March Newsletters

March 2010 2-6 Newsletter

During the month of January:

We would like to thank ALL of the families that made our Cultural Celebration Potluck dinner a success! We hope you enjoyed seeing what your children have learned and all of the hard work they put in all of the projects!

The 2-6 children began the month of February by finishing up the Celebration theme. As we’ve said before, the 2-6 team created this unit as a way for the children to learn, understand and appreciate the many cultural backgrounds of their peers. The first week of February was dedicated to learning about China and Chinese New Year. Not only did they learn the map, flag, and facts about the country, they also loved learning about the Chinese Zodiac. After learning about their own particular animal, the children made a large circle zodiac with all animals, years, character traits and Chinese characters. The Trippin’ In children made a special treat for the 2nd – 4th graders! They made fortune cookies and stuffed them with their own heartfelt fortunes! The children also made traditional Chinese New Year foods, Chinese noodles and dumplings, and enjoyed eating all of it with chopsticks!

During the second week of February, we did a Valentine’s Day theme.  We started the week by making Hershey kiss roses, where they transformed Hershey kisses into rosebuds to make a bouquet of flowers. We then made salt dough hearts, where they had to make the dough, bake it, and decorate it, which became beautiful hanging decorations! We also had the children work on some Valentines day activity sheets, felt fortunes cookies and ended the week with making some candy robots.

The last week of February began our Winter Olympics theme! We began with learning about the history of the Olympics, the significance of the Olympic rings and the current standings of the Olympians. The kids loved playing Olympic Jeopardy and testing their knowledge, making Winter Olympic arts and crafts projects such as making a snowboarder out of pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks and playing some of our own versions of winter Olympic games. On a rainy day, we had a mini curling tournament in the cafeteria!

During the month of February, we also focused on weekly words. We challenged the kids to write on a big poster board if they see the weekly word being used. Our first word was “friendship” and we see many (if not all!) extended day children being good friends to one another, helping one another and encouraging one another. We will continue to do weekly words in order to build positive relationships in the classroom.

What to look forward to in March:

During the first week of March, the children will be finishing up the Olympic games unit. They will be split up into teams, where they will make up country names and flags. We will open up our Olympic games with a parade where they will march around the cafeteria and into the auditorium. Each country will then be interviewed so we can all know a little bit more about the country! Throughout the week, they will be playing sports such as a soccer and speed ball tournament, participating in team building challenges, scavenger hunts and more.  We will then go into a theme about Ireland, so we can celebrate St. Patrick’s Day! We will not only learn about the country and flag, but we will also being doing crafts and foods from Ireland.  The last two weeks will be dedicated to an edible art theme. We will be creating art out of edible materials, some end results will be edible and some will not! We’re excited to see the creative things they will make!
 
HEDP On Ice:

Since the beginning of the new year, every Wednesday we have been ice skating.  Every child involved has shown improvement and has been very supportive and helping his/her friends learn how to skate better. We have spent an hour every week on the ice with students from other programs meeting new people and skating with old friends. We have enjoyed skating together and getting exercise both in skating and walking to and from the rink. It is sad to see this activity come to an end. However, we look forward to all of the spring activities to come.


 March madness in K1:

The Rainforest! The Tropical Rainforest! K-1 has been learning about the four layers of the rainforest and all of the animals that live there. We’ve learned through songs, art activities and by turning our classroom into a JUNGLE! We’ve been reading The Magic Tree House Afternoon on the Amazon by Mary Pope Osborne. We also enjoyed a few warm days and got to spend some well-deserved time outside. We went on some exciting half-day field trips including maple-sugaring, swimming, and ice-skating.

March 3rd was also Dr. Seuss’ birthday.  We celebrated by reading many Dr. Seuss books and doing many fun activities including making Oobleck and Green Eggs and Ham. 

What’s to come in April:

During the month of April K-1 will be exploring the world of DINOSAURS! Please keep your eyes peeled for huge dinos to enter our classroom! 

We will also celebrate Earth Day with crafts from recycled materials.   If you have any paper towel rolls, baby food jars, or tin cans please bring them in.  Thanks! 

Books we are Reading:

The Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Jungle by Eye Witness
The Umbrella by Jan Brett
A Walk in the Rainforest by Kristin Joy Pratt



Exciting Pre-K Happenings in March:

Pre-K started March celebrating Dr. Seuss’ Birthday! We did many fun activities such as playing rhyming games, decorating fun hats, and making Oobleck and GREEN eggs and ham. 

Pre-K also started talking about Spring!  And what comes with spring?  RAIN!  We talked about the good things rain brings and also some of the bad when it rains too much.  We learned new rain songs, made fun umbrellas, and even made it rain in our classroom!

We are also continuing our Sounds of the Week! We are almost done with the whole alphabet!   

What’s to come in April:

As Pre-k moves into April we will be learning about flowers and bugs! Eric Carle will help us learn more about bugs by doing a fun Author Study with his bug books. 

Books we are Reading:

Come On, Rain by Karen Hesse
A Drop of Rain by Wong Herbert Yee
Its Raining Cats and Dogs by Franklin Branley
Rain by Crown Publishers
The Puddle by David Pinkwater

Child Observation Reports

Heath Extended Day provides families with Child Observation Reports and interviews each Spring.   These documents are not an evaluation but rather a collection of thoughts from your child's teaching team.  We comment on your child's likes, dislikes, playmates, strengths and challenges.  We also take time to interview each child to hear what they have to note about extended day.


We hope you find these observations interesting and helpful.  Please check with your child's teaching team should you not have received an observation report.  I also recommend connecting with a teacher should you have specific questions or concern. 


It has been a pleasure to work with your family over the past six months.  We are looking forward to a Spring full of new growth, activities and adventures.  Thank you for giving us the opportunity to work with your child.


Kindly,


Noelle and the HEDP teaching team