November News: Weeks of November 3rd and 10th

Announcements

• Flu Vaccine Reminder All children who are over the age of 6 months and are attending a licensed child care facility in New Jersey are required to have a flu vaccine by December 31st of each year. Please provide proof of vaccine to the office as soon as possible.
• Important Key Card Entry Information – Please make sure you have your keycard to enter the building. For security purposes the keycard registers who is entering the building. If you have mislaid your card, please let us know so that we can deactivate it and issue you a new one. There will be a $15 charge for new keycards. If you do not have your keycard at pick up or drop off, please expect a wait. Please do not hold the door open for anyone that you do not know.
• 2025/2026 Holiday Closing Dates – Our 2025 and 2026 Holiday Closing Dates can be found on our website here.

Peapods

The Peapods certainly have been busy! We’ve been making Thanksgiving decorations. They’re hanging on our windows outside our room. We hope you enjoy them. A couple of us are getting ready to walk soon. We are very good at standing without holding on. It won’t be long before we have new walkers. We love playing with our shape sorter. Sometimes it’s a bit of a challenge to get the right shapes into the right place. With practice we will be able to get them in without any trouble. Bubbles are always fun. We love watching them fall down towards us so we can pop them! One of the books we read was Thanksgiving Is For Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland and a new song we sang was 5 Little Turkeys.

Peapods II

Peapods 2 has been having another great month so far! Over the last two weeks we have really taken an interest in playing with the dress-up clothes. We love using our imagination by pretending to be community helpers. With Thanksgiving approaching, we read a new book entitled Five Silly Turkeys by Salina Yoon. We also made turkeys which you can see displayed in the front lobby. We have some exciting holidays coming up and we are looking forward to celebrating over the next few weeks! We can’t wait to see what the rest of November will bring!

Seedlings

The past two weeks have flown right by! We have been having such a great time learning about forest animals, hibernation, and scarecrows. The children loved exploring all the different types of forest animals and even made their very own forest. One of our favorite parts was adding our own bear. We also made cozy bear dens and practiced bear crawls in the big room where we have a lot of room. The kids especially loved the pinecones, and everyone enjoyed their smell, texture, and feel. We have been heading outside whenever it is not too chilly in the mornings. The children love playing, running, and spending time with their friends. If you send in hats or gloves, please make sure they are labeled since a few of our friends have matching ones. During circle time, we read I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen and had so much fun singing and acting out “Going on a Bear Hunt.” The children love pretending to run away from the bear, and it is always a big hit.

Little Sprouts

The past two weeks in Little Sprouts have been filled with fun and learning! We explored two exciting themes: forest animals and hibernation. Each morning, we began our day with our Good Morning song and counted together as a class. We enjoyed reading Little Bear by Suzanne Fossey and I Don’t Want to Hibernate! by Anna Ouchchy. Our young artists got creative making handprint turkeys, paper plate bears, and painted dens for their bears. We even used forks to paint adorable hedgehogs! Outside, Little Sprouts had fun collecting leaves on the playground, and inside, we enjoyed taking turns bowling and sorting our color bears. We hope everyone has a great weekend!

Beanstalks

What a fantastic two weeks we’ve had here in Beanstalks. For the past two weeks, we have been so keyed up to talk about transportation! We had lots of fun exploring our transportation themed sensory bin and talking about all the different modes of transportation we see in our daily life. We really enjoyed reading Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle and singing The Wheels on the Bus. This week, we got to work on our fine motor skills by gluing colorful paper to our favorite ways to get around. Our favorite book this week was Curious George and the Dump Truck by Margret Rey. We hope you all have a safe and happy weekend, and we’ll see you next week!

Saplings

During the last two weeks in Saplings, we’ve been learning about what animals do in the winter time. We learned animals hibernate, migrate and adapt in the winter season! We discussed which animals sleep all winter long, what animals go where it is warm and what animals stay in the winter. Our favorite stories were, Bear Snores on by Karma Wilson and Sleep Bear Sleep by Shelby Alinsky. We had fun painting with tinfoil to make a bear cave for our bears to sleep. Using our fine motor skills we colored and sprayed coffee filters to make the ocean. We also practiced our cutting skills to make a hedgehog. We look forward to next week!

Pre-K 3

The past two weeks, Pre-K3 has been learning about animals that hibernate, migrate, and adapt to the winter. The first week, we focused on Hibernation. We matched letter bears to letter caves. The children use their fine motor skills to clip clothes pins on shape bears. They also painted a cave for the bear to sleep inside. This week Pre-K3, focused on animals that migrate and adapt to the cold of winter. At the beginning of the week, the children practiced using scissors to cut colored paper to create a beautiful nest for a cardinal. They sorted animals that migrate versus animals that adapt during winter. Pre-K3 practiced taking turns while playing “Find the bat behind the number cave” game. Some of our favorite books were A Little Bit Of Winter by Paul Stewart, Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson, Animals In The Winter by Martha E. H. Rustad.

Pre-K 4

Over the past 2 weeks, PreK 4 has loved talking about pumpkins and trees/leaves. We measured and made observations about our pumpkin as well as opening the top and scooping out the middle. We also talked about the life cycle and parts of a pumpkin. While learning about trees and leaves, we discussed the lifecycle of a tree and the differences between deciduous and coniferous trees. Our favorite books were Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano and When the Leaf Blew In by Steve Metzger. Throughout both weeks, we have practiced our number recognition and rhyming words. We are looking forward to learning about scarecrows and thanksgiving the next 2 weeks!