Sproutlings Newsletter – Weeks of August 17th & August 24th

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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.

Our 2026 Holiday Closing Dates can be found on our website. https://sproutlingschildcare.com/calendar(opens in new tab)

As the month comes to a close, we’ve had a wonderful time getting to know all our sweet new friends! Our colorful fruit basket has been a huge hit! Our friends love feeling all the different textures and a few of the fruits even make fun sounds. We’ve been practicing our animal noises—listen closely at home for lots of “moos” and “woofs”! Between singing our favorite songs, reading stories, and popping bubbles, our days are full of laughter. Milestone alert! We have one official walker who is constantly on the go, along with six speedy crawlers busy exploring every corner of the room. Everyone is growing so fond of tummy time and we are so proud of all the incredible progress and milestones our little ones are hitting every day!

And just like that we wrapped up another month! We had a fantastic summer together, learning, growing and splashing in water play! Over the summer we learned so many new things like new signs, new words, and made many memories! We’re looking forward to what September and the fall will bring us. We’ve been having so much fun playing outside and recently have been collecting and exploring the leaves we find. We can’t wait to see what’s in store for us next!

The Seedlings had a blast this summer! We can’t believe it’s already coming to an end. We loved playing with the water tables and sprinkler while staying cool and having fun! We had so much fun learning about birds and celebrating birthdays! We also had a great time painting with feathers. We loved how they felt and had so much fun gluing them onto our birds. We had so much fun learning what birds say, “Tweet!” and flying around the room like birds. During circle time, we read Happy Birthday from the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and had so much fun singing “Happy Birthday” to everyone! We want to wish Ms. Madiyson all the best in her new job. She will be missed by everyone!

As summer begins to come to an end, Little Sprouts has been having so much fun exploring the themes of Birds and Dinosaurs! We have started each day with circle time and enjoyed a variety of fun, hands-on activities. The children had a great time sponge painting peacocks, matching colored birds, creating handprint bird nests, and matching and counting bird feathers. We also had lots of fun with our dinosaur activities, including making dinosaur bones, counting dinosaur footprints, and making dinosaur tracks.We enjoyed reading Feathers: Not Just for Flying by Lois Ehlert and How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? by Jane Yolen, and we loved listening to We’re Going on a Dinosaur Hunt! We also wrapped up our summer water play! We had so much fun splashing, playing, and staying cool together throughout the summer, and we can’t wait for water play to return next year! We will also miss Miss Amanda as she heads back to school! We are so grateful for all the fun, laughter, and wonderful memories she has shared with us. We wish her the very best of luck as she begins another school year! We hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Over the past two weeks, the children have been beyond excited to immerse themselves in the fascinating world of dinosaurs! Each day, we focused on a different dinosaur and learned a fun fact about it. The children were especially fascinated by the Brontosaurus. They were so surprised to learn that these enormous dinosaurs swallowed rocks, which helped them digest their food because they did not have teeth for chewing! The children were thrilled to explore our collection of dinosaur toys and loved wearing the playful masks as they transformed themselves into their favorite creatures. Our dinosaur sensory bin filled with dinosaur bones was another favorite. The children also had the opportunity to decorate dinosaur eggs using stamps and create dinosaur footprints. We incorporated early math skills as the children practiced sorting dinosaurs by size using a large bin and a small bin, and recognizing and matching colors by placing colorful dinosaurs onto the matching-colored magnetic tiles on the table. The children even became little paleontologists by making their own dinosaur fossils with Play-Doh! They pressed dinosaur toys and other objects into the Play-Doh to create impressions and examine the shapes and patterns left behind. Of course, no dinosaur week would be complete without lots of music and movement! The children enjoyed many of our dinosaur songs, but their absolute favorite was “Five Little Dinosaurs.” They were captivated as I acted out the song using five dinosaur toys. The children showed genuine emotion throughout the story—they became sad and concerned when the dinosaurs disappeared and then excited when the mother dinosaur reunited with her babies. After our exciting dinosaur adventures, we dived right back into the ocean to explore the magical world of pirates and mermaids! The children loved pretending to be pirates. They especially enjoyed learning and using “pirate language,” calling out things like “Ahoy!” and pretending to search for treasure. It was wonderful to see how naturally they became immersed in their pretend world. Our pirate play did not stay inside the classroom! When we went outside, the children continued their adventures by pretending that the playground was their very own pirate ship. The children placed matching-colored beads onto coordinating colored pipe-cleaner pirate flags. The children decorated a mermaid with colorful gems while practicing number recognition, counting, and one-to-one correspondence. Our ocean adventure would not be complete without music and movement! The children absolutely loved dancing along to the silly song “Over the Deep Blue Sea.” Whether they were sailing the playground on their pirate ship or dancing across the “deep blue sea,” the children were learning and developing important skills while having fun!

What a wonderful two weeks we’ve had in Beanstalks II. Last week we talked about camping. We were very excited to go fishing for matching numbers and quantities. We really enjoyed reading C is for Camping by Greg Paprocki and discussing what we think we’d like to bring on a camping trip. This week we are talking about pirates and mermaids. We loved getting to develop our prewriting skills and design our very own pirate hats! Our favorite book this week was How to Catch a Mermaid by Adam Wallace. We hope you all have a wonderful weekend and we’ll see you next week!

Another awesome few weeks here in our Saplings classroom! We continued our exploration into the amazing world of dinosaurs before setting off on a brand-new adventure to learn all about pirates and mermaids! As we continued our dinosaur exploration, we began by learning about volcanoes and how they were part of the world dinosaurs lived in. We practiced our fine motor skills by ripping pieces of brown paper to create our very own volcanoes! We even conducted an exciting volcano science experiment by mixing vinegar and baking soda and watching our volcano erupt. What an amazing reaction! We also practiced color recognition and sorting by matching colorful T-Rex dinosaurs. We got creative and made our own fossils by using dinosaur bones to create different shapes. To finish our dinosaur adventure, we became little paleontologists! We dug through sand and used brushes to carefully uncover and dust off dinosaur bones, just like real paleontologists do. Once we set sail on our pirate and mermaid adventure, the fun really began! We started by painting our very own pirate ships and practiced number recognition and counting by counting shiny gold coins. We even followed a pirate treasure map to find a hidden treasure chest! Then, we dove under the sea to learn about mermaids. We created our very own mermaid fizzy potions by mixing different ingredients together and watching the exciting reactions. This was definitely one of our favorite activities! We also strengthened our hand muscles and fine motor skills by using hole punches to create beautiful mermaid tails. Some of the awesome books we’ve read include “Curious George and the Dinosaurs” “The Pirate Jamboree” and “Mable and the Mermaid Fable”. We can’t wait to continue learning, exploring, and making new memories together in our Saplings classroom!

What a busy and fun filled last two weeks of summer we have had in Pre K 3! Friends soaked up the sun during the final days of water play, as well as discussing pirates and mermaids. We started out with color matching of mermaid tails, while simultaneously practicing fine motor skills by clipping a clothespin to the correct color. These fine motor activities are helpful as we begin to use scissors as well. Friends have done a great job with scissor practice with different sizes and colors of paper. Continuing with pirates, we showed off our counting skills by identifying numbers and counting gems for the pirates treasure! Another class favorite was this week’s sensory bin, consisting of gold coins, gems, boats, and beads. Children loved finding their own treasure like a pirate! Our books this week included “Twenty Six Pirates,” “Pirates Love Underpants,” and “Pete the Cat and the Treasure Map.” This week, we stepped off of the pirate ship and entered the camp grounds! Our camping unit started with finger painting a campfire. Children enjoyed getting their hands messy with red and yellow paint, while rubbing their hands together and watching the colors make orange! We added popsicle sticks for the fire wood, and all we were missing were some marshmallows to roast, yum! We sorted the colors of tents, and discovered that a tent is shaped like a triangle. Friends also got a turn to categorize items into “For Camping” and “Not For Camping.” We discovered new words such as canteen, lantern, waterfall, and sleeping bag this week as we pretended to pack up our backpack to go camping. Some stories from this week were “Biscuit Goes Camping,” “Animals of National Parks,” and “Llama Llama Loves Camping.” A class favorite was making our own campfire with blocks, tissue paper, and lights on the rug. We sang a campfire song and were transported to the woods! We are so proud of our friends and all they have learned and explored this week. We can’t wait to see what next week will bring!

In Pre K4, we had a fun time talking about sweet treats like donuts and ice cream! The children enjoyed learning about working in a bakery and all the things a baker does. We enjoyed books such as If You Give A Dog a Donut by Laura Numeroff and Should I Share My Ice Cream by Mo Willems. The children have been working on their letter recognition and writing using writing prompts, Question of the Day, daily sign in sheets and doing bakery themed letter matching. We’ve also been working on recognizing numbers and counting, sorting, patterning and graphing. Next week the children can look forward to a Back to School themed week!

What a wonderful couple of weeks it has been at camp! Our campers have been busy making memories, exploring the outdoors, learning new things, and enjoying exciting field trips with their friends. Last week our field trip was to the Trailside Nature Center in the Watchung Reservation. We enjoyed exploring the trails and learning about the wildlife that lives all around us. Afterwards, we were able to play at the loop playground. We had such a fun day! This week our field trip was to Hillview Farm. We were able to pick our own flowers straight from the flowerbeds. There were so many colors to choose from! We saw bumble bees and butterflies landing on the flowers collecting pollen. Our time at the field has been super exciting! We had some deer come to cross the field while we were playing. We were in awe of seeing them so close! Swim lessons and open swim have come to an end for the summer. We had such a blast being in the pool multiple times during the week! We can’t believe camp is coming to an end and school is starting next week. The summer went by so fast.