FEBRUARY NEWS
2016
What's Happening!
Assessments are coming up mid month and teachers will be asking each parent to give them 10-15 mins at pick up or drop off to do a quick conference to review. If parents want longer conferences, please discuss this with your childs teacher to schedule. We will only do conferences during nap time so please plan accordingly.
We welcomed back Miss Jodi to our center. If you remember Jodi was with us a few years ago as the Toddler I afternoon teacher and is now back as our Full Time Toddler 2 teacher with Miss Tami. This time Miss Jodi brought her son Brayden who is in our Pre-k room!
Before you know it the leprechauns will be running thru our center creating a mess wherever they go! Get ready for green everything, gold glitter, white powder and chocolate coins!!!
Caterpillar Names
One of our posts on FB if you haven't seen it!
Smiling Faces
Infant I
Love is in the air and Infant 1 would like to say to everyone, Happy Valentine’s Day! Our little angels are filled with extra hugs and snuggles. Katherine is our new little one, going on 4 months. She is so adorable and that beautiful red hair really makes her personality. Arteen is our other little guy. He has come a long way since starting. He says he is going to enjoy A Children’s Place and has decided to have fun! Rylee and Blake are very busy. They are all over the place and are getting around. Time goes by too quickly. Before you know it, they will be in Infant 2! SLOW DOWN GUYS!! Everyone is doing great and things are moving along smoothly. Happy Valentine’s Day, Everyone!
Where to find us!
Email: achildrensplace@verizon.net
Website: www.achildrensplaceinc.com
Location: 719 Roble Rd, Allentown, PA, United States
Phone: 610-704-5651
Facebook: www.facebook.com/achildrensplace
Twitter: @achildplace
INFANT II
Love is in the air...It's February! Time for another favorite holiday, Valentine's Day! We have many projects planned this month including a Valentine's Party. Our themes this month will be Groundhog's Day, Shadows, Valentine's Day, and Dental Health. We can't wait to see if that crazy groundhog will see his shadow or not. The weather has been so cold or snowy lately for us even to pop outside for a five minutes so we are anxious for spring to come. Our Valentine's Party will be Friday February 12th so look for notes about what we will be doing in our room that day. We welcomed some new friends to our room last month. Avalyn, Norah and Maame have joined our class and so far they're doing well and enjoy playing and learning with us. Our big kids Loki and Kailey graduated to Toddler 1. We'll miss them dearly but know they are ready to play and learn with the Toddler 1 class. Take a look at our Parent board and you will see the activities our class does everyday and what standards we meet. Just a reminder we are trying very hard to keep our room clean and healthy during this cold and flu season so we appreciate everyone who keeps their children home when they are sick. Also remember to take sippy cups and food dishes home everyday and nap blankets on Fridays to be washed. We love when all our friends are feeling happy and healthy! Parents please check childs cubbie and Tadpoles daily report everyday for notes or other items they need to be sent home. If you have any concerns about your childs day never hesitate to talk to us on the phone, email or at arrival or departure times. Thank you!
Miss Laura & Miss Stephanie
Toddler I
Well, January flew by so quickly and we definitely felt the cold winter weather. We hope you had a fantastic month and we are excited about February. Love will certainly be in the air as we create many lovable crafts. We will begin the month talking about the weather and shadows. We will be looking to see what the groundhog is up to! Sunny, cloudy, rainy, and snowy days will be discussed. The following week will be devoted to Valentine's Day. Hand hearts, heart sun-catchers, paper towel hearts, Valentine's treat bags making will keep us busy busy! We will be sending home a roster for our Valentine cards exchange. Our Valentine's Day party will be Friday, Feb 12th. Keep a look out for a sign up sheet on the parent board. Our letter of the month is "L". Lollipops, lemons, ladybugs, lions and lacing will be highlighted. Our Author of the Month is David Shannon. We will read his books and make crafts.
Please check your child's cubby for labeled weather appropriate clothes for your child. Along with hats, gloves etc for the days when it's warm enough to go outside.
Have a great month. Heather & Steve
As always, thank you for your continued support for our class.
Toddler II
Wow how the cold weather blew in fast and how about that snow storm? This month we will be doing some fun and amazing projects and cool themes. The first week we will be learning about ground holds and doing some cute projects. Our second week will consist of talking about the super bowl, learning about the Chinese New Year and Mardi Gras. Then we will be working. On some Valentine's Day crafts. Valentine's Day falls on a Sunday this year so we will be doing our party on Friday he 12th. We will put a sign up sheet on the door for anyone interested in bringing a treat. PLEASE KEEP IN MIND WE HAVE A SEVERE PEANUT ALLERGY IN OUR CLASSROOM….SO PLEASE NO NUTS!!! We will also be sending home a list of all the children in the center to do Valentine's. Then we will be doing a week for Black history month and finally a week for Dr. Seuss for his birthday. We would like to say a sad goodbye to some of our friends who moved up to pre-s…good luck Ben K and Chloe, we will miss you. We would like to say a big hello to our friends moving up from toddler 1…welcome Max, Thomas and Lucas. We are so excited to have you! This month is Ben P birthday on the 23rd HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUDDY HOPE YOU HAVE A SUPER DAY. Parents please make sure your child has a change of weather appropriate clothing in their cubbies…thank you. We would also like to welcome Ms. Jodie back to the center ( yet another teacher that just couldn't stay away) She was in toddler one but with her return to the center she will now be our new toddler 2 teacher. Jodie's hours will be 8 to 5 everyday except Wednesday she will be 730 to 430. Please give her a big welcome back. Finally please keep safe and warm this mon with all the funny weather we are having. Ms. Tami and Ms. Jodie
Pre-School
In January we had an awesome time bringing in the new year and learning all about winter and winter animals. February came around fast and we are excited for some fun new lessons. First we would like to bid farewell and good luck to Violet in her new Pre-K class! Preschool will be welcoming Ben K. and Chloe from Toddler 11. We also welcomed a new teacher into our classroom, welcome Miss Akua! Our Sign Language lessons have been soaring the past few months, we have learned letters, colors, numbers, family, and food. This month we will start putting together phrases and practicing more throughout the day. Miss Akua as started doing Spanish on Mondays and Wednesdays and the children are picking this up fantastically. Some of our lessons this month will be groundhogs, community helpers, weather, and of course Valentine's Day fun! We will discuss what a ground hog is, learn all about shadows, and try to guess when spring will come. For our community helpers lessons we will learn all about the different kinds of community helpers we have right here in our school, our families, and our friends. If any of the parents would like to come in and talk about their jobs this month please let us know so we can sign you up. The children would love to see and learn all about your jobs and your role in our community. We will also be enjoying dental week, where we will talk about tooth hygiene and our friend the dentist. We will be enjoying some fun valentines arts and crafts. Dates to remember: Friday the 12th will be Our Valentine's Day party. Please bring in a tissue box for your child to decorate as soon as possible. Friday the 19th will be pajama day, we will be having popcorn and a movie. Parents please remember to label all items: food, cups, clothing, etc. Make sure cubbies have weather appropriate clothing. Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!
Kristilynn, Brittany, & Akua
Pre-K
We’ll also dedicate time to Dr. Seuss who's birthday is 3/2! We're working on having a surprise visitor this month to help celebrate!
Important Dates:
- 2/2: Ms. Josette’s 1st ACP work anniversary!
- 2/3: Happy birthday Eric
- 2/12: Class Valentine’s Day Party! Stay tuned for a party items sign-up sheet!
- 2/17: Happy birthday Luke!
- 2/23: Happy birthday Autumn!
Reminders:
- Please sign your child in and out daily! The sheet is located near the mailboxes (back door)
- Home toys: we give Home Toy Tickets to children who reach pink on the color chart. This is the only time home toys are allowed in the classroom (with the exception of stuffed animals, which are solely for nap time). Please remind your kiddos to keep their listening ears on and to make good choices so we could give out lots of tickets!
Kindergarten
Hooray for February!! Our 100th day of school is right around the corner! As of right now it’s looking like the 100th day will be February 11th. If we have any snow days, the 100th day will be pushed back. I will keep everyone posted as the big day gets closer – Keep an eye on the Tadpole reports! We all remember starting with day 1 and thinking how far away 100 was! The class is very excited for the fun festivities planned. I hope everyone has begun thinking of ideas for their 100 items! If you need any suggestions please see me! Also, please have your child wear their 100th day shirt on our special day!
Here is just a small sampling of what we’ve been up to in Kindergarten: In January our main focus was short a word family words. We have been working very hard on sounding out and stretching words. We read poems and sang songs using these word families. The class also worked on sorting words by their families. We reviewed all our phonemic awareness skills, listening for the beginning, middle and end sounds, clapping syllables, rhyming and more. The sight words we learned in January are: go, did, pretty, it, find, what, have, if, funny, down, they, all, here. We played Oh No!, mystery word using the word wall, musical sight words, bingo and other fun sight word games and activities. Please keep practicing the sight word lists at home; it really does make a difference.
As for writing workshop, we’ve been continuing to work on forming uppercase and lowercase letter accurately and also have been practicing our sentence writing skills together as a class. We also are keeping up with our independent writing folders as well. Remember, don’t be afraid of your child’s spelling, we spell phonetically! If you have any questions about how to help your child write at home please see me.
As for math, we were busy working on addition for most of January. We made equations independently with manipulatives like dominos, small bears and counting cubes. We made an addition equation using marshmallows in a mug. This coming week we’ll begin working on subtraction. We’ll be using the terms minus, take away and difference. We will continue working on subtraction in February and then move onto money!
In January we talked a lot about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and his dream of everyone getting along. The class had fun discussing a dream of their own. For science this month we finished up learning about the human body and also explored magnets. Our next topic will be Arctic Animals. We’ll also learn about Chinese New Year and Groundhog day.
Report cards went home at the end of January. If you have any questions about your child’s report card please see me. I will be holding conferences in the spring for the 3rd quarter. I really cannot believe how fast this school year is going!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Miss Megan