Newsletter - January 26-30, 2015

This last week of January blasted us with a blizzard so it was a short week for our Creative Kids!

Table top activities include practicing pre-writing and scissor skills as well as working on matching and visual discrimination while completing puzzles.

At circle, we reviewed name and letter recognition as well as the calendar, observed the weather, counted our friends and read the following books: My P Book (Jane Belk Moncure), Five Little Penguins Slipping on the Ice (Steve Metzger) and Cuddly Dudley (Jez Alborough). Dudley doesn't like to be cuddled and prefers to play alone. But his sisters and brothers just can't resist cuddling him because he's so darn cute! We went on a penguin hunt searching for Dudley as our friends gave us clues (under, behind, in, on) and gave him a big cuddle once we found him.

We also learned all about penguins and watched a Scholastic video about different types of penguins. Ask me if penguins fly. Music and movement activities included Penguin Play and songs.

Center time included dramatic play in the kitchen, cars and trucks, and snow fun in our sensory bin. In our art center, we made penguins out of the letter P, painted a melted snowman picture, and also painted penguins.

Our new friend, Jacob joined us this week. He will come to school on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We're very excited to welcome him to Creative Kids Center!

Another busy (although short) week and another month gone by!

It's been “snow” much fun!

Sheri, Miranda, Fabi & Bethany

Letter of the Week - Pp

This week is brought to you by the letter Pp. P is for Penguin!

Newsletter - January 19-23, 2015

What a great week to celebrate the letter O!

Table top activities included pre-writing skills practice, color sorting and a new “Who Am I” puzzle. At circle, we reviewed name recognition and the calendar, observed the weather, counted our friends and read the books My O Book (Jane Belk Moncure), Guess Who (Margaret Miller) and Barney, What Will I Be When I Grow Up? (Maureen Balvassori). During centers we played with our cars and trucks, made tall towers and other designs with blocks, cooked in the kitchen and worked on Octopus Math. Art projects included O is for Olaf and making owls out of the letter O (and sneaking some Cheerios to eat).

On Friday, we celebrated Candice's 4^th birthday. Happy Birthday, Candice! And thank you to Candy's mom for bringing in those delicious pink and white cupcakes!

Don't forget our Frozen theme P.J. party on Friday night, 1/23 from 6:30-9:30 p.m. Hope to see you there!

Happy weekend!

Sheri, Miranda, Fabi & Bethany

Letter of the Week - Oo

This week is brought to you by the letter Oo.

Newsletter - January 12-16, 2015

It may have been cold outside, but things were sure heating up inside Creative Kids while we continued our winter theme activities!

Our letter of the week was Nn. We read My N Book (Jane Belk Moncure) & learned the sign for the letter Nn. We had a blast playing with the noodle sensory bin hunting for all of the letter N’s hidden in the noodles!

We listened to the book on tape, Frozen Noses (Jan Carr) and read The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats). We made a chart listing what we know about snow, read the book, Snow (Marion Dane Bauer), then added to the chart what we learned about snow from reading the book.

At circle time, we began a new activity where we tell Ms. Sheri if the letter of the week is in our name. If it is, we get to wear the special alphabet star necklace. Allison, Andrew & Candice all have “N” in their names so they got to wear the “N” necklaces this week. We also reviewed the calendar and weather, counted the children present at circle, had fun making snow angels, and sang many snowy songs and finger plays.  We also discussed Dr. Martin Luther King and how he tried to get people who were doing wrong things to stop. And we watched this cool video about him!



We sang “Happy Birthday Dr. King” and “Let’s Be Friends.”

Let’s Be Friends (Tune: “London Bridges”)

Let’s be friends with one another, one another, one another,

Let’s be friends with one another, Let’s be friends today.

I can wave to a friend, wave to a friend, wave to a friend,

I can wave to a friend, Let’s be friends today.

 (Other verses: laugh with a friend, hug a friend, smile at a friend.)

In the art center, we decorated the letter N with numbers because N is for Numbers! We worked on a class project making our snowman names, which also helped us practice writing our names. We painted a snowy day picture using white paint, silver glitter & salt & put together a Martin Luther King, Jr. Brotherhood Book.

Reminder: School is closed on Monday, January 19th in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. We’ll see you all on Tuesday, January 20th.


Looking Ahead

Next week’s letter of the week will be Oo.

We’re looking forward to celebrating Candice’s 4th birthday next Friday!

Note: Watch out for news regarding a special upcoming event. Hint: You won’t have to dress us when we get up in the morning!

Enjoy the three-day weekend!

Letter of the Week - Nn

This week is brought to you by the letter Nn.

Letter of the Week - Mm

This week is brought to you by the letter Mm.

Newsletter - January 5-9, 2015

Welcome Back!

This week we easily eased right back into the routine after our wonderful holiday vacation!

Our letter of the week was Mm. We read My Mm Book (Jane Belk Moncure), learned the sign for the letter Mm & practiced the “mouse” yoga pose.

In keeping with the “Mm” theme, it was mittens galore this week! We read The Mitten (Jan Brett), One Mitten (Kristine O’Connell George) and The Mitten Tree (Candace Christiansen). Our own Candice did mention that she had the same name as the author. We listened to the book on tape, Three Little Kittens (Lorianne Siomades) and played a mitten match file game & mitten shape file game. We went on a word hunt, searching for animal words from The Mitten that were hung around the classroom, then tracing the words once we found them.

During circle time, we sang our favorite songs and reviewed skills such as name recognition, calendar and weather. We also read Here We Go ‘Round the Year (Jane Belk Moncure), which is a book about the months of the year before we were introduced to the new month of January & the brand new year 2015. We also discussed our new season of winter. Brrrr! It’s cold outside!

Tabletop activities included sorting materials, pegboards, new transportation puzzles and dress-up people. At center time, we played in the kitchen, used the cars/trucks and blocks, worked in the writing center by tracing a path from Nicki to his mittens, practiced our fine motor skills while q-tip painting and completed some monster math to reinforce our counting skills. During science we read The Mystery of Magnets (Melvin Berger) and explored what materials a magnet will and will not attract.

In the art center, we began preparing our January door decoration by painting with watercolors on coffee filters to make snowflakes, decorated the letter M with M&M’s and marshmallows (& ate quite a few), made hand print mittens & painted mittens with marshmallows (of course, we ate some of these too).

We also celebrated Allison’s 4th birthday on Wednesday. Allison’s family sent in delicious cupcakes, homemade by her grandma!

A great big thank you to all of the families who joined us for our “milk and cookie” holiday open house.  All of the cookies and snacks were delicious!!!

We hope everyone enjoyed the holidays.

HAPPY 2015!!!

Have a warm and cozy weekend!

Monthly Letter - January 2015

Dear Family,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The holidays may be over, but not the learning and fun in preschool.  “The World Around Me” and “Community and Transportation” are the themes for this month.  Preschoolers will be introduced to community helpers and various transportation vehicles, as well as participate in activities that include role playing, movement, and vocabulary building.

In addition, we will also be celebrating the beauty of winter and the snow that comes along with this wonderful season.  Our math, social studies, and science readiness projects will all relate to this winter theme. Circles (snowballs) and octagons (stop signs) are our shapes of the month and blue and white are our colors of the month. Join in our fun by asking your child to tell you about what he/she learned in school each day.

If you have not already done so, please be sure to send in an extra change of clothing appropriate for the cold weather, as well as extra underclothes.  Parents must also supply diapers and wipes if your child requires changing during the school day.  Please be sure to label these as well.

Thank you for your continued cooperation.

Here’s to a joyful January!

Sheri, Miranda, Fabi & Bethany