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October 23, 2015
DATES TO REMEMBER! Charlottesville’s Early Childhood Leader Since 1984
October 30 – Halloween NEWS FROM THE FRONT DESK: Lots of events and happenings here this month!! Don’t miss out on our Halloween Celebrations and Trick or Trunk! If you would like to participate in our Trick or Trunk please sign up using the link below or just stop by the office and let me know and I’ll be happy to sign you up! We encourage our parents to join the children in their classroom parties, which will start after naptime at 3:15 on Friday October 30! Our Trick or Trunk will follow the parties starting at 4:15. If you are participating in the Trick or Trunk we ask that you please arrive no later than 4:00pm to have yourself all set up and ready! We hope to see you there! Don’t forget about judging our teachers! Our teachers are a having a costume contest; each teacher’s picture will be posted on our Facebook page by 10am Friday October 30. Voting will be open until 4pm. The winning teacher will win a 3-­‐day weekend! (Be sure you have liked our Facebook page to participate!) NEWS FROM THE ADMISSIONS DESK: There is only a week left until Halloween. That means only a week left for your friends to register for FREE! Yes, that’s free registration until Halloween if you mention this newsletter! Thank you to those of you who have given us fantastic reviews on our Facebook and Google+ pages – we love them and as soon as we get them, we share them! So many of our wonderful families hear about us from your referrals so keep up the good work! You may even get a special treat J. Do you have a friend that is interested in enrollment? We’ve got a few spots remaining in our fall program! Know someone looking for a fabulous preschool program? Have them call Lisa, our Director of Admissions at 434-­‐823-­‐7129 or email [email protected] today! Have you “liked” our Facebook page yet? Take time to do it! You’ll find tons of wonderful photos, parenting tips and more! Visit our ever changing and updating website as well! Have a great weekend! Celebrations and Parade, Trick or Trunk – See Signs Posted November 2-­‐3 – Public Schools Closed – School Agers and Morning Preschoolers – Drop in Day: $80 November 3 -­‐ School Picture Day November 4 – School Picture Day WHATS NEW? Baby Sign Language Yoga Music Class Gymnastics/Dance Spanish Class (coming soon!) CLASSROOM NEWS!!
NEWS FROM OUR PENGUIN FRIENDS:
Hello everyone it was a great week in the penguin room. We did some great activities this week we started by carving a pumpkin the kids really enjoyed this! We also loved picking our pumpkins, in our “pumpkin patch”. For morning meeting we go over the calendar, days of the week, we count our friends, ABC’s, shapes, colors, counting 1-­‐10, sing our songs and also try and recognize our names. For gross motor and fine motor development the little ones played with orange play dough, spider webbing, learned how to spider walk, played pumpkin hide and seek, tried to fly on a broom like a witch, and pumpkin toes. For practical living/social skills we did glad light fun, sorting pumpkins by size, continue to use our “power words” please, no thank you, and nice hands. For reading literature we read “The Halloween party”, “Mouse’s first Halloween”, “Max's Halloween”, and “Plies Halloween”. For art we made handprint cat pumpkins, trick or treat, bat craft, and decorated the letter J. Just a Reminder please label the kids jackets also it is getting colder out please bring in hats and gloves we do go out for 30 minutes in the morning. Please make sure you are labeling all food and cups thank you. Have a great weekend! Don’t forget to bring your Halloween costume on Friday October 30th!! NEWS FROM OUR STARFISH FRIENDS:
We cannot believe how quickly the kids in the Starfish room are growing! It seems like they all start doing the same thing at the same time! (Which we love) We love it so much, because all of them move up at the same time so they are more comfortable in a new environment. Jacob and Emma are doing so well with sitting up and Nate is doing so well with crawling! We also had a new student start this week, so please welcome baby James! We hope everyone will participate in the baby costume contest! We are so excited to see them! Remember to check cubbies everyday for important things to be sent home. Have a good weekend! Baby Costume contest: Instead of a party our babies are having a costume contest. Our entire mill creek staff will cast a vote Friday October 30 and the winning babies will be posted on the classroom doors by 3:00pm on Friday! We encourage our babies and their parents to come and join in on the Trick or Trunk fun as well! We can’t wait to see our adorable babies all dressed up!! NEWS FROM OUR OTTER FRIENDS: The children in the Otter Room had an ooey gooey pumpkin fun week! They enjoyed carving more pumpkins and exploring the insides of the pumpkin. Will and Lily really love the pumpkins they will be sitting at the table eating, saying pumpkin, pumpkin. For art this week they enjoyed doing pumpkin prints, spiders, October colors, Frankenstein footprints and spiders on popsicle sticks. They are really enjoying the pumpkin theme month! For Fine Motor this week we did pumpkin ooze, pass the pumpkin Halloween rubbings and pumpkin seed shakers. For Gross Motor we did pumpkin, pumpkin ghost, toe touches, music freeze and pumpkin hide and seek. They are doing great at circle time with their color, shapes, and number flashcards. Don’t forget to bring your Halloween costume on Friday October 30th!! Here is Peyton from our Penguin class enjoying the “pumpkin patch” on the playground! She couldn’t be happier with her pumpkin! CLASSROOM NEWS!!
NEWS FROM OUR WALRUS FRIENDS:
This week in the Walrus Room we had some fun with scary songs. We danced to scary songs, had fun learning new dance moves, dancing with streamers, playing hand drums and bells along to the music and rewriting classic scary tunes. We learned about the many, many stages a pumpkin goes through to become a pumpkin. And we opened up a pumpkin, explored the gooey and seeds, and added soil to see if the seeds will spout. Check it out; it’s in our lobby! During our Art Time we had fun painting, making the color orange, and we learned how to draw Frankenstein. All throughout the week we learned about the interesting, incredible, cool as ice, letter “Ii”. We love having Ms. Cindy in our room in the mornings and having Ms. Carrie joins us in the evenings, what a rockin’ Walrus Team! Next week is going to be a lot of fun, ending with a Monster Mash on Friday. And please come take part in our schools Trick or Trunk event. Hope everyone is enjoying their Fall, the Walrus crew is loving all the changes! Don’t forget to bring your Halloween costume on Friday October 30th!! NEWS FROM OUR DOLPHIN FRIENDS: Our Dolphin friends had a great week! They are really enjoying their time with Ms. Jaszmine and she is doing an excellent job. We love Ms. Jaszmine so much that the Lead Pre-­‐K position has been offered to her and she has happily accepted! I couldn’t be happier with how things are going in this class and from being the lead PreK teacher and curriculum director for the past 4 years I am quite impressed by her! We hope you all are enjoying Ms. Jaszmine as much as the kiddos! Because this is her first time as a Lead in our program we do offer a Mentorship with a veteran teacher. Ms. Hollie and myself will be helping her and mentoring her through her first year as a PreK teacher! We encourage any feedback and praise you have for Ms. Jaszmine and how she is doing! I hope you have a great weekend! –Ms. Alison Don’t forget to bring your Halloween costume on Friday October 30th!! NEWS FROM OUR OCTOPUS FRIENDS: This week in the Octopus classroom, we learned about pumpkins! We read some great literature, including: "From Seed to Pumpkin" by Wendy Pfeffer, "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever" By Steve Kroll, ad "Pumpkins" By Ken Robbins. We also talked bout the lifecycle of a pumpkin, and found that they grow very similarly to apples. We also cut into a pumpkin and got to feel what they are like inside, and save the seeds to bake them later as a yummy snack! In art we made pumpkin mosaics, and painted pumpkins. Finally, in Language Arts we began learning about the letter F, worked on our sight words, and practiced word families. In math, we continued addition and began working on counting by tens and fives. Have a great weekend, and please make sure your little one is practicing their sight words at home! Don’t forget to bring your Halloween costume on Friday October 30th!! NEWS FROM OUR GYMNASTICS CLASS:
In Gymnastics we continue to work on body postures, stretching correctly, gymnastic positions and point toe, flex toe. The kids are all doing great and are enjoying their time with Ms. Cari! Jack from our Octopus class! CLASSROOM NEWS!!
NEWS FROM OUR MUSIC CLASS:
Preschoolers This Week We: Started with a welcoming song, “I'm So Glad Your Here” This week, children were encouraged to sing their names and be expressive. I loved all the silly voices and sounds. -­‐Reviewed Lullabies and the parts of the guitar. -­‐Introduction to the idea that instruments belong to families. -­‐Instrument Introduction, to the Mouth Harp… how it’s made, how it works, how the sound changes. We had a great time rewriting the lyrics to, “I Know An Old Lady”. We have very creative children! Reflection and Foresight (What we covered and what's up next.) Objectives: Terms used: Learned the elements of song writing. Beginnings of Music Theory The Jew's harp, also known as the jaw harp, mouth harp, Ozark harp, trump, or juice harp, is a lamellophone instrument, which is in the category of plucked idiophones: it consists of a flexible metal or bamboo tongue or reed attached to a frame. The tongue/reed is placed in the performer’s mouth and plucked with the finger to produce a note. “I may quit the music business someday, but never the music.” -­‐ Dan Fogelberg Toddlers This Week We: Started with a welcoming song, “I'm So Glad Your Here” This week, children were encouraged to sing their names and be expressive. I loved all the silly voices and sounds. -­‐Reviewed our new rockin version of “Head And Shoulders, Knees And Toes". -­‐Introduction to the idea that instruments belong to families. -­‐Instrument Introduction, to the Mouth Harp… how it’s made, how it works, how the sound changes. -­‐Read “Freckles The Frog” written by: Dan Hall and illustrated by Dan Waltz After reading the book, we looked at the sheet music that was on the back of the book. -­‐Reflection and Foresight (What we covered and what's up next.) Objectives: Terms used: Learned the elements of song writing. Beginnings of Music Theory The Jew's harp, also known as the jaw harp, mouth harp, Ozark harp, trump, or juice harp, is a lamellophone instrument, which is in the category of plucked idiophones: it consists of a flexible metal or bamboo tongue or reed attached to a frame. The tongue/reed is placed in the performer’s mouth and plucked with the finger to produce a note. “I may quit the music business someday, but never the music.” -­‐ Dan Fogelberg Forest Lakes
Directors: PJ Gilbert, Miranda Siers
434-973-8414
[email protected]
Crozet
Directors: Sue Sims, Lisa Fischer
434-823-7129
[email protected]
Mill Creek
Directors: Alison Casey, Nancy Quarles
434-979-8585
[email protected]
GOOD NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILIES
October 2015
Do you have something nice to say about Mill Creek? Our staff love to hear your feedback! Please give us a 5 Star review on Google and we’ll give you a coffee card just for being awesome! Thank you for all of your support – for being part of our BB Family!! How cute are these cookies? Did you see this on our Facebook
page? If not – go “like” our page!
Do you need an idea for a yummy Halloween treat for you child’s party? Try these out! •
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Bake your cookies, as directed
As soon as you pull them from the oven, use the bottom of a
teaspoon measurer and gently press a divot into the cookie
Let the cookies cool completely
Prepare your drizzle chocolate according to the directions
provided
Take a Reese’s and place some chocolate along the bottom and
press the Reese’s onto the divot in the cookie
Let Reese’s set
Take your candy eyes and place a dab of melted chocolate on the
back and place on the side of the Reese’s
Let eyes set
Use your chocolate drizzle to make spiders legs on the cookie
Let dry
Enjoy! COPYRIGHT 2015
BRIGHT BEGINNINGS PRESCHOOL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED,
BRIGHTBEGINNINGSVA.COM