Shapes Week - Newsletter

This Week in the Sunshine Class

This Saturday is our dad’s breakfast. If dads can’t make it, grandpas or uncles are welcome to attend. We’ll serve breakfast from 9:00 am to 9:45 am. After eating, kids are welcome to take their dads/uncles/grandpas down for a quick tour of their classroom. We hope to see lots of dads there! Please write your name on the sheet outside our door to let us know if you’ll be attending or not, just to give us an idea of how much food to make.

Also don’t forget that registration begins on Monday. Register early to be sure to get the class of your choice. They do tend to fill up pretty quickly.

I’m going to be heading to Alaska to visit my family next week so I won’t be around for the entire week. I’ll look forward to seeing you again when I get home! :-) And if you didn’t notice my note on our blog, we won’t have any class photos for the next two weeks because my camera is in Indonesia. :-) Maybe my hubby will have some fun pictures to share with our class when he gets back!

Last year we created a Sunshine Class Yearbook and made them available for purchase. I plan to do the same this year. If we get at least 10 orders, the cost of the yearbooks will be $30 each. If we order less than 10 they will be $35.00 each. I will put out last year’s Yearbook so you can get an idea of what it will be like. This year’s will be slightly different because we are using a different company but the idea and quality will be the same. I’ve created books for myself through the company and have been very pleased. When I get back from Alaska I will put out a sign up sheet so you can order the books. I will need to receive payment for the books by the Friday prior to Spring Break, March 28th. I will place the order over Spring Break and I will only order books that have been paid for. Late orders can be made but they will cost a little more depending on shipping costs for individual books.

-Teacher April


A Note from the Teacher

Playing Shape Bingo showed me that our class could use a little help in learning our shapes so we’re going to have fun with all the shapes this week! We’ll mostly focus on squares, rectangles, circles and triangles.

We’re going to hunt for shapes and cut shapes and sponge paint shapes and more!
We have a Shape Dominoes game that the kids have played before and really enjoyed and we’ll play Shape Bingo again as well. Both games are great practice at following directions and taking turns...two skills that are hugely important to learn at this age!

We’re going to make “muscle vests” as we “shape up.” And as we exercise our brains learning shapes, we’ll also be exercising our bodies as well.

No Photos - 3 weeks!

I just wanted to let you know that for the next three weeks we won't have any photos of class. My camera is being whisked away to Indonesia for three weeks. I'm going to miss it terribly...oh yeah, and the person taking it there! :-)

Five Senses Week 2 - Newsletter

A Note From the Teacher

I’ve been hearing from a lot of you that you’ve been having trouble with your children’s sleep habits at night so I wanted to pass on some tips. I know it’s hard to get outside and exercise this time of year but it is really important to get at least 15 minutes outside each day as long as it’s not raining (or perhaps with raincoats and boots) :-). They need the natural light as well as the fresh air and exercise. Try taking a quick walk or go play soccer at the park. Also, kids can be impacted by seasonal affective disorder at this time of year due to our extreme lack of sunlight. This can greatly affect their mood and their ability to sleep at night. Keep lights on in the house during the day and again, try and get out and get some natural light. If you feel like it’s a continuing concern, you can always talk to your pediatrician about vitamin D supplements. We get vitamin D from the sun and it’s important in the production of serotonin...that little thing in our bodies that gives us good feelings. :-) So it’s no wonder we feeling crummy when the sun just keeps hiding behind all those clouds. Serotonin is also another factor in how we sleep. So, just some things to consider as we continue to move through this season.

Hope to see lots of you at Sweet Tomatoes on Wednesday evening (sometime between 5pm and 8pm)! Make sure you bring a yellow flyer with you when you go. Check with Maria if you need another one or more to give out to friends and family who might also like to go.

-Teacher April


This Week in the Sunshine Class

Last week we just started to understand our five senses so this week we’ll keep learning more and using them in lots of fun ways! I was surprised last week how much the kids enjoyed listening to the very long book, “The Story of Ferdinand.” I got in on CD from the library so they cuddled up on pillows together and listened to the whole thing with barely any reminders to listen. You might think about picking it up for another listen at home since they enjoyed it so much. :-)

This week we’ve got some fun planned with lemons! We’re going to squeeze them and feel them and smell them and even make fresh lemonade! And we’re going to be painting with lemon jello. It should smell nice and fresh in our room when we’re all done! :-)

Thanks to everyone who has been bringing in coffee grounds. We could still use more if anyone would be willing to save them for us. They’ll keep playing in those this week too. Lots of yummy smells for our noses to enjoy!

We’re going to paint with pudding which is always a deliciously fun mess!
And we’re going to do a jelly bean taste-test to see which flavors are our favorites.
Lastly we’ll be making our own tambourines to play and hear with our ears. We’ll sing some songs and play with them after they are dry.

I’ve just started introducing the concept of high sounds vs. low sounds in music so if we’ll probably keep working on that this week too!

Five Senses Week 1 - Photos

I've uploaded photos for our week. The kids LOVED the volcano we did. You'll see their big smiling faces in the photos. But luckily you won't hear their extremely loud squeals of excitement. :-)

New Album: Five Senses Week

www.apriln.shutterfly.com

Enjoy the long weekend!

Our Five Senses Week - Newsletter

A Note From the Teacher

Well we survived our first week back! :-) I think the kids were pretty tired at the end of each day.

Registration for next year will be here very soon! For already enrolled students, registration begins, Monday, February 4th at 9:30 am. Make sure you register early in order to get the classroom that you would like. Many of you have already been asking our advice regarding the best class for your child. We’re happy to answer those questions to the best of our knowledge but it would also be very helpful for you to meet Teacher Kim, Teacher Mary and Teacher Laurel (afternoon) and to briefly observe their classes in order to get a feel for what to do.

Our Dad and Me breakfast is coming up very soon! Grandpas are welcome to attend as well. I believe we’ll have a sign up sheet as time gets closer just so we have any idea of how much food to make. After eating, dads are welcome to go with their child to visit their classroom.

-Teacher April


This Week in the Sunshine Class

This week we begin two weeks of sensory fun. Of course everything we do in the Sunshine Class uses our five senses, but this week we’ll help kids learn what those senses are and how we use them.

We’re going to make a volcano...always a favorite! We’ll see the bubbles, smell the vinegar, touch the supplies as we put it together, hear the sizzle of the baking soda and vinegar combining and hopefully, we’ll leave the sense of taste out of this one! :-)

We’re going to finger paint with shaving cream and paint, make our own eye-glasses and paint with scented paint (koolaid). The koolaid paint is supposed to create a scratch and sniff sort of project. We’ll see! :-) Oh, I have scented markers for us to sort between them and the non-scented type, plus we’ll draw with them.

We’ll find out what it might like to try and walk around without the sense of sight and we’ll use our ears to hear the sound of our working feet while we exercise our bodies in silence.
We’re going to smell a variety of things and talk about what we like and dislike.

And we’re going to be tasting cookies and seeing how we like to eat an oreo...to twist or not! :-)
I’ll be sending home a “cookie questionnaire” for you to do at home and return. Just fill it out with the names of family members and then have your child make smiley faces or sad faces for whether or not that family member likes or dislikes the listed cookie flavor. We’d like to have them back by Wed/Thurs so we can talk about them before the week is over.

Winter Week - Photos

It was a good week back! I could tell the kids weren't used to playing so hard for so long...they seemed tired at the end of class. :-)

I've uploaded photos to a new album: Winter Week

www.shutterfly.com

They found some music tracks on my keyboard one day and started their very own dance party. It was pretty funny. I caught a quick video of part of the fun...

Winter Week - Newsletter

A Letter from the Teacher

Welcome back! I hope you all enjoyed your holidays as much as I did! It’s good to feel rested! I loved seeing the snow come down on Christmas day! With winter in full swing we’ll have fun learning about it this week. Who knows, maybe we’ll even get some more snow this week. What perfect timing that would be!

There’s a couple of things we could use your help with over the next couple of weeks. We could use old coffee grinds for our sensory table. If you stop by Starbucks on a regular basis, would you mind asking if you can have any old grinds they still have? They will often save them for you if you ask.

Also, does anybody have any scrapbooking punches that are basic shapes? We need lots of little shapes for a project we’re doing the last week of January, and I don’t want to cut them. :-) So if anybody has any punches and wouldn’t mind either making us a bunch or letting us borrow them, please let me know. We need circles, squares, triangles, etc…

Happy New Year!
-Teacher April

This Week in the Sunshine Class

Learning about winter seems to be one of the annual favorites around here.
One favorite game is always the snowball fight. We crumble up paper and pretend it’s snow and have a snowball fight in our classroom. It’s pretty silly.

Teacher Denise picked up a bunch of fake snow for us to enjoy in our sensory table. I’m imagining that will make quite the mess! :-)

We have some mitten games that involve matching letters and patterning.

We’ll be learning a little about the states of water as we see what happens when it freezes and then warms up again.

The boys in our class LOVE cars so much...actually the girls enjoy them too...so I’ve got a new activity planned that I think they’re really going to like. We’ll be spreading shaving cream all over the table and they’ll get cars to drive around in it, like driving in snow. They’ll do this with white paint on paper too.

We’ll learn some things about owls when we read “Owl Moon” and we’ll play a silly penguin color matching game and sing a song about penguins...since they live in the snow. :-)

I think I’m going to send home a little worksheet about ice melting. It says to just ask about it (like we did it at school), but we won’t do it, I’ll send it so you can do it at home if you want.