April News: Week of April 18

Travel Policy reminder:

As per CDC and local health department guidelines. We are asking that all UNVACCINATED children traveling outside our immediate region (NY, NJ, PA, CT, and DE) for longer than 24 hours should self-quarantine and follow the guidelines below:

• Get tested with a PCR test 3-5 days after returning from travel, with day 0 being the day you arrive back in NJ. Stay home and self-quarantine for a full 5 days after travel. Returning to school on day 6.
• If you do not wish to test you will need to self-quarantine for 10 days after return (day 0). Returning to school on day 11.

Children who are fully vaccinated may attend school the day after they return provided, they are symptom free, and a vaccination card is presented or on file at Sproutilings.

If you are planning on travelling outside of the United States, please speak to administration for guidance on travel policies.

Peapods

Peapods I

The Peapods had another great week. We welcomed Ms. Kristina. We are so happy having her join us! We have been busy moving the cribs and our playing with cars all around the room. We also discovered that we can pass toys through the cut-out in the shelf. Some of us are trying really hard to walk. We’re getting a step or two down. Pretty soon we will be walking all around just like our current walking friend. We also continue perfecting our block building. We are stacking our blocks all around our room. Ms. Kristina read One Rainy Day by Tammi Salzano and Ms. Lu read Just A Big Storm by Mercer Mayer. Ms. Laura danced and sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”

 

Peapods II

Happy Friday! We hope everyone enjoyed their Easter. This week we had a lot of fun listening to all our wonderful stories. Our favorite book was the touch and feel book. We got to feel many furs and skins of different animals. We created a flower garden using our handprints. It was really fun and the paintbrush tickled our hands so much. We built incredible colorful towers with our blocks and tried to name the colors. Some of us can just pronounce the first letter of each color but we are trying! We can’t wait for next week! We hope you all enjoy your weekend.

Seedlings

What a fun week we had! We certainly got to enjoy all the nice weather while spending lots of time in our playground! We couldn’t get enough of it! We were building with the big waffle blocks, racing and riding rocket ships, jumping off of the mushrooms and learning how to balance on them, and playing ball! There’s so much to do!

We also learned about Earth Day and we painted paper plates to resemble the Earth and glued green tissue paper to be the landmass.

During circle time, we read I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen and sang “I’m bringing home a Baby Bumblebee”.

We ended the week on a high note by having cupcakes for Anthony’s 2nd Birthday. Thank you to Anthony for sharing these wonderful treats with us!

Little Sprouts

What a fun week in Little Sprouts! We explored different bugs, and learned what they look like! We got creative and used our finger prints to make jars of bugs. We also played with toy bugs, counting them and naming their colors! We loved listening to “Bug ‘n roll” by Pinkfong. We can’t wait for next week where we will explore gardens, and even start to grow our own flowers!

Beanstalks

This week in Beanstalks we learned about planet Earth! We discussed why we should keep it clean? How we can keep it clean. We made some earth day projects , such as paper plate planet Earth, we stamped trees , we got to use watercolor paints and we ripped paper, we loved that! We are starting to see the sunflowers that we planted sprouting. We are excited to see how they are growing. We read I am Earth: an Earth Day Book for Kids by James McCarty and Rebecca McDonald and also our all time favorite I Stink! by Jim McMullan and Kate McMullan. We danced and sang our favorite circle time songs! It was a fun week learning about planet Earth and how we can keep it healthy and clean!

 

Beanstalks II

Beanstalks II had a busy week learning about our planet Earth.

We discussed how we can help the planet.

We made Earth sun catchers to hang in our windows. The children prepared Lima bean bags. We are going to put them in the window so we can watch them grow. We planted grass “Monsters”. When the monster’s hair grows, we are looking forward to practice using our scissors to cut their hair. We used plastic bags to squish together blue and green paint to make a cool picture of the earth. Beanstalks II also made art from Chia seeds.

Fun books we read were Celebrating Earth Day by M. J. York, Our Earth by Anne Rockwell and Earth Day Birthday! by Maureen Weight.

 

Saplings

This week, we celebrated the Earth! We talked about many ways we can protect the environment and keep the Earth beautiful. We practiced sorting recyclables into categories like aluminum, plastic, glass, and paper. We celebrated the Earth by making a lot of art this week! We reused newspapers and magazines to create beautiful paintings of our planet and of trees. We also practiced spelling our name using letters cut out from a magazine. We identified and sorted shapes that looked like earth, too. We enjoyed reading Compost Stew by Mary McKenna Siddals, Not a Box by Antoinette Portis, and The Curious Garden by Peter Brown. Next week, we will talk about pollution and how trash affects the Earth.

 

 

Pre K 3

Happy Earth Day! 🌎 PreK-3 friends were busy bees this week! We got our green thumbs on and planted marigolds, sunflowers, and grass seeds! We can’t wait to watch them grow! We learned how to care of our Earth and about things that can hurt the Earth. We read lots of stories! Our favorite stories were I Can Save the Earth by Alison Inches, Earth Day Every Day by Lisa Bullard and Earth Day Birthday by Maureen Wright. The class turned plastic bottles into planters! We worked on our fine motor skills by dot painting the earth with q-tips. We are looking forward to next week and all that we will be learning!

Pre K 4

Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. The last two weeks Pre K 4 has learned everything there is to know about bugs. We discussed how many legs, wings, eyes, antennae and body parts insects have. The children were fascinated to learn that some insects have up to 5 eyes and that spiders are NOT insects. Then as a class we graphed which insects were our favorites.

The classes enjoyed counting spots and stripes on ladybugs and bees while practicing addition. They measured spring items with snail rulers. Another fun activity was finding insects, graphing them, and using the graph to learn what tally marks are and how to use them.

Journal questions included Why was the ladybug grouchy? and If you were an insect, what would you look like? Additionally the children completed two writing prompts, When the ants went marching, where did they go? and How can we make the earth more beautiful?

Fine motor skills were practiced again while doing handwriting without tears and practicing our sight words.

The sight words of the week included the, I and like. The children practiced stamping, building and writing the words. A few of the questions of the day were, Where does a bee get pollen?, How many ants can fit on a log? and What rhymes with bug?

A few of the books we read included Leo The Lightening Bug, The Very Quiet Cricket and The Very Impatient Caterpillar