic awareness skills. We played sound bingo and thought of words that began with specific sounds. We stepped it up and focused on several prepositions this week. We worked on “in, “on”, “under”, “in front”, “behind”, “between”, and “beneath” while following multi-step directions.

Parent Tip: A dollhouse or any kind of house is a great way to work on prepositions and following multi step directions with your child. For example, “put the cookies in the oven”, “Put the dog under the table beside the bone”, or “put the baby in the crib”, etc.

Stacy Torrence M.S. CCC-SLP

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday and a Happy New Year! This week, we did a lot of reviewing of our colors, shapes, and sounds, animals, ABC’s, and much, much more! We had a lot of fun painting this week, and we were able to use different materials like, a sponge, a brush, and the bottom of a water bottle. The children also got some new books from the bookmobile. We learned about the letter “Hh,” and made a really cool “Hh” collage. The children and I pretended to have a snowball fight in the gross motor room. We used the pool of balls and tossed the balls into it. We had lots of fun with this activity! We went on a bear hunt and reviewed our body parts. We also made a snow fort using the blocks and the little people to play in the snow. This week was particularly exciting because we had a new friend join our Toddler Explorer Program named Lauren! We had a great week!

From Ms. Danielle and the Penguin Class

The Sea Turtle Class

Hi! Welcome back from a long break and Happy New Year! We want to welcome Lauren, our new Sea Turtle! This week was filled with many new activities. We learned about sizes and arranged objects from smallest to biggest.  The children also learned about red light and green light, and really enjoyed saying, “stop,” and “go.” The letter of the week was “Hh,” and they made their own collage using this letter. For art, we made stoplights, mittens, snowman puppets, and made some dots.  Have a great weekend and I will see you all on Monday!  

From Ms. Erin and the Sea Turtle Class

The Starfish Class

The Starfish have had an exciting week! We have been working on understanding the prepositions “in”, “out”, “on” and “under”; next week, we will try to incorporate “between”. In art, we made boot-stomp prints by stamping our painted soles—look on the cork strip in the hall for these beautiful pieces of art! The Starfish have been charged with decorating the Creativity Happens Board this month and we are excited for this task! We have traced our bodies and will be making snowmen/women out of ourselves. In science, we learned about hibernation—only bears’, so as not to be overwhelmed with all the animals that actually practice this technique. In the BB curriculum, January requires us to study size. We have made a height chart and will be measuring our heights weekly—will we grow that fast? Stay tuned! Additionally, we will make a daily effort to organize different objects by size—big, small, tall, and short, etc. Welcome back to all families!

From Ms. Victoria and the Starfish Class

The Seals Class

Hello again from the Seals! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! We are jumping back into school full swing. This week we did a cooking project. We reviewed our colors and ABC’s. Since we are in a new room we went over the rules again and practiced them. The children also practiced a rhyme, “Starlight Star Bright”.  We built with blocks and made a castle. The children enjoyed pretending they were ice fishing and pretending they were snowmen.

In art we played with shaving cream on the table. The children practiced using fine motor skills by drawing in the shaving cream. We created a mural using sponges in the shape of shoes. The children made mittens using construction paper. This also helped the children practice their fine motor skills and following directions. Since it is winter we made snowmen puppets. The last thing we did in art was making a snow picture with a seal and polar bear on it. The snowmen are hanging outside the door. Check them out!

Parents I want to remind you to bring back your child’s evaluations, signed, as soon as possible. Once I have them, we will make copies and you will receive a copy back. Thank you parents! I hope everyone has a great weekend! I will see you next week!

The Dolphin Class

This week the Dolphin class has sledded through the snow and so much more! We have done everything from talking about “H’s” to learning about jobs.

Since we are talking about jobs, it would be great to know what your jobs are. We will be continuing out jobs unit next week and will end the week by talking about parent’s jobs. At some point, please writing your job down and stick in your child’s cubby or stop me during pick up or drop off and let me know! Thanks a lot!

Speaking of jobs, it is one of my jobs to make sure things run smoothly at school. It helps out a lot when things run smoothly during lunch. Friday is our pizza day and in order to make enough pizza to and to give your child pizza, they need to be signed up every week. This is really important and helps things run much smoother, and the child does not get upset when they do not get pizza. Thanks for your cooperation!

In math, we learned about animals that hibernate, went over numbers and played a shape game.

In letter’s, we read a library book, made a list of “H” words, and found the first word and letter while reading our Sesame Street “H” book.

In art, we got to explore our new art kits. For two days we were able to have free art time and color with the markers, crayons, oil pastels and pencils! On Thursday, we had our music class with Ms. Melissa.

In social studies, we talked about jobs. One day we made a list of jobs and the other day we talked about what different people do in their jobs. On Wednesday, Ms. Stacy came and had speech class with us and we reviewed prepositions.

Thank you so much for your support and cooperation! I hope you have a great weekend!

Ms. Kimberly and the Dolphin Class

The Walrus Class

Hello and Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a great holiday and it is so great to have everyone back! The Walrus students continued working on counting and their letters this week by writing in their journals. The letter of the week was "Hh," and we practiced writing the letter, and writing the words "Hello," and "Hi." The word "hibernate" was a great "h" word for us to discuss. We talked about animals sleeping when the weather is cold because there is not enough food for them. It was also mentioned that food is what gives our bodies energy. When animals do not have enough food, it is important for them to preserve their energy. The children really understood this concept. The students made a great list of animals that hibernate and drew some incredible pictures of those animals. We also practiced writing our first and last names, while focusing on capital and lower case letters. The students enjoyed, "pick a card, any card," and making the letter sound that was on the card they picked. Prepositions were a big hit this week with Ms. Stacey. The students quickly grasped the concepts of, "behind," "beneath," "above," "beside," "under," "above," and so on...

Shaving cream art is always a hit and we decided to add some paint into the mix and paint a picture! The students did a great job on making their own mittens. This activity helped them with tracing, practicing cutting things out, and being creative by decorating them any way they wanted to. The children did a great job describing the differences between mittens and gloves.

The Walrus students love love love to build with things. This week we built with marshmallows and toothpicks! This was a huge hit and we were able to munch on our extra marshmallows!

We have started to learn about the countries, and this week we went over North America and Africa. The students paid special attention to the shapes, colors, and the letters of the countries that were on our World Map. The students accomplished a lot this week and I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Ryland and the Walrus Class