March Newsletter
2018 - 2019 Academic Year
Spring is in the Air!
The Cottages Ten Year Anniversary Celebration- Save the Date!
We have an exciting anniversary coming up in a couple months! The Cottages Preschool will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary on Saturday, June 1st! Although the Spring Family Festival is on the calendar for Saturday, March 16th, we have decided to reschedule and recreate the festival for this special occasion! In honor of The Cottages 10 year anniversary, we would love to celebrate together on Saturday, June 1st! We hope you will be able to join us on this very special day! More information will be coming soon. Please save the date for Saturday, June 1st and help us celebrate 10 years of The Cottages Preschool!
Parent/Teacher Conferences
Parent/Teacher Conferences will be scheduled during the month of March. Parents can choose to have a face-to-face conference or a phone conference if that suits your schedule better. Keep your eyes out for a sign-up sheet for a scheduled time slot that will be posted in your child’s classroom. During this scheduled time with your child’s teacher, you will have the opportunity to review your child’s assessment as well as discuss your child’s growth and development.
Dr. Seuss' Birthday Celebration!
On Friday, March 1st we will celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday! For morning snack, we will enjoy green eggs and ham (Caterpillar-Dragonfly Cottages). Please be sure to sign the permission form posted in your child's room. Children in the Caterpillar, Butterfly, Bumblebee, and Dragonfly Cottages will gather in Jennie's House to enjoy story time with our special visitor - The Cat in the Hat! The Caterpillar and Butterfly students will be read the story One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and the Bumblebee and Dragonfly Cottages will be read Green Eggs and Ham.
St. Patrick's Day Celebrations
On Monday, March 18th children throughout The Cottages will celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Each year, Sean Sean the Leprechaun comes to The Cottages and plays pranks on the children and teachers. You never what you're going to find! The Butterfly-Dragonfly Cottages will also enjoy eating a special green Lucky Charms Cereal for snack this day. Be sure to have your child wear green on the 18th!
Professional Day
Mini Spring Break
The Sarasota County School calendar lists their Spring Break dates as March 18th-March 22nd. The VPK only children in our program will not attend school this week but we will remain open Monday, March 18th-Thursday, March 21st for the other students in our program. The Cottages will be closed on Friday, March 22nd for a Mini Spring Break.
Mark Your Calendars
3/1 - The Cat in the Hat Visits The Cottages!
3/18 - St. Patrick's Day Celebrations
3/18 - 3/22- Spring Break for VPK students (Non-Instructional Days)
3/15- The Cottages Closed for Professional Day
3/22- The Cottages Closed for Mini Spring Break
March Birthdays!
Today you are YOU, that is TRUER than true. There is NO ONE alive who is YOUER than YOU!
3/2 - Job T.
3/4 - Sloane Z.
3/8 - Oliver C.
3/13 - Ms. Stephanie
3/19 - Ms. Amanda
3/19 - Ms. Stefany
3/21 - Greyson M.
3/23 - Brynn L.
3/26 - Marcela C.
3/30 - Abner B.
Happy Birthday to our friends born in March!
Cricket Cottage News
Make New Friends
Please welcome Everett McSwain who is our newest Cricket. Everett has an older brother Greyson in the Caterpillar Cottage. His parents are Michelle and Greg.
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!
On March 1st we will be celebrating Dr. Seuss’s Birthday with a surprise visit from The Cat in the Hat in our Cricket Cottage! We will read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish to the infants during the day.
Hello Spring!
For the month of March, we will be introducing a spring treasure basket. The infants will explore all of their senses through various activities that include “Spring” like finger painting, music, and scents with the diffuser. During circle time, we will read books about baby farm animals and sing "Old McDonald Had a Farm" and "Hey Diddle Diddle". We will be taking daily stroller rides to enjoy the beautiful weather. We will be talking about the trees, birds, and bugs along the way and singing, “Wheels on the Bus.”. You may even hear some new sounds from your little one imitating a baby chick, lamb, or cow!
St. Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day will be celebrated Monday, March 18th in the Cricket Cottage. This month we will be introducing the color green to our friends and will highlight green objects in the play areas. Green sensory bottles will also be added to our spring collection. Friends can help participate by wearing different shades of green on Monday, March 18th!
Conceal and Reveal
Conceal and reveal is a great activity to help your child age 3-12 months learn object permanence as well as to develop their language skills. You can play the game by laying your baby on a blanket or propping them up in your lap. Gather several small, colorful toys and a cloth napkin. Attract your baby’s attention to one of the toys as you hold it in your hand and talk to your baby about what you are holding. For example, “This is a rattle. Listen to the sound it makes when I shake it.” Cover the toy with a napkin and ask, “Where is the rattle?” Uncover it and say, “Here is the rattle. It was under the napkin.” Let your baby hold the rattle. Try this with another toy, narrating the process and concluding with your baby holding or touching the toy. In the class we have an Object Permanence Box. To play this game your child would need to drop the ball down the hole and in amazement it always rolls back to them! This is a favorite toy in our room. It helps them to comprehend that you leave but always return to pick them up.
Sign of the Month
Our sign of the month is MORE. This is a favorite with all babies. More food, more milk and more fun! Signing: To do the sign for more, flatten out your hands then bring your thumbs under to make an O shape. Then, bring your hands together and separate them repeatedly. Your baby will often simplify more, gleefully clapping their fists together
Ladybug Cottage News
March, 2018: A Treasure of a Month
February Recap
We are thrilled to report that Febru-ART-y has been a smashing success and once again your little ones have impressed us with their creativity and quick mastery of a new addition to their curriculum! As you know, we’ve been hosting “Art Mondays & Thursdays” to introduce the Ladybugs to all sorts of artistic mediums – and more importantly, to familiarize them with expressing themselves via art during our biweekly gatherings. We erroneously thought this process would take weeks and weeks – after all, sitting at a table with a canvas and paint (with distracting friends!) and creating beautiful art is a complex and involved routine for preschoolers, let alone those under two years old.
Within two weeks, however, your todfants not only began congregating at the table (excitedly!) and waiting for their materials to create with once they saw us gathering paper, paint, etc., and now – at about a month in – are (mostly) staying in their seats while they create and focus on the art they are producing over all else. They allow us to help them don their little smocks and tell us when they are ready to work and when they have finished. This has been absolutely amazing to witness and we can tell you, without exception, that your kids are artists through and through. So far, they have worked with chalk, finger paint, glue paint and confetti, glitter paint and pastels. We hope you are enjoying the masterpieces they’ve produced as displayed in our room, as well as the pictures of your babies hard at work during artistic expression sessions! If you want to see more pictures of your children in the classroom at work/play, simply visit The Cottages personal, private Shutterfly page.
Treasuring March
Along with the artistic expression sessions we’ve added to the Ladybug’s curriculum, we’ve decided to introduce another new experience this month, one that is quite appropriate for the season of rainbows, leprechauns and luck: treasure boxes! Weekly treasure boxes will include new and exciting items for the todfants to explore within the cottage in multiples of nine or more (since this age group is still working on the concept of sharing). These items will be safe for the ‘Bugs, of course, and may consist of anything from natural items like sturdy seashells to brightly colored, bouncy goo. All treasure box explorations are meant to engage your baby’s five senses as they poke, prod and play with each offering. A good example of a treasure box item would be the heart-shaped pillows you’ve seen scattered around our room with the flipping sequins – something the babies can investigate, and, in the most basic of terms, act upon (in this case, turn the pillows from red to gold or silver). When your little one is able to “freely” discover new items in their environment without being told not to, it reinforces their confidence in themselves and creates the building blocks of inquiry, curiosity and experimentation upon their environment, and helps them learn about the physical world around them. Just as each child is a young artist, so is each one a young scientist, as well.
We’re So Excited About Math, We’re Singing(?) About It
Of course, we would never ignore the math and logic side of your child’s developing brain, and just as we have been sure to include science and art in their day, we must address early math skills, as well. But how? As you may know, there has been quite a bit of buzz recently about how babies – yes, babies – learn about numbers, logic, spatial relations and all those other math subjects many of us adults dread. Freshly back from a conference all about this very subject, we’ve learned something ourselves – your child already possesses more math sense than you (or we) could possibly believe! For example, babies already can recognize groups of numbers by sight – more than 100! They may not know the term “five,” but they can see and understand a group of five (or ten or twenty) when they see it. They are also natural categorizers and experts on geometry, sorting objects into shapes and colors before their first birthdays.
As teachers, we need to support these early skills and encourage toddlers’ math powers to grow. One way we can do this is by using mathematical language in our everyday interactions with your child – which sounds intimidating, but really just refers to descriptors about the location of things (words like next to, under, behind); shape and relative size of things (“look your cracker is a circle” or “this cup is bigger than that cup”); and the sequence of things (“First we put on your socks, then we put on your shoes!).
Upon the newest recommendations from education experts, we have become more intentional in our language and game choices to include math. Sequencing songs – where todfants have to remember what steps to complete in a certain order during a silly song – teach them the earliest skills they will need to do algebra (first I check my formula for negatives, then I balance the equation, etc.). If you pick up your child from school earlier than expected and find our whole cottage singing and dancing to some very silly songs in some very silly ways, just think – one day this will help my toddler with their calculus homework!
A Rainbow of Personalities
With March upon us, our new class total is again at nine children - and all of these children must coexist on a daily basis. Each child is, of course, different, and at a stage in his or her development. While we have Ladybugs who are just one years old in the room, we also have those who are turning two in a few short months which, as any parent knows, is a world of difference! We’ve sent home (via last month’s newsletter) some of the basic guidelines we use to keep your little ones safe and functioning together, but would like to talk about two ideas that can be reinforced easily at home to assist your baby in mastering the social scene like a pro.
The first is – keeping our hands on our own body. Because todfants are one, they want to put their hands all over everything – it’s how they explore, and, in some cases, communicate their feelings. We teach them that they need to keep their “hands on their own body” and go to great lengths to explain where their body is – and is not – which is not necessarily something they will fully understand until we’re about halfway to through one and a half months. We are happy to let them explore toys and other items, of course, but when it comes to bodies, they keep their hands on theirs, no one else’s.
Another loving and helpful lesson you can provide for your child may sound counterintuitive, but is essential for their growth as a unique and productive individual – setting limits and saying no. In fact, this is one that you can do at home much, much more than we can do in the cottage as you, as parents, know best when your little one has a need versus a want – an important distinction.
Because our Cottages parents are, as a group, particularly conscientious of their children and not only meet, but exceed their children’s needs, setting limits and saying no can be a hard, hard process. Every single bit of research we have, though – both in education and psychology – suggests that we, as parents (remember, Ms. Jessica and Ms. Joanne are parents, too!) MUST let our children struggle a bit, experience frustration a bit and wait just a bit sometimes so that they can build the absolutely necessary qualities of perseverance, patience, tolerance, self-reliance and resilience – and about ten more critical qualities. Because you’re great parents, you are probably used to meeting your children’s needs immediately – you likely get them anything they need as soon as they need it. But what about wants? Do you get them every toy they point to? No? How about let them choose what food they eat when they want to eat it? Maybe? How about give in to extra … extra … extra … snuggles almost every night if your little one cries and looks adorable (as they do)? Hmmm.
Of course, you love your child more than anything in this world and want to give them absolutely everything their heart desires and -oh, boy- do we understand that. But saying no to certain wants (versus needs) sets them up for success immeasurable as they will then develop the skills and traits to deal with the inevitable reality that the world does not always run as they wish; that they will have to work hard to get where they want to go in life; and that they will often have to make compromises. If you can do this for them – and withstand the inevitable todfant tantrums that come from being denied a toy in a store or a fifth helping of a certain food – you are giving your little one the biggest “leg up” of all!
Caterpillar Cottage News
Friendly February Recap
The children learned about friendship, feelings, and kindness towards others. We created artwork with friends as whole groups, captured kindness action shots of the children, modeled kindness through baby-dolls and teddy bears, created a friendship fruit salad together, and expressing emotions! We may make a difference in the world, just one random act of kindness at a time.
March
Drivers, start your engines! This month is going to be focused on transportation. Our children are so eager to show their love for cars, trucks, and airplanes. Whether it is the vehicles driving by, seen in a book, or heard flying over our heads.
Transportation Yoga Poses
Bicycle – Bicycle Pose. Get those legs pedaling fast and slow!
Boat- Boat Pose. Rock back and forth like a boat in the water!
Helicopter – Start in mountain pose, raise your arms over your head, spin!
Rocket – Tree pose. With your hands over your head pretend you are blasting off like a rocket.
Skateboard – Warrior 2 pose. Don’t wobble!
Hot Air Balloon – Hot Air Balloon Breathing. Keep your hands on your stomach. Breathe in and make your stomach into a balloon. Breathe out! Repeat.
Car – Sit in long sitting with your spine straight and legs in front of you. Pretend that you are holding a steering wheel in front of you and drive!
Train – Partner chair pose. While holding hands move them back and forth like the wheels on the train.
Dump Truck – Star Pose. Tip to your side like you are a dump truck. Do it on both sides!
Construction Playdough Invitation
Children will have a blast bulldozing the roads and pretending to build! With construction sensory play.
Dirt Playdough
Ingredients:
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 cup salt
- 1 Tablespoon cream of tartar
- 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 cup water
- Brown food coloring
- Clean play sand
Stir the flour, salt, and cream of tartar. Mix in the water and oil. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring often until it forms a ball. Use a nonstick skillet.
Cognitive Thinking
To enhance our pre-mathematics and manipulative skills this month, we will have a community helper matching game. The children will learn to match action figure size community helpers (pilot, police officer, fireman, doctor, mailman, e.g) next matching to a printed picture of the listed community helpers. Also, we will be learning shapes with toy vehicles. We will be creating roads of various shapes using sand paper for additional sensory and large enough for toy vehicles to play on. Shapes will include circle, triangle, square, star, and hearts.
Extension of Activity:
- Substitute shapes for numbers 0-10.
- Drive the cars along the roads and count how many corners each shape has. Identify the shape names.
- See how many cars can fit on each shape. Which one has the most cars on it? This is a great activity for spacial awareness to identify the correct sized cars to fit along each road.
- Place all the yellow cars on one shape and all the blue cars on another.
Music & Grooving
We will be introducing a new song this month. It is sung to the tune of Clementine.
I’m an airplane, I’m an airplane
Flying up into the sky.
Flying higher, flying higher.
As I watch the clouds go by.
I’m an airplane, I’m an airplane
See me flying all around.
Flying lower, flying lower.
Till I land on the ground.
Art
We will explore new painting experiences this month. We will have a variety of cars that the children can roll into paint and make tracks onto the large butcher block paper. Also, painting with toy gears and mixing primary colors.
Car Wash
We decided to have our very own car wash to beat the heat. The children will be washing their "dirty" toy cars. We’re adding a few car wash essentials like a scrubbing brush, sponges, and a spray bottle.
Water Play
It's hot outside! We think we have finally passed those couple cold weeks of Florida winter. Water tables are a great way to cool down in the heat while we play outside on the playground and we love exploring this fun sensory activity. Please make sure your child has short sleeve shirts, shorts, and sunscreen on for our outdoor play this month.
Butterfly Cottage News
February Recap
The butterflies really soaked in the true meaning of friendship and what it means to “be kind “ this month with the help of Valentine’s day! Every time we asked questions like, "what makes a good friend?" or "what does being kind mean?" they surprised us more and more each day with their amazing answers. The book called, What Does It Mean To Be Kind? by Rana DiOrio was their favorite story to read this month! This is a beautiful book with a beautiful message. The book showed us how easy it is to be kind through small acts and in simple ways. Some examples of being kind that we learned from this story are smiling at the new student in class or giving someone a compliment. We really felt the children understood the meaning the story held. Purple and pink really grasped their attention to try and draw hearts and practice their letter V for Valentine’s Day. They glued, colored, and stamped their little hearts out on your Valentine’s Day cards the entire first two weeks of February! I hope you loved them as much as they loved making them! The last two weeks of February we practiced writing F for friendship! Throughout the month we continued talking about friendship and how it’s great to share and even help friends up when they fall! With all the extra praising we gave, friends were going out of their way to help each other and would be so proud of themselves they would point it out! For example, “Ms. Stefany, I shared the magnet blocks with so-and-so.” Or “Ms. Myah, I hugged so and so because they fell!” They made multiple friendship bracelets for their families and classmates after helping sort hundreds of beads out by color! They painted and danced in twos to help teach them to cooperate in group situations, gain self confidence, and to explore their own musical concepts and expression! If you haven’t already noticed your butterfly writing or attempting to write their own name, you will! We gave each student one on one time to practice their names daily, some practiced writing letters the whole morning away! Their favorite way is to practice is with a dry erase marker on our mini mirrors taking turns at circle time.
March
The month of February will tie into the month of March because, not only should you be kind to your friends, you should be kind to the planet! We will begin to focus on all things green of the earth like trees, plants, and keeping earth happy like recycling, reusing, and cleaning! The butterflies will learn plenty of science by being able to demonstrate their knowledge of earth's environment and characteristics of living things. For example, naming characteristics of plants. Asking questions like, "why do plants need water?" "Why should we be kind to plants (and animals)?", and "What makes the earth happy/sad?" We will also learn how to sign “grow” in ASL.
Nature Exploration
We will take many trips to our garden to water seeds and watch life grow! We will take more nature walks to pick up any trash to make the earth smile! Water colors will be used to draw trees and plants that we see on our nature walks as well as continue to collect little treasures from outside to make collages.
Mrs. Waddles
Mrs. Waddles has visited four friends so far and is making her way to all the butterflies homes! It’s so much fun to see them get excited over the “class pet” and bring some memories back to class the next week to share! It shows the students you care about their school life and gets conversations flowing amongst the students! The butterflies still gaze and talk about their family tree photos, I just know they’ll love Mrs. Waddles' Adventure photos too!
March Activities
We will be emphasizing recycling all month so you will find us painting will all sorts of loose parts, paper towel rolls, and bottles. We will be exploring the effects of frozen bottle caps and ice in the sensory bin and playing, "What can you build with one cup of Legos?"
Earth is our Home
Earth is our home, what a beautiful home
We love our beautiful home
Earth is our home and wherever we roam
We know Earth is our home
Flowers grow tall, insects so small
We love our beautiful home
Songbirds that sing, fit for a king
We know Earth is our home
Bumblebee Cottage News
February Recap
The first half of February we were introduced to China and observed their Lunar New Year with a mini dragon-dance of our own. We learned how letters looked more like pictures in kanji, as well as in Japan. After identifying pandas as an animal native to that part of the world, we read old favorites, "Please, Mr. Panda" and "Thank You, Mr. Panda." This tied into Valentine's Day and ongoing topics of how to show empathy, love, and kindness to others. We truly focused upon ways to communicate with each other with kind words, how to ask to take turns, and how to courteously express our needs to one another.
Besides learning about art styles in China, Japan, and Russia, we continued with invitations to write words relating to our topics of inquiry. The Five Senses were also explored with a focus on new terms such as "sight" and "auditory." This led to experimenting with different textures and art materials to create not only artistic creations of our own but allowing our scientific thinking to develop further with a deeper understanding of the properties of objects. We were also visited by dentists from Sierra Kids Smiles who demonstrated brushing and flossing on their alligator plush model and allowed us to practice these important skills!
March Letter of the Week & Sign-In Sheet
Our letters of the week through the month of January will include W/w, X/x, Y/y, & Z/z. We place a special focus on these letters while reviewing all those we have learned, thus far. Word slips are included in invitations to write terms related to topics we are learning. Thank you for helping our Bees sign in, too, as this helps develop important fine-motor skills and letter recognition. We encourage you to encourage your children to try their hand, on their own! Even praising their "scribbles" is a necessary part of helping our younger Bees to develop confidence in writing skills and will encourage them to continue to practice writing on their own. Our more mature Bees, likewise, are presented with writing challenges to suit their quickly growing abilities!
Springtime & Ireland
The overall theme for the month will be springtime and the Emerald Isle, itself! With the vernal equinox beginning in North America officially on Wednesday, March 20th and St. Patrick's Day on Sunday, March 17th, we will have plenty of opportunities to delve into the wonders of new life sprouting all around. Irish traditions will be blended with knowledge of the geography of the island as well as the changing of the seasons. We will observe changes which take place both locally and abroad during this time of year. As we do, this will help us familiarize ourselves with flora and fauna as well as the people who reside overseas as we compare and contrast them to those in our own backyards.
Families who have signed up for these countries are encouraged to submit a recipe, and/or to bring in any items representing the traditional or modern cultures of these places for a show-and-tell. We also invite you or a family member or friend to read a story from these countries, or to simply teach a few words in the official language, or both! Please contact Ms. Cat or Ms. Stephanie to schedule a visit if you would like to come in to feature a song, story, or even to "model" and discuss traditional dress and customs from these countries.
Parent/Teacher Conferences
Parent/teacher conferences are due to be scheduled in March, so be on the lookout for sign-up sheets. Together we will discuss your child's growth and development as well as setting any goals you may have for them. Drop-off and pick-up times are a great way to touch base, but we understand it can be a challenge to touch base as these are indeed busy times with children who may wish to show off their latest creations or dinners needing to be prepared. Therefore, take advantage of this time to have some uninterrupted time to discuss your child's time in the Bumblebee classroom as we prepare them for VPK!
It's Warming Up!
A reminder to families that with the rising temperatures, the mornings may still be a bit chilly, but the afternoons can scorch. Therefore, this may require a change of cooler clothes, if you have not done so already. It also helps to have a dry set of clothing handy as, in addition to getting messy, water activities may result in soaked garments. We are also concerned about slips and falls that occur with flip-flops and sandals during outdoor exploration. Not to mention, protecting those little toes when inevitably another child accidentally steps on their feet! Therefore, close-toed sneakers are highly encouraged.
Finally, with the bright and sunny days already making an appearance, we understand many of our Bees will arrive at school already wearing their sunscreen, and that they may require re-application later in the day. Please remember if you have not done so already to fill out a form at the front office stating Ms. Cat and Ms. Stephanie may do so, in addition to leaving a bottle with your child's name for re-application, as needed. We thank you for your attention to these details as we continue to provide fun and inviting learning experiences for our little Bees!
Dragonfly Cottage News
February Recap
We had a lovely month together. We took moments during our day to really discuss and understand the importance of kindness in our classroom. We focused on how to be kind, what kindness feels like in our hearts, and make a point to choose KIND always. We celebrated Arrow's birthday with a book, Dragons Love Tacos, by Adam Rubin and a great big taco party with friends. Arrow plays in centers ,goes to the playground for flying lessons, and sits in on small groups these days. He has been a great friend and we hope to have him join us at graduation this year.
March Inquiry
During the month of March we will learn about insects. We will learn about life cycles, the job of a entomologist, and jobs of various insects like dragonflies, butterflies, bees, and ladybugs. We will link various books to each one, writing stories, creating art, and making graphs. The children will have a blast looking for bugs and we will make sure to teach them how to be kind and respectful of the earth's tiniest creatures.
Parent/Teacher Conferences
Keep an eye out for our parent teacher conference times. This is a great time to connect with teachers and hear all about how your child is growing in all learning domains. We look forward to meeting with all of our Dragonfly Cottage families .
Spring is Here
The warmer weather is upon us. Please dress your Dragonflies in warm weather clothing, apply sunscreen at home for midday playground times, and change out winter clothing to warmer weather clothing in case of any accidents. We will be playing in water sensory tables, mud kitchen, and messy outside play as the weather allows us. So dress your child in clothes that can get messy. Thank you