We Made It! Week One

Hello All

Everyone made it through week one. By Thursday most of the tears stopped. We had our moments but everyone at some point or another focused on work. The playground is every ones favorite place at school. Water works are also very popular. The children are enjoying the freedom of using water when ever they want. Cleaning up is a new experience for some but others are very good at cleaning up for themselves and for others. Sharing is also working rather well. You may hear children saying "this is my work".

We began the day with our line time. It was short we sang a song and counted how many children where in our class. We will begin demonstrating how to use the materials in our classroom this week. The children will learn how all of the items are used and where they belong and how to put them away. At the end of the day we will be singing, dancing and reading a book and then enjoying some fresh air.

I hope that the week ended better for you then it may have began. Debi and I are enjoying our time with your children and we know that in time they will be asking when they will be going back to school.

7 days and counting

Hi All

Can you believe the school year is just about over. It seems like just yesterday that you and your children where crying as we walked them into school. But these days there is just a quick bye mom love you and the are off. I am so happy that they seem to enjoy coming into school. We enjoy having them with us. I hope to see you at the icecream social May 26th during class time. If you drop your children off in carpool and park come on down about 15 minutes into class so 8:45 for toddler 1, 11:00 for toddler 2 and 1:30 for toddler 3. You can take home your childs change of clothes bin on that day. If your child is joining us for either of the camps please be sure that the clothes are lightweight for summer. And that they still fit. Many of your children are much taller then they were at the beginning of the year.

We are hoping to have a visit from the fire department on the last day of school.

Have a good week.

Nancy

New Works and Lots of Art

Before Spring break I attended a class and was shown tons of great new items to put out in our art area. The kids have really enjoyed using them. I added water color paints to the art area. This item is so fun for the kids to use. They are confused at first because it is dry paint in a cake. I give them a small bowl and have them fill it to the line that is on the side. I show them how once they wet the brush the color will come off the cake and they can use it on the paper. They really seem to enjoy this type of painting. There is only one piece of paper out for them to use at a time so this work is special and usually will be sent home with them. I also added a black sheet of construction paper and chalk to the shelf. They are loving the white marks on the paper. Too bad this work wont last for too long but they have been trying it out. Stickers, pom poms, and small items are available for them to glue. I put the glue in a small cup and they are applying it with a small makeup brush. The control level for the kids is strong. They are using the the suppllies with purpose. It is such a great step from the spreading of paint everywhere that takes place at the beginning of the year.
We are working on letter recognition. The children are looking at letters and we are naming them and singing songs of words that start with the letters. We are trying to make learning letters fun. The letter sounds are being mentioned but it will be reinforced next year in preschool.

Earth Day is this Thursday and we will be planting and giving back to the earth. You are free to visit any time before our time together is up.

Keep checking for the date of our End of Year Ice Cream Social!!!!

Spring Break Week

Hi All

Sorry for the delay in posting but it is spring break. We had a great week working on our baskets and coloring eggs. The children really had fun gluing all of the paper on the milk cartons. Glue is such a fun thing for them to use. We had a spring tree out for the children to decorate and they seemed to really enjoy that. We put out a giant egg in our scrubbing bin. The kids really liked scrubbing the egg. It is large enough that 2 children where able to scrub it at the same time.

We had many visitors Spyro shared his mother, sister Maria and brother Peter with us and Dimitri shared his mother, sister Mariah and Dina with us too. The previous week Drew brought his brothers and mother with and Martin also shared is mother and brothers with us.

It was really amazing to see how careful and helpful the children were with all of the younger siblings in the room. Everyone wanted to help the younger children with the works in the classroom. It was really sweet to watch them as the grown up children in the room.

We really enjoyed having everyone visit. We will be scheduling a Ice Cream social in May as the weather warms up and as a send off for our students. I am so excited that so many of you have signed up for summer camp and cooking. Debi and I really enjoy working with your children.

Enjoy the rest of your Spring Break.

Ms. Nancy

Is Spring on the Way?

We really made the most of warmer weather we had last week. The sun made a debut and that was so welcome. On Tuesday we visited the East and West Classrooms. The children put their sticky glue on their hands and walked around looking at all of the exciting works on the shelves. For those who are coming back next year we made sure that they knew which room they would be in. I will be sure to try to introduce them all to their teachers for next year. I think they were all very excited about how big the other rooms were.
We had our yoga class in the "park" on Wednesday. The kids seemed to really enjoy it. We ended our class with a game of chase just to get out some of the extra energy we had. We had Charlie's dad in visit us on Wednesday. The children were so excited to have a dad in the room. Everyone seemed to gather around him as he read Charlie a book. It was so nice to see. Feel free to set up a time to come in and visit our classroom before the end of the year.
On Thursday all of the children allowed us to paint their hands for our blankets that will be available for your bidding pleasure at the auction this Friday night. We invited Sally to put her prints on the blankets too. The toddler class seems to be Sally's biggest fans.
In case we forgot to give you the note we need each child to bring in an empty clear gallon milk container, and a cardboard egg carton any size. We are also looking for any puzzle pieces so if you have puzzles with missing pieces we would love to take them.

Have a great week. See you Friday!!!!

Is It Cabin Fever?

I am not sure what is going on with the children. They all seem to have an unusual amount of energy. I know that my own children seem to need to run, run, run. We are trying to channel their energy by going outside and playing catch Ms.Nancy. We even extended Yoga a bit and made sure that our songs included a lot of movement as well.

We have started counting the number of children in our class. When we are finished with first line we have someone count how many children are on the line. Then we discuss who is missing from class. It has been interesting that they always know who isn't in school. It is funny to hear the places they think their friends are. Micheal was sick, home while his mom had a baby (she's not expecting), or on a Disney cruise. He was in fact on vacation. The one to one correspondence of counting is a difficult thing for children to grasp. I think that counting each other is a good visual way to get this concept. Everyone wants to try to count it is great.

We celebrated June's birthday on Tuesday. Everyone seemed to like to compare their birthday banners that they had made. We have had many birthdays recently.

The pre-school children will be out on a field trip so we will be taking a "field trip" into the preschool classrooms. We will have our first line in one room and read our book and dance in the other. This will allow the children to spend a little bit of time in the rooms that they may be in next year.

Ms.Debi and I want to thank everyone who signed up for our cooking class. We are very excited about it!

Till Next Week :)

Building a Snowman

Snow,Snow,Snow. Well I for one am over winter but instead of complaining I am trying to make sure we make the best of it. I want to thank all of the parents who make sure their children come to school ready to hit the snow. The kids really seem to like the few minutes we spend out there everyday. The days when the sun is shining the children almost don't want to go inside.
On Monday the kindergarten children and Ms.Ellen built a giant snowman in the playground. The toddlers were amazed by how big it was. They wanted to touch it and add some more arms to it. We built a tiny snowman of our own but it did not seem to last very long as the next group of children knocked it down. We had a couple of birthdays this week. Mohammad and Luke both turned 3. We had a fun time singing happy birthday to the boys. Please feel free to join our class on your child's birthday.
In yoga class we are pretending to be different animals. The children really love to be butterflies and fly to a new location. We encounter elephants, lions, and snakes. We grow as trees and our leaves fall to the ground and blow away. We also stars. We always end our practice with the Sally pose. We do downward dog, child's pose and put our hands to our hearts and say nameste. We have yoga every Wednesday.
We will be cooking this week pizza and guacamole. The children really love to cook for themselves. The eating seems to be way more important to some then the process but the process lets them know that food does not suddenly appear for them to eat. We are hoping to help them build a better understanding of what it takes to make a meal.
Our spring projects will begin soon. We hope to plant some flowers outside our windows. We will be asking for help planting and donations of bulbs and plants to make our view beautiful.

Have a great week. Oh Yes, remember the auction. Please come Ms. Debi and I will be manning the bar.