Thank you Dolphin, Octopus, and Walrus parents for turning in your field trip permission forms and payment! If you have not turned this in please do so by October 16th at the latest! Ms. Kimberly is organizing our field trip so feel free to turn in your payment to her or the front desk.
A couple of reminders:

• We will be able to reschedule if it is raining the morning of the field trip
• Parents, if you will be joining us, please turn in a check/cash payment of $6.50 for both your child and yourself.
• Please let us know if you will be able to volunteer to drive!

We are all very excited about this trip, it’s going to be a lot of fun!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Upcoming Events:
October 9th: Children’s Night Out – “Stop, Drop, and Roll”
October 15th and 16th: School Pictures at Mill Creek
October 21st: Carter’s Mountain field trip for the Dolphin, Octopus, and Walrus classes
October 29th and 30th – Halloween Celebrations!!!

Financial News:
Please return the contract addendum regarding sunscreen to your director as soon as possible. After consulting with our licensing inspector, we decided to not apply sunscreen during the summer months.

Tuition is due by the 30th of each month. Per our recent change in the due date for tuition, credit cards will be charged automatically for past due balances on the 1st..

Speech Weekly Notes
Why use a daily visual schedule?  

As teachers or parents working with children we often assume the child “knows” the daily schedule.  Do they really know?  Visual schedules have been implemented in all classrooms this week.  There are many benefits for using visual schedules with younger children. A visual schedule:

• provides structure and predictability
• makes abstract time concepts, such as “later”, “next”, or “last”, more concrete.
• can be used to learn new vocabulary & language concepts.
• helps the child with unexpected changes in the regular schedule.
• helps the child transition from one activity to the next.
• increases independence
• teaches the importance of organization.
• provides a point of reference for children with a poor attention span.

Here is an example:

Once the children are done with the task at hand they will be asked to go to the schedule, remove the picture, and place it in the “finished bucket”.   Be sure to check out your children’s schedule in the classrooms.

UPDATES:

Flu Season:

For current information on the H1N1 virus please consult the CDC website:  http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/.

This Week at Bright Beginnings Mill Creek:
Penguin and Sea Turtle Classes:
Hi everyone and welcome back! We have had a lot of fun and excitement since it is now October! This week we learned about the letter “Vv” and words that begin with the letter “V.” We pretended to work at a wood working shop. Everyone got to be a carpenter! Everyone loved our autumn seed safari! The weather is starting to change no so we talked about hot and cold temperatures. For art this week we made family portraits, toothbrush paintings where we used pastel colors, a red collage, and cotton ball painting. We also enjoyed coloring a fire engine and we pretended to be firefighters that day! We have also started with our Halloween skits which will be tons of fun! Until next time!
-Ms. Danielle and Ms. Erin

Starfish Class:
The starfish have been celebrating the fall! We’ve made jack-o-lanterns, leaf collages, and we’ve walked on the nature trail to find red, yellow, orange, brown, and green leaves. We used cotton balls and paint to make bats and plates to make spiders. Our cubist-style scarecrows helped us review squares and rectangles. We used a water table to understand that trash doesn’t belong in the water. On Friday, we will be learning all about fire safety. The Starfish love yoga and are thrilled to sing and dance every morning – they particularly like to “shake their sillies out!” Please see our combined poster with the seals from the day we made pudding!
-Ms. Victoria

Seals Classes:
Hello again from the Seal class! This week we have been doing some really fun activities. We have pretended we were in a rainforest, at an aquarium, in the mountains, in a desert, and we were pirates on a ship!  We talked about fireman and fire safety. Seals are still doing a great job on their manners at snack and lunch time. Keep it up Seals! Great job Heba for sharing your book with Piper!

We have been working on letter V and reviewing some of the letters we have learned. We read “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything“ and talked about what we were afraid of. To go along with that we also drew pictures about what we were scared of. The children and I also discussed”what makes us smile.”  This week we also had the Book Mobile visit us! The children got to pick out books for us to read in the classroom. 
In math and science we sorted blocks and counted them. When we were doing this we also reviewed colors. We have also sorted animals. I helped them made leaf TicTacToe boards and reviewed/ introduced them how to play. We did a fun activity where the children were weighed and their weights were graphed. For Project Green we went on a safari to look for fall plants and signs of fall.

In art we did some fun but messy activities. We painted with forks and cotton balls. The children got to experiment with the texture of shaving cream, which they all loved! We also played with playdough a couple of times and practiced cutting the dough up with popsicle sticks.  Using red objects we made a collage. The children drew their families using markers. Finally we also made fire trucks.

Parents, if you haven’t already done so, please check out the pictures of the Seals and Starfish cooking that are posted in the hall. In the room there are also pictures posted from when the Seals made playdough. They are on the door by the cubbies.  Hope everyone had a great week! Have fun this weekend! See everyone next week! Bye!
-Ms. Cheri

Dolphin Class:
This week has been packed with fantastic, fun-filled activities! We’ve done toothbrush art and paitned fire engines. We dove into seed exploration and weighing ourselves. We jumped into learning the letter “V.” We also explored Japan! In preschool, we are always learning to adapt and change!

This week, we have decided to enhance our schedule a bit for our outside time. This change will allow for more individual time with the children and more organized activities. We have decided to create two outside times for the morning and the afternoon. The children will be split into two groups that will rotate each week. While one group is outside the other group will be inside working on fun activities with Ms. Kimberly so that she can give each child more individual attention. Since making this change we have moved our morning meeting time to 9:00 am. This is a very important part of our day that the children really enjoy. If possible please try to drop off before 9! I look forward to seeing everyone!

In art, we made toothbrush and cotton ball paintings, made family portraits, formed red collages and made fire engine art. In math, we had a cutting table, made a chart about when we smile, had a seed safari, weighed ourselves and learned/talked about firefighters! In letter’s time we had a read-aloud and found pictures, and talked about which way to read (left to right!). We also made a “V” chart of words that begin with the letter “V” and wrote in journals. In social studies, we learned about the island Japan. We found it on the map, learned about the food and the clothes that are worn there. We also talked about the jobs we do in our families!

Overall, we had a great week! I really encourage all of you to participate in Children’s Night Out when they come up! They are lots of fun and a great night to have to yourself! 
-Ms. Kimberly and the Dolphin Class


Octopus Class:
Hello again, Octopus Parents!
We had another wonderful week here in the octopus class. October is such an exciting time – the beginning of fall colors and weather, apple picking, and especially Halloween! We have been preparing for all three in our classroom! The Octopus class is in charge of the front Lobby’s Creativity Happen board for the month of October. Be sure to stop and take a peek!

Our Carter’s Mountain field trip is fast approaching. It is on Wednesday, October 21st from 9-12:30. Please pack your child’s lunch with picnic appropriate food as we will hopefully be eating up on the mountain! Also, we are still in need of parent drivers and chaperones for the trip. If you are able to volunteer please sign up with Ms. Kimberly or Ms. Casey (or when you turn in your permission form!).

On October 29th and 30th we will be having Halloween Celebrations that include costume parades and special Halloween songs!

See you all on Monday!
-Ms. Bonnie

Walrus
Bonjour from the Walrus Class!! The second week of October was a blast! The students did a great job remembering how to do math problems and which signs are used in addition and subtraction problems (plus sign, minus sign, and an equal sign). Also that the answer goes behind the equal sign! We continued to recycle at lunch this week so we have enough containers to make our own instruments! The Walrus class has talked about their fears before but this week we decided to draw them, which was great to see. Some students were afraid of the dark, zombies, air planes, slimy aliens, and some were not afraid of anything! Sometimes it is easy to see when kids are happy or not, but it was important for the Walrus' to acknowledge for themselves what makes them smile and happy!! It can be big things like gifts or the small things like hugs and kisses before parents leave the school.  It was also important for the students to recognize the jobs that people do at home.  We discussed their chores and ways they help out around the house, as well as the jobs that their family members do and how thankful we are. Our letter of the week was "V," but we also practiced a lot on the sounds that our speech teacher Ms. Stacy suggested that we personally should work on.  The Walrus students used many different materials this week in art to produce pictures like painting with forks, painting with cotton balls, using only red objects for a collage, and drawing a fire truck with crayons! We also practiced with scissors to help with their cutting skills! It was a great week, and there are only more great things to come.   Thank you and au revoir from Ms. Ryland and the Walrus Class