BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL
Experienced Quality Child Care Since 1984
Millcreek Newsletter
April 2, 2010
Upcoming Events:
Thursday and Friday, April 8th and 9th Closed Completely for Spring Break
Tuesday, April 13th Cupcake Decorating Contest!
Wednesday, April 21st Staff Appreciation Day
Friday, April 23rd Children’s Night Out, Singing in the Rain!
School News and Notes:
We had so much fun here at Bright Beginnings this week. As a reminder, the pickup time for half day students is 12:30. Anyone picked up afterward without prior approval will be subject to a late fee. Also, do not forget to sign up for the next CNO, Friday, April23rd, "Singing in the Rain." The Cupcake Decorating Contest will be held on April 13th, so be sure to watch your child's classroom door for decoration signup sheet. It is going to be great! Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the great, but hot weather!
Financial Memo:
Re-registration Fees have been charged for the 2010-2011 school year. This fee is charged at this time to allow our current families first priority. The spring is a busy time for us showing prospective families to our school and want to make sure that your child's spot is reserved before we sell the spot to someone else.
Word of Mouth works! Referring a friend or co-worker who enrolls 5-days fulltime will benefit you with a Free Week! (You may refer as many friends as you wish.) Free week applies only to currently enrolled families.
All families must provide us with a valid Visa or MasterCard number before your child’s start date. Any late fees or outstanding balances will be charged to credit card after the 30th of the month.
Speech Weekly
Bubble Play for Early Sound Development
Bubbles are always a big favorite with infants, toddlers and preschoolers. The kids absolutely love bubbles and I often bring them out for the last few minutes of a language group. The older kids think it's a reward and will work well with the promise of bubbles. I love them for several reasons. If the child is old enough, I have them practice blowing the bubbles as part of the activity. This works on oral motor strength and coordination. I use bubbles to encourage sign and gesture usage for "more," "please," "done," "bye," "yes," etc. I use related words to encourage all early developing sounds such as /h,p,b,d,m,n,w/. Some bubble play related words are: bubble, more, up, bye-bye, pop, done, please, gone, blow, wow, uh-oh, high, yes, no.
When blowing bubbles with the child...use the key words repeatedly. For example: "Look....bubble..up-up-up...bye-bye bubble....pop-pop-pop...." "More bubble...pop-pop-pop....all gone..." "More bubble...uh-oh...pop-pop-pop...." "Bubble...wow!....up-up-up... uh-oh...pop!" "Wow...high bubble....bye-bye." This is also a chance to ask questions of your child and encourage responses either verbally or with gestures. Ask child "Do you want more?" Encourage them to use head gesture for "Yes," sign for "More" or use words if they are able to say "more" or "more bubble." So get those bubbles out and have fun! The learning opportunities are endless.
Stacy Torrence M.S. CCC-SLP
Reading Weekly
On Tuesday, March 23rd, the book My Crayons Talk, by Patricia Hubbard, was read to facilitate a discussion of how colors are used by illustrators to help the reader understand more fully the meaning of the story. The students then used visual literacy skills to help them better understand and appreciate two paintings. Children who can orally communicate what they visually see or observe are developing language skills that will transfer into writing skills in Elementary school.
Edith H. Fisher
Penguins
Wow! What a week we had. Let me tell you about it. In class, we talked more about spring, animals, our colors, shapes, and did some counting. We used our counting turtles for counting and sorting. We talked about Easter and Bunnies. For art this week, we made a paper Easter basket, painted a paper Easter egg and put tissue paper on it, colored an Easter bunny and then put cotton balls on it. We also made some clouds by using white paint and sky blue construction paper. We read some great books too. The Amazing Animal Alphabet book was a great one to help us with our letters, and It’s Spring was perfect to help us discuss more about the spring season. The children played in the boat in the gross motor room, pretended to bake a cake using real spoons and bowls! We were able to watch a groundhog from the playground, birds, people walking their dogs, and talked about all the beautiful flowers that are blooming on the trees. Please do not forget that we are closed on the 8th and 9th, as well as remembering to put on sunscreen before coming to school. If it needs to be reapplied, please let us know. Have a wonderful weekend.
Ms. Danielle
Sea Turtles
Hello and welcome back! We want to welcome Lincoln to our class, our newest Sea Turtle. This week, the Sea Turtles got into the Easter spirit. We read, Still Tilly and the Easter Bunny. They learned about dying eggs, an Easter egg hunt, and about the Easter Bunny. For at, we made stamp art, made a chick, bunny ears, decorated our own Easter egg, and made bunny masks! For our cooking project this week, we made jello jelly beans, which were fun and tasty. Parents- We will be closed on April 8th and 9th for Spring Break. Have a great and safe Easter weekend! See you all on Monday!
Ms. Erin
Seals
Hello again from the seals! This week was another fun filled week. We had a cooking project this week. Since it is spring we made pretzel butterflies. The children took pretzels, cream cheese and pineapple and made the butterfly. Then we also went over sequence from that cooking project using sequence cards for the cooking project. The children had to put them in order of what we did first to last. Tuesday I had to attend. The children had fun anyway without me. Thank you parents for your understanding and patience on Tuesday!
During our lesson time we talked about sequence of events after we did our cooking project. Since it is spring we talked about some of the signs of spring and sang a song about spring. We also talked about insects. The children also reviewed their ABC, opposites, and patterns. We talked about the import ants of recycling. Also the children played a matching game where they had to match the number to the representation to the number.
In art we decorated pictures of baskets with foam stickers and crayons. The foam stickers they placed on the baskets all related to spring. We made clouds with shaving cream, glue and paint. We also made bunnies using construction paper and cotton balls. The children painted with finger paints using pastel colors. We also made a spring collage using picture of things happening in spring. For example we used flowers, birds in nests, green leaves on trees, bees, butterflies, green grass, etc. This gives the children ideas about what happens in spring.
I hope everyone had a great week! See you next week! Dates to remember: We will be closed April 8th and April 9th due to spring break.
Ms. Cheri
Dolphin
This week, the Dolphin class had an egg-cellent time doing all sorts of fun things! We did everything from an egg hunt to an “A” scavenger hunt, to egg dying, to learning about Zambia! We had tons of fun!
Next Thursday and Friday is Spring Break! In order to keep your child somewhat in a school mood and to continue to work on skills we are learning at school, this would be a great time to do some activities with them! You could pull out a book and read, find letters that you’ve hidden, flip over numbers and identify them, or think up fun games on your own!
In math/science, we experimented with potatoes, talked about and graphed our favorite things for spring, talked about how to clean an oil spill for Project Green, went on an egg hunt and counted our eggs, and talked about fewer or more with unifix cubes.
In letter’s, we learned the nursery rhyme, “Little Jack Horner,” wrote “A’s” on our easel, did activities with letters, searched for “A’s” in our room, and talked about the beginning of the story.
In art, we painted baskets, painted with pastels, made clouds with paint, created cotton ball bunnies, and died eggs.
In social studies, we learned about Zambia, found it on the map, learned some Zambian, looked at the flag and saw pictures of what they eat and drink.
In humanities, we prepared our garden, made up a play, blew bubbles, made edible bird’s nests for our Cooking Project, and created spring collages!
We will see you next week! We can’t wait for all the fun! Have a great weekend!
Ms. Kimberly
Walrus
The signs of spring are definitely here, and the Walrus group made sure to review what those signs were this week. Everything is starting to bloom around us and it’s great to see the excitement on the children’s faces! It is time for us to start planting some things in the garden! Our letter this week was “Aa.” After we made our list of words, I had the children go over the list again throughout the week. They were able to recognize all of the words, and really read them! I was definitely impressed. We continued writing in our journals, and even tried spelling words ourselves by sounding them out. Our ready reader this week was called, “Red Hens.” Please go over this and practice reading with your children!
We made some great art this week. Our basket art turned out really well and we were able to put some great items in them! Please check them out in the hall way. The pastel paints of spring, also turned out really well. We added lots of white to make them pastel looking. Because it is bunny season, we tried to see how many cotton balls we could fit on our bunnies!
Our discussions were great this week too. We talked about cooperation and fairness, and in order to cooperate and be fair to one another, we need to share and make sure we are following school rules. Another topic was what’s the difference between a frog and a toad? Who has slimy skin and who has dry skin?
The students collected some more great items for our nature centers, and had a great time with their friends outside. Have a wonderful weekend and be on the lookout for the upcoming events and activities.
Ms. Ryland
434-823-7129
1645 Park Ridge Drive