November News – Week of November 8
Dear Sproutlings Community,
As we move into the holiday season, we wanted to update our families on our current and future plans. After consulting with the local health authorities, Sproutlings has been advised to keep our travel quarantine through the holiday season. We wanted to remind our community what the travel quarantine is.
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
*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.
Please submit your child’s negative PCR test to sproutlings.info@gmail.com
We are actively working on a plan for further extending our hours in January. A detailed plan will be released as the time approaches. Again, we thank you for your patience and understanding as we navigate what is best for our community.
Best regards,
The Sproutlings Team
- All children ages 6 months and older are required to get their annual flu shot no later than December 30th. Please submit proof of receipt to the office as soon as your child receives their vaccine.
- Sproutlings will close early at 3:00 on Wednesday, November 24 and we will be closed Thursday, November 25th and Friday, November 26th for Thanksgiving weekend. For a list of all closures, please visit our website.
Peapods
Peapods I
The weeks are just flying by. We are growing and discovering the world around us.
We are enjoying moving and playing with our toys and engaging with our teachers. Some of us are working on our fine motor skills by stacking our blocks. Once we have stacked them the best part is knocking them down! Some enjoy looking at the face in the mirror.
We like to laugh at the face we see.We are also enjoying listening to music. When we hear something we like we move, clap, and bop along. Ms Melissa and Ms Laura sing to us which we really enjoy. One of our favorites is the ABC song. We’re also enjoying story time when Ms Lu reads to us. This week she read One Family by George Shannon and Give Thanks for Each Day by Steve Metzger.
Peapods II
We had so much fun this week in Peapod II! We got to create our own fall forest using dot markers. Every time our teachers bring out the dot markers we get so excited because we know we are going to have so much fun. We also created turkeys with our handprints. The handprints were used as the turkey feathers. We were also able to get more familiar with stickers! We used eye stickers to place onto our turkeys. Some of the eyes were really silly!
Out favorite song to dance to this was “Baby Shark.” Some of us are getting so good at knowing what to do with our hands when we hear “mommy shark, daddy shark, grandma shark and grandpa shark.” Our favorite book this week was our touch and feel book called Let’s Play. All the pages have different fabrics and textures that we can feel. Some of the different textures make us laugh.
Can’t wait to see what next week holds for us! Have a great weekend everyone!
Seedlings
The Seedlings had a great week learning about Thanksgiving and about turkeys. We’re very excited to tell everyone what a turkey says. It’s one of our favorite things to do! We were thrilled to use the dot art markers and color the turkeys brown.
Miss Emmy brought in corn and we were super happy to look, touch, and talk about the different colors. When we were in the playground, we have so much fun pretending that the caterpillar is a train. We love all of our friends to climb aboard!
During circle time, we sang “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” and read Five Silly Turkeys by Salina Yoon.
Little Sprouts
We had so much fun this week in Little Sprouts! We played with letters and spelled our names and did lots of puzzles! We talked about squirrels and how they get ready for winter. Our book this week was The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri. We also gathered leaves from outside and made a leaf collage! Cant wait to explore turkeys next week!
Beanstalks
This week in Beanstalks, we learned the letter “i” and about our community helpers. We learned how important they are to our community. Some of the community helpers we talked about were police officers, postal carriers, and doctors. We read Officer on Duty and Snail Delivers Mail. We sang “ America the Beautiful” in honor of Veterans Day. We got to play in our sensory bin by painting using a syringe. We also washed our animals’ toys and kitchen toys. We loved it.
Saplings (Miss Amanda and Miss Pam)
We have lots of fun in the Saplings class this week learning about animals that live in trees. We also spent time learning to cooperate and take turns by playing the game Sneaky Snacky Squirrel, picking up the colored acorns in the game helped work on developing strong fine motor muscles. We worked hard drawing our November self portraits and practicing using a pencil to write our names. As the weather was so nice most of the week we spent as much time as we could out in the playground and the new playhouse is a favorite place to hang out with friends. Some of our favorite stories this week included Lazy Ozzie by Michael Coleman, The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri and The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle.
Pre K 3 (Miss Amelia and Miss Deanna)
Who lives in trees? That’s what we learned this week. We explored animals and parts of the trees in science. We worked on our fine motor skills by ripping paper. With the squares we ripped we made owls! We also sorted animals who live in trees and who don’t live in trees. Our favorite book this week was When the Monkeys Came Back by Kristine L. Franklin. Next week we get to explore foods that grow on trees!
Pre K 4
This week we learned about scarecrows and cornfields. We labeled the parts of corn including kernels, shank, tusk and silk. We also learned about the life cycle of corn. As a class the children helped to create an anchor chart while talking about what they know about scarecrows.
The children started off the week by answering a journal question that asked them what is needed to make a scarecrow. Then later in the week they completed a writing prompt telling us all about what they think scarecrows do at night.
A few of the fun math activities that were incorporated into the week included graphing, counting corn, number matching and size order. The children also enjoyed doing uppercase letter matching, positional phrasing and Handwriting Without Tears.
A few of the books we read this week included Scaredycrow, The Scarecrows Hat and There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves.