December News: Week of December 6
We asked and you delivered!! We had an overwhelming response to our Toys for Toys drive. A heartfelt thank you to all of our Sproutlings families who participated! The box was overflowing!!
- Send in your Holiday Cards! We will display them on our bulletin board in the lobby!
- FINAL CALL: All children ages 6 months and older are required to get their annual flu shot no later than December 30th. If your child has received their shot but you have not turned in documentation, please do so by the end of the month.
- Sproutlings will be CLOSED Thursday, December 23rd and Friday December 24th for Christmas break and Friday, December 31 for New Year’s Eve. For a list of all closures, including the 2022 calendar, please visit our website.
A Reminder of the Current Travel Policy:
For unvaccinated individuals who travel outside of our immediate region (NJ, NY, CT, PA, DE) for a period of time greater than 24 hours, the individual must:
-Get tested with a PCR test 3-5 days after travel AND stay home and self-quarantine for a full 7 days after travel before returning to school
-Even if the individual tests negative, they must stay home and self-quarantine for the full 7 days
-If the individual does not get tested, they must stay home and self-quarantine for 10 days after travel before returning to school
-Please submit your child’s negative PCR test to sproutlings.info@gmail.com
-Please consult with Sproutlings Admin regarding out of country travel.
- *For children in our Kindergarten and After Care programs, please consult with the New Providence School District as we will honor their protocols and procedures regarding travel.
Peapods
Peapods I
There’s excitement in the air at Sproutlings. We can see it with all the holiday decorations. We are loving the colorful lights and sparkly decorations hanging from our ceiling. We will take pictures when everything is finished. Some of us have discovered how much fun it is climbing into one of our toy containers. We can get in but haven’t figured out how to get out! Some of us have learned to make our own music. We have been banging our hands on our shelf to the beat of some of our favorite songs. We love to practice so that we can get just the right sound. Some of us are continuing to enjoy trying new foods. We are discovering different tastes and textures.
Ms Lu read Froggy’s Best Christmas by Jonathan London. We also enjoyed Ms Melissa and Ms Laura singing “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”
Peapods II
Happy Friday everyone! This week we got to work on our shapes! This is one of our favorite things to do. Once we see our teachers bring out the shape box we rush over to sit around them. We also love to use our dot markers! We created our own holiday ornament with them! Our teachers used them to decorate the tree they created on one of our doors. Our teachers brought out the magic mat this week! The mat uses water based markers to create fun and colorful pictures. We are also having a lot of fun hearing all of the holiday songs. Our favorite song this week was “Jingle Bells.” Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Seedlings
We had a very crafty week in the Seedlings room. We had fun painting with forks and then gluing a polar bear face to it. We just love being able to use our imaginations and exploring with texture. We also used our handprints to make 5 snowman in a snow globe. We love to see them hanging on our door!
The Seedlings had a lot of fun playing with tents and tunnels on the frigid morning when we couldn’t go out. During circle time, we read This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen. We literally can’t get enough of it and we can sit through it 5 times in a row! We then sang “I’m Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee.” We love being able to do the hand movements along with it!
Little Sprouts
This week in Little Sprouts we learned about reindeer! We talked about where they live and what they look like. In our books, some even fly and help Santa!
We did an experiment to see if our reindeer would fly! We used a toilet paper roll to make a reindeer and attached it to a balloon and straw. We saw how the air escaping the balloon forced the reindeer up into the air! It was a very exciting! We also painted some reindeer heads. Our song of the week was “Five Little Reindeer.” We also read This Little Reindeer by Aly Fronis. We can’t wait to explore jingle bells next week!
Beanstalks
This week in Beanstalks, we learned about winter and letter L! We learned and touched objects that start with L like lemon, light bulb and a lion! We learned that we will be going into winter and how we should dress for winter! We worked on some projects such as a winter tree, a snowman, and snowflakes. We also got to do a cool science experiment where we made snow just by using a box of baking soda and shaving cream! It was really exciting especially since it felt like real snow!
Saplings (Miss Amanda and Miss Pam)
This week has been gingerbread week in the Saplings class! Our fine motor muscles got a work out as we decorated gingerbread men and houses with buttons, sequins and stickers. We also had lots of fun stamping with gingerbread cookie cutters and then deciding who was trying to catch the gingerbread men in our pictures. We practiced writing our names and drew our self portraits using our Handwriting Without Tears curriculum techniques. Everyone really enjoyed listening to lots of different versions of the Gingerbread Man story, our favorites included The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Ernst, The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett and The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires.
Pre K 3 (Miss Amelia and Miss Deanna)
In PreK-3 this week we learned all about gingerbread! Some of the questions we asked were, “Do you like gingerbread cookies? Have you made a gingerbread house before? What happened to the gingerbread man in our story?” We also learned what a cookie cutter is for! The kids made their own gingerbread men, counted with marshmallows and practiced “AB patterns.” Our favorite stories we read this week were The Gingerbread Man retold by Bonnie Dobkin and The Gingerbread Bear by Robert Dennis.
Pre K 4
“Can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!” This week was gingerbread week in Pre K. The children heard different stories about gingerbread people such as Gingerbread Baby, Ninjabread Man and How to Catch a Gingerbread Man. The children made a comparison between each book and used ideas from the stories as a writing prompt to write what they think happened to the gingerbread man after he ran away.
Continuing with a gingerbread theme, the children worked on patterning, graphing and simple addition equations using mini erasers to count. The children enjoyed graphing the answer to the question “Which part of a gingerbread cookie would you eat first?”
Our HWT letters were I and T. We practiced correct formation, remembering letters are written starting from the top. We continued working on recognizing uppercase and lowercase letters as well as beginning letter sounds and and rhyming words.
Next week the children can look forward to creating secret holiday gifts and a holiday themed week.