BRIGHT 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
434-823-7129
1645 Park Ridge Drive