From the Directors Desk
Hi Everyone! Time really does fly when you are having fun!
Gung Hay Fat Choy! By now we all realize that means Happy Chinese New Year.
I loved the teacher's decorations and the preschool Chinese New Year parade.
The preschool had a wonderful Chinese luncheon and we thank Maggie for the delicious Lo Mein.
I hope the infant and toddler parents take the time to visit the preschool area, especially
during holiday and cultural events. I am very impressed with the children's art work and cultural curriculum.
We look forward to an exciting February celebrating Valentine's Day, Presidents’ Day and first, but
not last by any means, Groundhog Day. I hope we are not into another long winter! :)
This winter has been particularly tough predicting snowstorms. As frequently mentioned, we
do not follow the Boston Public School cancellations and may be opened even if area schools are closed.
If we are open, it is because we serve a population of V.A. essential workers.
Please use your own judgment and caution bringing your children out in unsafe weather conditions.
On another note...winter can be very fun outside and we enjoy the snow when weather permits us to
go outside. Please remember to have appropriate clothing available. Teachers have sent reminder notes
to parents asking for hats, gloves, boots, and snowsuits. We do try to get the children out daily for
fresh air and play. Another reminder to parents is to please make sure all of your child’s paperwork,
contact numbers, and medical documentation are up to date. Notes will be distributed to anyone in
need of an update.
Well, keep warm for now and keep your fingers crossed that Punxsutawney Phil does not see his shadow on
February 2nd! If you want more information about Groundhog Day you can visit www.groundhog.org.
Infant Room
The infants have been developing their age appropriate skills and our children continue to progress at
different rates.
Our main goal for the children is to help them develop a positive self-image and a lifelong love of learning
by lots of nurturing and individual attention coupled with a developmentally appropriate curriculum. By
doing so, we feel that the children will be motivated to explore and learn about themselves and the world
around them.
Please feel free to stop by at anytime to visit the infants with any ideas and/or concerns.
Younger Toddler Room
The Younger Toddler Room has had a lot of fun welcoming in the New Year. Everyone is back from their
vacations and the room is buzzing.
We saw plenty of snow this month and the children spent a good deal of time learning about it. The classroom became a winter wonderland with snowflakes and snowmen. The toddlers played with snow in the classroom and talked about how it was cold and wet. They really loved to explore the snow's texture. We also talked about snow plows and how they push the snow. Everyone got very excited when the plows were outside of our classroom. We talked about how they beep and have flashing lights. They loved to say "beep, beep" when they heard them outside. The children also played with oatmeal oats and pushed them around with trucks like the snow plows do.
Older Toddler Room
Hello from the Older Toddler Room! We have enjoyed this month's theme, "Winter Animals". The children have created animal habitats by creating collages with different colored pieces of paper and have made animals by making bingo dobber art, as well as painting with watercolors and tempera paint. The toddlers have read stories such as The Mitten, about different animals trying to find a warm home in winter, and deciding that a mitten is a nice place to live. We also read Annie and the Wild Animals, who loses her cat and gains many uninvited friends of the local wooded area. Our class also heard Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, which is about different animals you can find at the zoo, and the sound that they make.
For next month's theme, we will cover the theme "Feelings". We'll read books such as Chrysanthemum, which is about a little girl who learned to appreciate her name. Where the Wild Things Are shows how a boy learns how important it is to be nice to others. The toddlers will also read other stories, which talk about being happy, sad, and how to express this to others. We will paste together a heart collage, which we'll give to our parents to express caring and other positive emotions. The children will use red and white paper to make collages for Valentine's Day, as well as for Chinese New Year.
Lower Preschool Room
Snow is slippery, cold, wet, and a lot of fun to play in. These are a few concepts our Lower Preschoolers are learning from our January winter theme. They did a great job with our winter themed activities and have learned a lot.
We have also read several great books to go along with our theme: Snow by Uri Shulevitz, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack, and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear by Bill Martin and Eric Carle.
Next month's theme is going to be all about health and nutrition. We will be learning about how to care for our teeth and about the types of food that are good for our bodies and those that are not so good, and physical fitness
Middle Preschool Room
Hello from Middle Preschool!
What an exciting month January has been so far! We kicked off the beginning of the month learning all about winter. We read great classics like The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, which Robbie was very familiar with and a wonderful book called Snowballs which depicted the building of a snowman family using snow and items found around the house and kitchen such as string, strawberries, popcorn and many more things the kids had fun identifying. The children practiced their fine motor skills by cutting out their own paper snowflakes to hang from the ceiling. We had a discussion about the colors of winter and then made our own winter color paintings. Our class talked about our favorite winter activities and made a graph of the results, we even carried out one of the activities by drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows one day in class! It was a great unit and we had fun learning about the science behind snow and snowflakes.
Next, we are going to spend two weeks learning about everything in outer space. I'm very excited about this unit and I know the kids are as well. We even have a spaceship in our dramatic play area, complete with a "view" of the Earth and control panels! Our class is going to learn about everything that exists in space from planets, stars, the moon, comets, the sun, and the people who explore it - astronauts. Some of the activities we have planned include making our own constellations; movement activities such as pretending to be orbiting planets; toilet paper roll rocket ships; moon prints; writing our own space journals, which document an imaginary voyage into outer space; and many, many more wonderful activities to complement our curriculum. We are even going to have a "Planet Parade" where each student is assigned a planet or the sun. They will learn one identifying fact about their space object and we will go around to the classrooms at Small World to teach the other children some things about space. It should be informative for all those involved!
Upper Preschool Room
Hello from Upper Preschool! This month in our classroom we've been very busy! We began January with a Harold week by reading all the books from the Harold and the Purple Crayon series, including our own book, Upper-Pre and the Purple Crayon. This month we also spent a week learning about Arctic Animals. We had a Polar Bear Parade in our polar bear masks, played on our very own iceberg in the classroom, read books about animals in the Arctic, made "footprint walruses", listened to the sounds of the Arctic animals, played with ice cubes and toy Arctic animals at the sensory table, and made igloos for our Eskimo village.
For the remainder of the week, we learned about our own city, Boston! We had our own Boston Tea Party, made a Boston skyline for our classroom, had a "Boston Marathon" outside, listened to the Boston Pops, made our own Old Ironsides replica, and made signs to cheer on the Boston Celtics.
At the end of January and extending into February we will be learning about China and preparing for the Chinese New Year. We'll be slowly building our Chinese Dragon for our parade, making lanterns and garlands, tasting Chinese food, making windsocks, writing Chinese characters, learning basic Chinese words, listening to Chinese music, and making our own Great Wall of China.
We are having a lot of fun in Upper Preschool thanks to the support of our parents. I hope everyone is staying warm and enjoying the snow!
Notes from the Music Teacher
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! This past month has been a lot of fun! We have been doing a lot of singing and dancing as well as making some cool instruments. We've even started playing on the keyboard! In keeping with this month's general winter theme, we sang a song to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It" where we brainstormed all the items of clothing we need to put on before going out to play in the snow. We sang the song and pretended to put on our hats, mittens, coats, etc.
For a fun art activity, we made kazoos out of toilet paper rolls! Everyone decorated a roll and then I showed them how wrapping wax paper poked with holes around one end of the tube created a silly buzzing sound when air is blown in. We had a lot of fun and needless to say, preschool was very loud that day!
As I mentioned earlier, I've been bringing the keyboard into music class. It's been really fun watching everyone tinker on the keys. I color coded the keys and labeled them with the note letter names and it was amazing how quickly they picked up on matching notes at different octaves and even playing scales! I wrote out the C Major scale in the different colors and everyone was able to "read" the music! We also learned about the "musical alphabet".
In honor of the Chinese New Year, we will be doing some great activities involving traditional Chinese music. We will be singing Chinese New Year songs, listening to lots of music, and learning about traditional Chinese instruments. Also, I am still collecting paper towel rolls (and even any wrapping paper rolls you might still have!) for our rain-stick activity. Keep an eye out for new homemade instruments as well as songs from other places like China, Mexico, and Australia!
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