St. Patty's Day~

What a fun day......

What a surprise we got this morning when I went to open the blinds in the play room after children started to arrive... A mischievous leprechaun must have snuck in during the night... We saw small little foot prints on the window in the play room. They went across the glass, on the window sill and down the wall. We didn't think any thing of it until we saw he built a small castle with the green lego's and he also played with the green pegs. When I went to make breakfast - we found out that silly leprechaun had turned the milk and eggs to a green.

We figured he was done until one of the kids had to go bathroom... The water was also green in there and it stayed green all day... We had a very fun time, but we didn't get to see a leprechaun... :)

~End f Camping Fun

The last two weeks have been fun with our Camping Fun theme. We played some games I did up. One fun one was our Camping Fun Bingo Game. The children are learning that just because they didn't win the game, they can't still have fun. Maybe they will win the next time. We do continue to play each game until everyone has won.

During Camping Fun Bingo, when letters were called, I also asked the children to give me a word that starts with the letter. I was very impressed with the words they came up with.
We also played Zingo, read books about camping, made binoculars, and did worksheets with the camping theme. Their Friday Folders are going home today. Please make sure you take the time to check out all the fun stuff they did.

Next week our theme is going to be St. Patricks. :) Everyone have a great week-end and see you on Monday!
Jean

~Travel Tots

We had our first visit from Travel Tots today..... The children were very excited and had a great time. Today we traveled to Kenya, a country located in Africa. We learned what the people of Kenya eat, wear and what type of animals live there. (Giraffes, alligators, hippos, zebra's, elephants and other wild animals).
We learned that the people of Kenya raise cows and goats, and they bring them into their houses each night to keep them from harm. Could you imagine bringing a cow into your house?
A typeical house in Kenya is made from straw, mud and sticks. They don't have running water like us, and have to carry the water from a near by water supply. We practiced walking around with a plastic disk on our head to see if we could keep it on our head. I was really impressed at how good the kids did. The people of Kenya carry food and water on top of their head. This was very interesting.
I did talk to our Traveling Tot instructor - Miss Jullian and I did let her know we are very interested in Spanish lessons, so March 25, we will be doing Spanish.
I did send a link for Photobucket of pictures I took today during Travel Tot time. :)

Camping Fun

This week our theme was Camping Week. We will continue the theme next week, so Friday folders will go home next Friday. I would like to keep the sheets and paintings the kids did so far this week hanging up.

We also started Book It! Beginners this week. Everytime we read a book, we'll add a color crayon book marker to the bulletin board. We'll be doing this for the 2 months. At the end of each month, children will get a certificate for a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. Our bulletin board should get pretty full. :)

The books we have read this week are: Pinkalicious, Purplicious, Bailey Goes Camping, PJ Funnybunny Camps Out, A Day at Camp and our book for the week that we read each day at Circle Time: Camping Out by Mercer Mayer.

Reminder that Travel Tots will be coming on Wednesday. If you haven't paid for the $10. fee per child, per month, please pay by Tuesday. If needed, you can make it $5.00 and pay the other $5.00 before the next visit. I'm really looking forward to this...

Monday - March 2

This week and next week our theme is going to be "Camping Fun". Letter e, color green, number 7, and shape diamond. I have Friday Folders ready to go from the last 2 weeks. Children will also be bringing home a book for the month of February.

We're also going to be doing Book It! Beginnings again this March and April. We're going to keep track of the books we read and at the end of March and April, children will get to bring home a certificate for a pizza from Pizza hut. There is a information flyer in the children's Friday Folder explaining this more in detail.

Reminder that tomorrow I will be closing at 12:30. I plan on going to the state capital with other providers and the organizations that run the PEK Program and Parent Aware. They are looking to receive additional funding, and they were looking for providers that have been on these programs to give their own feedback. I personally think both of these progams were very benefical for my preschool/child care, and I would love to see the funding continue.

Farm Week

This week we are continuing our theme "Down on the Farm". Monday we learned about cows. How much they can weight, how much milk they can produce in a lifetime, and more. Did you know that cow can produce 200,000 glasses of milk in their life time? I was amazed... We also "milked" a cow. :)

I poked a hole in a rubber glove and poured some milk into the glove. I explained to the children how a farmer milks a cow by hand. We had some funny results. A couple of the kids squirted themselves. We "milked" the cow into a bowl. I wish I could have taken some pictures, but I wasn't going to let go of that glove.

Tuesday we learned that to make pink we needed to mix the colors red and white together. We needed pink for a worksheet. The kids did a good job of mixing. Their sheets turned out "pink".

Today (Wednesday) is going to be a free day. Movies, computer... free play. I am feeling under the weather and I thought this would be a great option as oppose to taking the day off. I'm hoping tomorrow I will be feeling better and back to our farm theme. :)

It's Down on the Farm Week

Actually, for the next 2 weeks it will be Down on the Farm. The children have been busy this morning and afternoon with a couple of projects and worksheets, and playing with some new games I did up. The Clothes Pin Matching game. Children take a card and say the upper case letter and then locate the lower case letter on the card by placing a colored clothes pin on the matching letter. We also are learning about mommy farm animals and baby animals. The children during small group - picked an animal to practice writing after we matched them to the right animals.
I took a few pictures of the kids playing with the clothes pin cards. They were having fun!

What a Week!

Valentine's week was a great time.... We were so busy and did some cute activities and crafts. The children had alot of fun at the Valentine party. They really enjoyed passing out their valentine's to their friends.... I did send a link on Friday afternoon to photobucket and the pictures I have added from this past week. You are able to order, so kneep tha tin mind when looking...

The next 2 weeks in going to be Down on the Farm. We will be learning about farm animals, what grows on the farm, the color pink, triangle, number 4, and letter Y. I know the next 2 weeks will be fun because this is a fun theme.

On Saturday I vendored at a child care conference and I met the owner of Travel Tots. This program was something that I have been wanting to add to my child care, but there was no teacher for the St. Paul area. Now they have a teacher in the area and I am so excited..... The children will love this program. I do have a flyer for everyone so you can read more about the program. I am going to have them come out twice a month, and it will cost each child to participate, $10.00 a month. If in the future, we want to add 2 more week, that will of course be up to you the parents. We will be starting this program in March....
Check your bins for a copy of the flyer please.

As always a busy time, but always fun..... I hope everyone has/had a fantastic Valentine's Day...
Jean

File Folder Games :)

One of the fun things we like to do at child care is file folder games. I make these up, put together, and the children can "work" on letters, numbers, color, shapes, and more. I thought it would be cute to put a couple pictures of 2 of the kids playing our new Valentine - How many? file folder game from yesterday... One is such a clown. Can you guess which one? :)

Dental Week~

February is Children's Dental Health Month, so this week we spend time learning about our teeth, songs and some projects. They are going home today with a Tooth Brushing Chart. This is good for a week. If the kids want to do it longer than a week, I have the download for the sheet on my curriculum web site under Free Downloads. http://www.123learncurriculum.com/

Tuesday was Elmo's Birthday. We read the book before naptime on Tuesday "Little Elmo's Book of Colors". The book had some of Elmo's favorite colors and at the end of the story, all the colors made a rainbow. We discussed what everyone's favorite color was. When the kids got up from nap, a few of them wanted to paint a rainbow like Elmo's. (The one at the right was done by Mason).

Some history on Elmo: Elmo is a 3 1/2-year-old Muppet who first appeared on Sesame Street in 1984. Recently, he has gained a lot of popularity among children and teens. He now has his own 15-minute segment in Sesame Street called Elmo's World. Elmo is enthusiastic, friendly, and cheerful. He has a very positive, optimistic view of himself and life. Like several other characters on Sesame Street, Elmo speaks a "monster language". He never uses pronouns and refers to himself and others by name: "Elmo wants to play." Elmo is usually seen with his best friend, Zoe. He has a pet goldfish named Dorothy. His favorite hobbies are tap dancing and playing the piano.

We had a full and busy week.... Next week our theme is Valentine's. I know we'll find some fun things to do during this week. Remember that our Valentine's Party is on Friday - during the morning hours.... :)

Snow Fun~

We're learning about Winter Wonderland. Last week and this week. What a fun way to learn about snow, then to bring it in the house and play with it. The kids thought this was fun and we really didn't get that cold. The hands got a little cold, but we had a towel to wipe out hands off, and dig back in the snow again. :)

We added aminals, cars and other toys to play in the snow. We tried to make a snowman, but no luck. The snow was to fine.

This week we'll we talking about snowmen. The book we're reading during circle time is Snowmen at Night. Did you ever wonder what snowmen do at night? Well - we found out. Ask your children. See if they remember all the fun things the snowmen do.

~Happy New Year~

Happy New Year!!!!!
It's back to "work" for all of us. We had a fantastic morning.... We are back into the swing of things with preschool. We started with our community circle. The children were glad to be back on routine. The book we are reading this week during community circle is The Mitten by Jan Brett. We will have some projects we're going to do with this book, plus we are working with the letter w, number 5, shape triangle and color white. Newsletters for January are in the kids bins along with a new contract for the year and a vacation request form. I did up the form so that when you want to request time off you will be able to use this form and I will have a record of the request. :)

Friday - Dec. 26

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. I'm currently loading pictures from our Christmas party from Monday onto Photobucket and I will send a link once thery are loaded. The kids had a great time. They sang Christmas songs as they were waiting for Santa to arrive. They then got to open presents from the gift exchange and from myself.
I got a bunch of pictures before my camera went dead. I have to learn to keep that charged up. :)

I have my observation today for Parent Aware. I'm still working on receiving a 4 star rating. Normally I would have been closed today but this was a great day to do the observation since we wanted it done by the end of the year. This month was very hectic and busy with my vacation, and we had such a great time on vacation that we have already scheduled it again for next December.

Jean :)

Parent Aware~

During the month of December, I'll be focusing my free time on Parent Aware again. I received a 3 star rating in September, but I feel I'm a 4 star program. Instead of waiting until September 09 to go through the rating process again, I'm jumping full fledged into it again so I can hopefully get that elusive 4 star rating. :)

During the 2008 year - I have attended 70 hours of training. Pretty good I think, considering that during the year - licensing requires me to get 3 hours.

Over the next couple years my training will get more in-dept as I work toward college credits. In order to re-new my CDA in 3 years, I will need to have college credits.

I enjoy my job and I enjoy it even more when I can do training to better my program and is beneficial to your children that you have entrusted into my care.

I will start adding a section to future newsletters to let you know of any training I have taken in the past month.

December

December is a busy month and my favorite month with Christmas. All this month, the preschool theme we will be following is Christmas - All Month Long. I will be gone for part of December on vacation but when I get back, we will fall back into this theme.

On Dec. 5, we have Mrs. Jean coming to do music with the children. I also have a mock observation to get me ready for another "real" observation for Parent Aware. I am striving to receive a 4 star rating. I decided not to wait until August 09 to re-qualify. I have my new observation scheduled on December 26th.

Our bulletin board inside the playroom area has been decorated with a Christmas tree and the words "The Gift of Reading". Each day when we read a book before naptime, I will write the title of the book and author on a "gift" and have one of the children color the gift and we'll add it under the Christmas tree. So far we have 3 "gifts" under the tree.