February Newsletter
2016 - 2017 Academic Year
Save the Date for Our Third Annual Spring Family Festival
Story Stretchers
Cookie Dough Fundraiser
Chip, Chip Hooray!!! Our Otis Spunkmeyer Fundraiser is underway and we're super excited! Okay so we know that Otis doesn't exactly offer the healthiest of options... But they sure are yummy! Aside from the delicious cookies offered they also offer pizza from Hansen, soups from Soul Warming soup bags (Panera Bread), Cheesecakes from Atlanta Cheesecake Company and pretzels from Auntie Anne's. The Otis Spunkmeyer warehouse is located locally in Bradenton. A small detail that makes this fundraiser just a wee little bit eco-friendly.
The fundraiser will run from Monday, February 13th - Friday, February, 24th . The profits made from this fundraiser will help fund the Spring Family Festival.
Ready, Set, Sell!!!
Parent/Teacher Conferences
Parent/Teacher Conferences will begin the week of February 27th. We will be offering the conferences over several days for each cottage. This will allow us to offer more morning and afternoon time slots. Additionally, you can also choose to have a phone conference if that suits your schedule better. A sign-up sheet for a scheduled time slot will be available in your child’s classroom. During this scheduled time with your child’s teacher, you will have the opportunity to discuss your child's days here at school as well as your child’s growth and development.
Pizza Fridays
Mark Your Calendars
2/14- Valentine's Day Classroom Celebrations
2/20- TCMLC Closed in observance of President’s Day
2/27- Parent/Teacher Conferences Begin this Week
February Birthdays!
May your days be filled with the warm sunshine of love and the bright colors of laughter.
2/1- Amelia O.
2/3- Layna D.
2/4- Sawyer H.
2/5- Ms. Cassidy
2/6- Ms. Judy
2/13- Jack S.
2/13- Tyler S.
2/19- Josie B.
2/24- Ms. Sami
Cricket Cottage News
Love is All You Need...
We are loving all of our friends in the Cricket Cottage this month. For the month of February, we will be focusing on the topic of Love. We will be using words that express the feelings that we show such as love, hug, kisses, and gentle touches. Studies show that it is very beneficial to talk to infants about feelings and daily routines. By doing this, it builds security and trust as well as helping develop their language skills.
Art
We will be working on a special art project for our mommies and daddies for Valentine's Day. We will also continue to track our friends growth by painting and making imprints of their feet.
Sign of the Month
During the month of February, we will be teaching our friends the sign for love. We will be working on using nice hands and giving lots of hugs and kisses to show how much we love each other.
Language and Literacy
We will be reading books that are about love and friendship this month. The books we will be reading are, Guess How Much I Love You and You Are All My Favorites, by Sam McBratney. We will continue to look at picture books to enhance our vocabulary and associate the spoken word with the object.
Welcome and Goodbye
We would like to welcome Selah to the Cricket Cottage, who will be joining us at the end of this month. Selah has an older sister, Joyah in our program who is a student in the Ladybug Cottage. We would like to say goodbye and good luck to Jack S. He has graduated to the Ladybug Cottage and he will be missed dearly!
Ladybug Cottage News
January Recap
We were off to a great start in January! The newer children are adjusting well to their new environment, and the senior Ladybugs welcomed them and helped them feel at home. The kids enjoyed playing with the shape sorter and listening to all of the different books about shapes and colors. They especially liked sorting colors with the large mat; we put items of the same color family in each section of the mat and talked to the children about the colors as we played.
We LOVE Our Ladybugs!
For the month of February, we will focus on our feelings and emotions. The children are a little young to understand how they are feeling, but when adults verbalize feelings/emotions for them, they can build on that as they grow. Verbalizing feelings can also help them learn empathy when their friends are sad or upset. Talking to the children throughout the day about what they are doing, whether it be playing, eating, or exploring, helps to build a child's language and comprehension skills.
Facebook Pages We Love
We would like to share a few of our favorite pages. They offer some wonderful ideas and great insight on the RIE philosophy we love so much.
Resources for Infant Educarers
Janet Lansbury, Elevating Childcare
Lisa Sunbury, Regarding Baby
Art Exploration
For art this month, we will focus on the colors red and white, and what happens when you mix these colors, this allows us to explore cause and effect. The children will also create a special project for their parents for Valentine's Day.
Caterpillar Cottage News
January Recap
The Caterpillars put on their mittens and coats to explore the arctic. They identified what arctic animals they saw and how they survived in freezing weather. We had fun ice fishing, painting with ice, and playing in "snow".
February
Get ready because we are falling in love. This month we will be doing art and science projects that show the "sweetness" of this month. We will be working on our fine motor skills by creating "lollipops" using our patterning skills. A rock candy experiment will also be prepared for us to discuss the reason why the rocks are able to keep growing. We will talk about sharing and caring with our friends during this month and create Valentine's Day cards for our family.
Sharing
We are really working with the children's social/emotional development skills this month. Sharing is a great way to interact with our peers and form connections. Children learn a lot from just watching what others do as it gives them a great example to follow. Sharing is indeed caring!
Family Photos
If you haven't done so, please bring in a photo of you and your child. The caterpillars would like to add it on our family tree. Your child finds it comforting looking at pictures of their family throughout the day while at school.
Valentine's Day Snack
The caterpillars will be having a Valentine's Day party on Tuesday, February 14th at 3:30pm. We will be enjoying a sweet treat to celebrate this holiday. Please look for a signup sheet on the parent board for food donations for this event.
Portfolios
We are working very hard on your child's portfolio. We still need a few items from families to complete these wonderful keepsakes. If you haven't done so already, please turn in a 1 1/2 inch 3 ring binder and sheet protectors. Thank you with providing us with these supplies to create a portfolio you and your child can look back on in years to come.
Butterfly Cottage News
January Recap
Our room was a real zoo during the month of January! We read books, sang songs, and participated in felt board games about all of the different zoo animals. The children created art projects representing zebras and tigers and beautiful sunset pictures with other zoo animals. We also began practicing simple math skills by measuring the animals and sorting by different categories.
February Topics
During the month of February, the Butterflies will be learning about taking care of our hearts. We will be exercising as well as practicing simple yoga poses and meditation. Healthy foods and other ways we can take care of our bodies will also be discussed during circle time with fun books, games, and songs.
Heart Scavenger Hunt
The children had a blast with our outdoor zoo animal scavenger hunt during the month of January. Therefore, we will be creating another scavenger hunt using different colored hearts. The children and teachers will take turns hiding the hearts around the playground while the others search for them. During this activity, the children will learn persistence and memory skills.
Sensory Projects
We have some ooey gooey sensory activities planned for this month! Our first activity will be Valentine's slime. This consists of glue, liquid startch, water, food coloring, and glitter or confetti. Another fun sensory project we will be enjoying is chocolate playdough. This is the same recipe we have used all year with an addition of cocoa mixed in for that delicious chocolate smell.
Heart Healthy Valentine's Snack
The Butterfly Cottage would like to invite our families to join us for a Valentine's Day party in our cottage. The party will be on Tuesday, February 14th, at 3:30pm. We will be posting a signup sheet for families to donate items for a healthy party snack of strawberry parfait. Please keep an eye out for a donation signup sheet that will be posted on the parent board if you are able to donate.
Bumblebee Cottage News
January Recap
The Bumblebees really enjoyed studying our five senses last month! We did a great job working on our pre-math skills by working on one on one correspondence and number recognition. The children enjoyed doing our clothespin activity where they matched the number of clothespins to the written number on the card. We also used various loose parts to count and learn numbers.
Topics for February
During the month of February, we will be getting ready for Valentine's Day celebrations and discussing kindness through sharing, empathy, love, and feelings. February is Dental Health Month, so we will also learn about the importance of taking care of our teeth. New letters of the alphabet will be introduced and we will also begin a study of life on the farm.
We Love our Bees
Since Valentine's Day is this month, we are taking the opportunity to talk to the children about feelings with regard to love, kindness, sharing, and empathy. Social-emotional skills will be nurtured as we talk about using "cotton ball" verses "sandpaper" words. This will be learned and discussed in an activity using the sensory bin. The sensory bin will be filled with cotton balls and sand paper and as the children touch the soft cotton, we will discuss how kind words feel soft like a cotton ball. As the sandpaper is touched, we will discuss how the sensation is rough and not pleasant and that is how rough words feel when spoken to others.
Valentine's Day
Taking our focus on feeling and empathy, we will hold a Valentine's Day party with "love" as our focus. The party will be on Tuesday, February 14th at 3:30pm. Our Bumblebees are encouraged to bring in Valentine's Day cards to give to their friends and we ask that on the card you put down just your child's name in the "from" section. A signup sheet will be posted if any parents are able to donate supplies for our party. We will also be decorating shoeboxes to hold the cards from our friends. We are asking parents to bring in a shoebox (or 2) for the children to decorate. X's, O's, and hearts will reinforce letters and shapes in this activity. Finally, we invite parents to write a short love note of their own to their children, which the teachers will read to them at morning circle time.
Letters
This month's featured letters will be X, O, and B. The children will learn to identify the letters in words and learn the sound the letters make. Writing skills will be practiced with writing the letter using a marker and tracing the letter in colored sand. Math and literacy will come together in a fun letters and patterns activity using our featured letters and blocks.
Dental Health Month
February is Dental Health Month and we will take this opportunity to learn about the importance of taking care of our teeth. We will talk about brushing our teeth and flossing between our teeth. We will be incorporating a fun science experiment to show the children what will happen if we don't take care of our teeth by using hard boiled eggs. We will be soaking the eggs in healthy and unhealthy liquids and comparing the results. Self care skills will be reinforced as we clean the eggs with toothbrushes and toothpaste.
Farm
Our Bumblebees will begin a study of the farm towards the end of this month. We will be learning about farm animals and math skills will be practiced with a Feed the Farm Animal counting game. We will incorporate the classic song "Old MacDonald" to reinforce learning the different sounds farm animals make.The children will also learn about where milk comes from and we will turn this into a fun art project by filling latex gloves with liquid watercolor. Each Bee will get a turn "milking" by squirting the liquid watercolor filled glove onto a piece of paper and creating a watercolor collage. The farm unit will also incorporate a discussion of healthy foods and where these foods come from.
Dragonfly Cottage News
January Recap
During the month of January the Dragonflies learned about forest life during the winter season. We learned how some animals hibernate, adapt, or migrate during the colder months. We did a lot of brainstorming and problem solving as well as STEM challenges using numerous materials, bridges, and ramps.
3,2,1- Blast Off!
The Dragonflies will be learning all about space during the month of February. We will have weekly focus studies that focus on the sun, moon, stars and planets. Hands-on learning will be entwined into our weekly studies to enhance our learning experiences.
Field Trip
Please don't forget to hand in your child's field trip permission form for the show Biscuit at the Van Wezel. We are so excited to go and we will be doinmg a countdown as a class until it's show time. We will also be reading more Biscuit books prior to seeing the live performance.
Valentine's Day
We will be hosting a Valentine's Day morning snack and exchanging Valentine's Day cards on Tuesday, February 14th. We are asking for each child to please write their name in the "From" section of the cards. We will be collecting tissue boxes to decorate our very own Valentine box to hold Valentine's Day notes from our friends.
Kindness Korner
Be Silly, Be Honest, Be Kind- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A little spark of kindness can put a colossal burst of sunshine into someone's day!
Love Potion Smoothie
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup frozen raspberries
3/4 cup Greek yogurt
1 cup apple juice
Blend~Share~Love