Sproutlings News – December 3, 2018
Pre K 4 and Sapling Holiday Concert- Thursday, December 13th 6:30-7:00
Parents, we invite you to join us as our preschool friends sing a variety of holiday songs.
Beanstalks Holiday Concert- The Beanstalks will be showcasing their musical talent on Tuesday, December 18th at 6:00. This will be a short and sweet event for those who are able to attend.
Sproutlings will be closed Monday, December 24th and Tuesday, December 25th. We will also be closed December 31st and January 1st. We wish all of our Sproutlings families a very happy holiday season! For staffing purposes, if you know you will not be using care the day after Christmas (December 26th) kindly Brightwheel your classroom teachers to let them know. We are trying to determine how many teachers we will need.
Reminders:
-All children over the age of 6 months old must receive a flu shot by the end of December as required by state. If you have not done so already, please submit documentation as soon as possible. Students without flu shots will not be able to return to the center as per state law.
-As the weather gets colder, please remember to pack mittens/gloves/hats etc. for your child and a proper winter jacket. Labeling winter accessories is extremely helpful so that teachers can make sure all belongings go home with the right child. Thank you for your help with this!
-Teachers have noticed that many hurt feelings occur over toys brought from home. These toys are often alluring to the other kids in the class and it is hard for students to grasp the concept of sharing a toy that is their own. It is also difficult for teachers to keep track of so many small objects. Please help us with this matter by not bringing in toys from home. If your child’s class is participating in “Show and Tell,” encourage your child to keep their object in their backpack until Circle Time.
Peapod I
It was another great and busy week. Some of us have started our transitions into the Peapod II room. We have been very happy to see our friends and making new friends too! We have been playing with our large jar and learning to put the jar caps in the opening. During music time we are moving to the music . It’s a favorite part of our day. Some more of us are signing “more”, and “please “. We are also starting to decorate our room for the holidays. We hope you will enjoy it. Our book this week was It’s Hanukkah! by Jeanne Modesitt and our song was “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel.”
Last week we practiced signing “thank you “ in addition to “please” and “more.” We are also learning to pick out the pictures of animals on our wall. Stacking our blocks is something we are learning to do. We’re also learning how much fun we have when we knock them down! We were lucky to have been able to get outside this week before the cold weather set in. Our favorite song was “Old MacDonald.”
Peapod II
We have started to decorate for the winter holidays. We made menorahs with our hands and decorated dreidels. The tunnel made another appearance this week and we had fun crawling in and out of it. Some of our friends began walking in the last few weeks! They have loved showing off their new skills. We are so proud of them!! Our song of the week was “Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah.” Our book this week was Latke the Lucky Dog by Ellen Fischer.
Seedlings
Little Sprouts
This week, we welcomed December by learning about Hanukkah in the Little Sprouts classroom! We learned about all the special traditions families have during this special time of year. We read Light the Menorah by Jannie Ho. We sang ‘The Dreidel Song’, ‘Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah’, and ‘Hanukkah is Here.’ Our sensory table was filled with white shredded paper to imitate snow since winter will be upon us in a couple of weeks. For art, we made a watercolor dreidel, a sponge paint menorah, and a tape resist Star of David. We worked on identifying colors and shapes as well this week. We’ve been having so much fun learning new songs during our music class with Miss Robin and learning new movements in our Stretch-N-Grow class! Next week our theme will be Gingerbread!
Last we walked all about farms. We learned what animals live on a farm. We know all the sounds the animals make! We talked about what we can grow on a farm. Our song of the week was, “Old MacDonald Has a Farm,” This week, we spent a lot of time practicing our colors. Some of our friends can name lots of them! We sang “Five Green and Speckled Frogs” with Miss MIchelle from Elephante music and her puppet Freddy.
Beanstalks
Beanstalks learned that December is full of holidays and this week we focused on Hannukah. We read, I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Dreidel by Caryn Yacowitz and sang along to “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel.” During art, we painted our own menorahs and dreidels. We practiced counting and shapes in our math center. For one activity, we matched the number of dots on a ladybug’s wings to the number it went with. Some of us know numbers all the way to ten! We also learned about the parts of a menorah and how to light the candles.
Last week, we continued our study on trees. We learned that some animals live in trees and some live under them. We read, Caps for Sale. We have been spending a lot of time practicing the letters in our own name. Everyone can spell their own name! Each morning, during circle time, we practice recognizing our own names and our friends’ names. We are very good at it.
Saplings
We had a great time in Saplings this week! We started our new study on clothes! In large group we described what our clothes look like and how they are different from our friends’ clothes. We read Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina and Pooh’s New Clothes. In small group this week we continued to work on holding crayons the right way and coloring in the lines. In math we put socks in order from 1-20 and sorted buttons by shape, color and size. The kids also sorted winter and summer clothes in literacy. In our kitchen, we added a washer and dryer to go with our clothes study. The kids are loving playing with it! Next week we will be continuing our study on clothes. We are going to be exploring the features of clothes. Have a great weekend!!
Pre K 4
The Oaks and the Maples
This week in pre-k 4 we continued learning about community helpers and focused on mail carriers. We learned about how the mail system works and both classes wrote letters to each other! We read the story The Jolly Postman And Other People’s Letters by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. The kids loved reading letters written by fairytale creatures. For math we worked on number sense by matching the numeral with the corresponding cards. We continued Handwriting Without Tears and we practiced uppercase U and C. We also started practicing for our holiday concert and talking about Hanukkah! Both classes made menorahs.