Sproutlings Newsletter: Week of September 14

Reminders and Upcoming Events:

• Please be sure you ask for an updated Universal Health Record at your child’s annual well visit. These are required by the State of New Jersey for every child attending day care and we need a new one each year.
• If a child visits any of the states on the New Jersey restricted travel list, they are required to stay home for 14 days prior to returning to Sproutlings. Quarantine begins on the first day a child returns to NJ after travel. As a childcare center, we rely on parents’ complete transparency in order to keep our young and vulnerable population safe. Please plan vacation time accordingly.
• At pick up, please stay by your vehicle and teachers will walk your child to you. We ask that you maintain at least 6 feet distance from other parents and our teachers and make sure you are wearing a mask at all times.
• Please be sure to wash sheets and blankets over the weekend before sending them back on Monday. This is an essential part of keeping everyone healthy!
• All students are required to get a flu shot no later than December 31st. Please bring documentation to Sproutlings. You can also send us an email with the picture of the documentation.
• Children may bring in pre-packaged, store bought treats for birthday celebrations. Please do not send in food that was prepared at home. Always send a Brightwheel note to your classroom teachers ahead of time so that they can check for any classroom allergies.
• Please send in extra masks for your child, especially as we approach cold season. It is important for children to be able to switch into clean masks if they sneeze or cough. Please be sure masks are being washed every day.
• Sproutlings is organizing a fun and safe Halloween celebration on October 30th. Children will be allowed to wear costumes to school but they must be clothes that the children can comfortably stay in all day. Extra accessories (hats, masks, gloves, etc.) will not be allowed. Further information will go out as we approach October.

Peapods I and  II

We have been very busy in Peapod I. Miss Donna and Miss Lu hung fall leaves from the ceiling. We love watching them spin and move around. We enjoy having dance parties. The song of the week was, “Barbara Ann” by the Beach Boys. We have been practicing our sign language. We have been working on the signs for “more” and “all done.”

Fall is in the air in Peapods II! We have so much fun playing outside and watching the leave fall to the ground. We practice our colors. Our favorite color to say is “yellow.” This week we made apple footprints for art and we read Peppa Pig Goes Apple Picking by Meridith Rusu. We sang “Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down.”

Seedlings

We did a lot of activities this week! We painted red apples and then we glued our own school buses together! We loved that we made school buses and love to look out the windows for the real ones!  We got new puzzles to play with this week and are trying to identify the animals, shapes, and forms of transportation.  Some of us already know most of the stuff and help to others to identify the items.  It’s so lovely that our Seedlings friends are so nice and caring for one another.

The most exciting thing this week was that we played with BIG dinosaurs!  We couldn’t get enough of them! We pretended to be dinosaurs by roaring like them with our loud voices. We also listened to some dinosaurs sounds and what they might actually sound like. We took that as our inspiration with our roaring technique.

During circle time we sang  “Baby Shark” and read The Color Monster A Story About Emotions By Anna Llenas.

Little Sprouts

What a fun week we had in Little Sprouts. Our theme this week was scarecrows. During circle time, we read “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves” by Lucille Colandro. We also sang “I’m a Little Scarecrow” to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot.” For art, we painted acorns using hay as our paint brushes. Next week, we will be talking about Autumn.

Just a friendly reminder to continue to label all of your child’s belongings. Additionally, please send in a jacket for your child to wear during outside time. Have a great weekend and stay safe!

Beanstalks

This week in Beanstalks, we learned about different types of shapes. We also learned that a lot of the food we eat are shapes as well! Shapes are a part of our everyday life and it is important to recognize them. We also learned about shapes that were new to us such as a diamond and an oval. We dove into many books this week and had a few favorites such as Three Little Kittens and Pete the Cat. Everyone really enjoys Pete the Cat! Lastly, we had a lot of fun listening to music this week and singing along to many fun songs like Wheels on the Bus and Hurry Hurry Drive the Firetruck. It was a beautiful week inside and outside and we can’t wait to do more fun activities next week!

Beanstalks II

This week in the Beanstalks II, we worked on recognizing and finding our names with a focus on the first letter of our name. We read ABC I Like Me by Nancy Carlson and learned the song “Hickety Pickety Bumblebee.” One of our favorite activities of the week was making a “Me Collage.” We used our fine motor muscles to place stickers and paper shapes onto paper people so they looked just how we wanted them to.

After reading Pete the Cat – Rocking in my School Shoes by Eric Litwin, we drew around our school shoes and then counted how many squares long they were. We then compared all our school shoes to see who had the biggest and whose were the smallest. We also read Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and had fun working together to sort a big tub of plastic bears by color. This was a great activity to work on sharing and co-operation as well as color recognition and sorting.

We had a lot fun building in the block area this week and playing with our colored window blocks too.

Saplings

In Saplings (PreK-3) this week we learned that families are all different and similar. In large group we read Love Is A Family by Roma Downey. After reading our story, we discussed how some families are small and some are big. We went around the room and told our friends who is in our family. The kids enjoyed seeing how everyone’s families were similar or different. At small group, the kids worked on sorting bears by color. Some of us made an apple tree with our names and others painted a pencil! We went on a letter hunt to find letters in our names.

It was a great week learning in PreK-3!

PreK 4

This week in Pre K 4 the children learned the many ways people and families are alike and what makes us different and unique. The children learned this by talking about what makes a family and then they discussed who was in their family. We also compared our eye colors and our hair colors and graphed the results.  Using that information, the children learned “more” and “less” concepts while counting groups. We read the books I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont and Today I Feel Silly by Jamie Lee Curtis

The children worked on patterns, number recognition and recognizing letters. Next we will begin an investigation into apples.