April Newsletter
2018-2019 Academic Year
Earth Day Celebrations!
On Thursday, April 18th we will celebrate Earth Day at The Cottages. Throughout the school, children will celebrate Earth Day through gardening activities, art activities, music & movement activities, stories and more.
Mini Break- School Closed
The Cottages will be closed on Friday, April 19th for a Mini Break. We will reopen on Monday, April 22nd at 6:30am.
Spring Portraits
Say Cheeeeeeese! On April 16th, Precious Little People Portraits will be at The Cottages for Spring Portraits. The Parent Info Board in front of the school will have the backgrounds posted that the photographers will be using.
Elevation Prep Academy Visit
The high school students from Elevation Prep Academy (our campus partners) are excited to come visit us again on Wednesday, April 17th. The Elevation students came for a visit a few months ago and read stories to our Ladybug-Dragonfly students. They want to come back to read stories again and spend a little time in the cottages with the children. We are looking forward to seeing them again!
National Super Hero Day
The Cottages will be celebrating National Superhero Day again this year on Friday, April 26th. National Superhero Day is observed annually on April 28th and is a day to honor superheroes, both real and fictional. The children had a super fun time celebrating last year and came up with some really creative costumes and super powers of their own.
Superman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, and Spiderman are just some of the superheroes whose names we recognize. Even though they are fictional, these superheroes are great role models for our children. They serve and protect while fighting evil.
Our real-life superheroes may not have super powers or wear capes, but they are also great role models who serve and protect while fighting evil. Military personnel, police officers and firefighters are just a few of the heroes who protect us on a daily basis.
Please be sure to dress your child up in superhero attire on the 26th. Children are welcome to wear fictional, real life, or their own made up superhero attire.
Teacher Appreciation Week
Speaking of superheroes, Teacher Appreciation Week is scheduled for the week of May 6th-May 10th. We feel so incredibly blessed to have our very own superhero teaching team at The Cottages! They truly go above and beyond to ensure our kids have the best care and education. Please join us in celebrating our teachers for all their hard work and dedication. The Cottages teachers are the BEST!!!
Mark Your Calendars
4/16 - Spring Portraits
4/19- The Cottages Closed for Mini Break
4/18 - Earth Day Celebrations
4/26 - National Superhero Day at The Cottages
5/6-5/10 - Teacher Appreciation Week
April Birthdays!
” May the sun’s rays shine brightest on you today with the wind at your heals. Happy Birthday.”
- 4/6- Ms. Cat
- 4/15 - Ally V.
- 4/18- Anna P.
- 4/26- Kennedy L.
- 4/27- Taylor M.
- 4/29- Niko P.
- 4/29- Luke P.
Cricket Cottage News
March
March went out like a Lamb. It flew by for us! We had fun watching our friends become more mobile. It's so exciting to watch them go from army crawl, to crawl, then sitting position. Along with that comes the confidence and joy from having the ability move from one area to another to explore the toys in the play area. This month was amazing watching the infants enjoy the board books by turning pages, pointing at pictures, and smiling. This is what makes this job so rewarding! They really enjoy the circle time with the puppets and story time, even the littlest infants are happily watching and learning while listening. Be sure to check out our Shutterfly site for photos from this month.
Celebrating Earth Day
Earth Day is April 22nd. We will be enjoying nature by taking morning stroller rides around campus. The infants will have fun finger painting on earthlike shaped paper. Arbor day is the last Friday of the month. Arbor Day is a holiday in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant trees. Today, many countries observe such a holiday. It would be a great idea to plant a tree in your yard in honor of your child. Every year you could share with your child how much the tree has grown. Check out the oak tree we planted in the center of the big playground approximately five years ago! It is a beautiful centerpiece providing much needed shade from the heat of summer! Did you know one full grown tree supplies enough oxygen for 4 people?
Musical Musicians
This month we are going to immerse your infants with various musical items for them to play with. One of the new items which we are sure to be a favorite are wooden shaker eggs. Hopefully we will manage to capture a concert on video. We will be including these items to our circle time activities along with the books chosen for the month.
Sensory Play
Everyone likes water! The infants will have fun splashing their hands in a water sensory bin in the classroom. We may add a yellow duck or two! For the younger infants we will let them splash the water on their feet. We will be sure to take photos.
Baby Yoga
This month Ms. Kate will visit the Cricket Cottage to show the babies how to do some easy yoga poses. She is the lead Caterpillar teacher here at The Cottages. She will visit the cottage once a week in April and show the infants moves like Happy Baby and Downward Dog to name a few. Hopefully they enjoy the yoga moves or at least have fun trying to copy them. We will have our camera ready!
Teething
There is a wide range of “normal” when it comes to teething. Don’t be surprised when your baby’s first tooth shows up when he/she is two months old or if he/ she is still toothless at 12 months old. Although teething is an exciting milestone, it can produce discomfort. Some signs/symptoms of teething may include drooling and swelling and pain in the gums. Your baby may be abnormally cranky, have trouble sleeping and/or eating. Some babies may also spit up, develop diarrhea, rash on cheeks, chin, and neck all due to excessive saliva. Teething may also cause a mild fever, congestion, and ear pulling-symptoms that look similar to an ear infection. Teething is a normal process that all babies must endure. The best thing that you can do to help them get through the process is to find ways to minimize the pain and irritation. Some natural teething remedies to ease pain and swelling associated with teething are:
Gum massage: Using one clean finger, slowly massage your baby’s gum with gentle but firm pressure until the pain subsides.
Non-toxic teethers': Watch out for teethers made from toxic plastics. Instead opt for teeters made from natural fibers such as organic cotton that can be washed and used over and over again. Cool the teether in the refrigerator for extra numbing relief.
Ladybug Cottage News
April 2019 – April Showers Bring … Mud, Water & Language Development?
March Recap
March proved to be a fun, treasure-filled month for the Ladybugs as they “randomly found” new objects and toys in their environment and experimented with them! Of course, Ms. Joanne and Ms. Jessica were behind these discoveries, but to little minds, the appearance of new items – not handed directly to them by adults – seem magical. One of our favorite offerings were glittery green leprechaun hats which the ‘Bugs got to individualize by painting upon them with white paint. Because there were enough hats for all, there were almost no spats over these “treasures,” and the classroom remained peaceful during this experience. Another fun resource room discovery that served as a treasure box item was a box of stimulation cubes (about 40 of them) – clear toy blocks each with a different manipulatable interior to engage the todfants’ hands and minds (for example, one has a twirling ballerina in it, another makes a noise when you shake it, etc.). We want the ‘Bugs always thinking, learning and connecting their experiences to the real world, so these were an amazing find!
The class is also used to its new student group – meaning our “new” students are beginning to feel comfortable in our Little Ladybug Cottage and our graduating students are looking towards their new horizons with anticipation. All the students understand and plan towards the routines of the day (they gather at the table prior to snack and lunch times and head to the cozy corner when they see a teacher with a favorite book in her hands). This group is active and curious and ready for some new challenges – so we’ve made a few new plans at their “behest.”
When It Rains ...
Any preschool teacher will tell you that a rainy day can be hard on the little ones. Almost all toddlers love being outside under an open sky and seem to have a need to get out of the house, so to speak, so when they are trapped inside by inclement weather, it affects their dispositions. Normally cheerful, laidback babies can become cranky and even the most peaceable Ladybug may turn to restricted behaviors (such as indoor climbing) to release some of that pent-up energy. We have come up with three new experiences that we’ll be introducing this month specifically for those wet days.
The first one involves modeling clay. Your todfants will have the opportunity to stick their hands in moldable, pokable, smashable clay and make whatever they like out of it. This will mimic the outdoor explorations they treasure and (also) introduce them to another facet of art. Eventually, they will be able to stick items in the clay, paint on it, etc., but for now, our focus is simply letting them experience it. It’s not quite jumping in muddy puddles, but we are fairly confident the ‘bugs are going to enjoy this. Of course, we will put them in smocks when they handle the clay to protect their clothing and wash them off when they are finished getting messy.
The second experience involves traveling to Jennie’s House with our older, mobile todfants specifically to climb on our outdoor climbing mats. The older cottages’ children tend to jump on these mats, roll them around, sit on them and use them very imaginatively, and we doubt the Ladybugs will do much differently. Jennie’s House is completely under cover, so the rain will not deter us from frolicking inside. (Thunderstorms of course would be a deterrence – we certainly wouldn’t take any of your children outside when it’s thundering out!) Speaking of climbing mats, we have also discussed bringing a few more onto our screened lanai just so the little ones have more to occupy themselves with! Our creative curriculum recommends changing up toys and experiences often to keep the babies engaged and stimulated, and we try to follow this practice.
Lastly, because it is April, and it begins raining in April and because rain is water … and babies LOVE water, we thought – why not have just a little water inside for the babies to play with? We can use a few aluminum trays to put the water in, and some plastic cups for the ‘Bugs to move the water around, and if the floor and tables get just a tad wet, we can clean them and dry them! Cleaning up never hurt anyone, and if this helps keep our ‘Bugs calm during inside days, why not try it? We can also draw obvious parallels to the rain outside and the water inside and discuss the properties of water and its effect on Earth as we play. We’ve also seen both flour and food coloring used in small-amount water play, so there are many possibilities here. We will let you know how everything goes as most water experiments have been done outside for obvious reasons. Again, we will see!
Literacy in Print; Language in Song
We’ve spoken to you, our wonderful parents, about some of the more exciting developments in your youngsters’ lives during parent teacher conferences this past month - and one of the advances that makes Ms. Jessica do her happy dance is watching her students start to practice mouthing words, saying words and take an interest in books! Some of your babies have gone from taking little interest in story time to sitting in circle for reading and handling books on their own … and from being non-verbal to starting to speak! When we see certain students trying to repeat words they’ve just heard (and remember, they don’t have to be making noise doing this, you can ‘see’ the word they are trying to get a hold on by watching their mouths try to form letters), it is cause for celebration – and for more material and information for them! Also, a few babies are now carrying around their favorite books and sitting with those books in their laps during center (play) time, flipping the pages and looking at the pictures. As teachers who respond to their students interests and developments, we have asked ourselves, “How else can we support these babies’ early interest in speaking/literacy?”
Obviously, we read to your babies several times a day already – and we read a few books at a time. Also, obviously, we talk, talk, TALK to them continuously just to get them used to conversation and words. Recently, we’ve switched out our library books to give them new choices, but books are not the only way to promote verbal skills. Therefore, we’ve decided as a class to follow a suggestion by Miss Liz – we are going to learn the song, “Going on a Bear Hunt!” This song describes a group out looking for bears and uses all sorts of vocabulary such as positional words with accompanying actions/gestures - and even mathematical language. For example, after we learn the song, the students will be able to follow the teachers around the room and imitate them pretending to look through binoculars, move around tall grass, etc. We also have a few animal costumes that the todfants can take turns wearing during the song which can be easily changed to any kind of animal hunt! (Our costumes are for a chicken and a donkey, so we imagine we will have a chicken hunt, etc.) We will also let you know how this plays out – get it? – in our next newsletter. We hope learning this song and the actions that accompany it will help your little ones beef up their already impressive verbal skills even more as they connect words to ideas to actual actions.
Parents always ask how they can help support language at home and one idea we try to share is to let your baby see your mouth when you are teaching him/her a word. Babies do not learn language the same way adults do – that is, they do not depend on their ears as much for learning words; they are more focused on how your lips and mouth move because they do not know yet how to speak or make certain sounds. Letting them see how you are producing words will accelerate their learning. It’s not something most adults think about because we don’t remember learning language and would not naturally think of doing this. Some children will even try to touch your mouth when you speak just to try to “feel” the words coming out!
A Couple of Upcoming Explorations
Now that the children are used to each other in a group setting, we have a couple of new art projects planned for the next couple of weeks involving two new materials – tinfoil and cardboard towel rolls. We will introduce these items in the context of treasure boxes as “loose parts” and then proceed to use them to create with. We will use our towel rolls to look through, roll, drop toys through – and eventually to paint with and our aluminum foil to rip, crumble, make noise with and eventually to paint on! We are putting out the call to parents for any used cardboard rolls (paper towel rolls, etc.) or boxes of aluminum foil! Your babies will do amazing things with them.
Question of the Month: How Can I Discourage Biting at Home?
We looked this one up for you, our diligently concerned parents. First, we want to assure you, though a very hard behavior to deal with for you, the Ladybugs are at an age where biting is developmentally appropriate. The ‘Bugs bite to communicate feelings that they are not yet ready or able to identify or state – and it is a normal part of their “growing up.” They are not empathetic yet, so it is very hard for them to understand they are hurting a friend when they bite – they just understand that a bite will get a friend to move away from them quickly or cease whatever action the friend was doing that warranted (in your Ladybug’s mind) this action. Anyway, the number one recommended response for home-training regarding biting is that attention/play STOPS the second a bite occurs. Tonya cannot understand she just hurt her big brother, but she can understand that a bite means playtime is now immediately over because she bit. We hope that helps - and hang in there!
Caterpillar Cottage News
March Recap
Drivers, start your engines! The month of March we focused on transportation. Our children showed their love for cars, trucks, and airplanes. Whether it is the vehicles driving by, seen in a book, or heard flying over our heads. We explored new painting experiences by using a variety of vehicles that the children can roll into paint and make tracks onto the large butcher block paper. Also, we had our very own car wash to beat the heat. The children loved washing their "dirty" toy vehicles. Now we’re springing into action!
April
Spring is coming and we will be engaging on a plant and flower inquiry! Therefore, we may be inclined to turn our attentions to new life springing up all around us. We will be taking this opportunity to learn about the plants and flowers all around us. We will also introduce to the children the life-cycle and parts of the plant. We have fun STEM experiments planned such as color changing flowers and growing a seed in a mason jar. Our minds will sure be blooming this month!
Spring into Action
As Spring begins, we will be spending time in the garden, revitalizing our walkway near the caterpillar entrance, and taking nature walks around the pond. The children will experience and witness nature’s beauty by growing individual plants and collaborations of a mystical garden. We will be watching wildlife springing up as well in the garden and by the pond. “Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.” - Rumi.
Literacy
We'd like to thank Margot and her family for donating Spring books from our Scholastic wish list. We are always excited to get new books for the room! The new books are, Will you be my sunshine, by Julia Lobo, Love the world, by Todd Parr, and Spectacular Spring, by Bruce Goldstone. We will be reading these three books during circle time throughout the month of April.
Garden Yoga Poses: Moving & Grooving
Pretend to be a tree
To do Tree Pose: Stand on one leg. Bend the knee of the leg you are not standing on, place the sole of your foot on the opposite inner thigh or calf, and balance. Sway like a tree in the breeze. Switch sides and repeat the steps.
Pretend to be a seed
To do Child’s Pose: Sit back on your heels, slowly bring your forehead down to rest on the floor in front of your knees, rest your arms down alongside your body, and take a few deep breaths. Pretend to be a seed in the garden.
Pretend to be a butterfly
To do Cobbler’s Pose: Gently come up and sit on your buttocks with a tall spine. Bend your legs, place the soles of your feet together, and gently flap your legs like the wings of a butterfly.
Pretend to be a flower
To do Flower Pose: From Cobbler’s Pose, lift your bent legs, balance on your sitting bones, and weave your arms under your legs with your palms facing up. Pretend to be a blossoming flower.
Celebrating Earth Day
In honor of the best planet in our solar system, on Earth Day we will be reading, The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss and planting seeds in a recycled egg carton together. We will also be picking up and collecting “clean” trash though out The Cottages!
“Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.
Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax
and all of his friends
may come back.”
- Dr. Seuss
Natural and Recycled Materials Art Collaboration
In celebration of our providing planet, we will be exploring nature and collecting natural and recycled materials for art projects. Some examples of items that we may collect are palms, sticks, grass, and leaves. We will also explore different ways to use recycled materials throughout the classroom. We are welcoming donations if you have any of the items listed below.
- Bubble Wrap
- Plastic containers with lids
- Paper towel rolls
- Small boxes
Inspirational Quote
Advice from a Tree
Stand tall and proud
Go out on a limb
Remember your roots
Drink plenty of water
Be content with your natural beauty
Enjoy the view
Butterfly Cottage News
March
We had a great time on our nature walks last month around campus! We enjoyed using magnifying glasses and collecting leaves, sticks, flowers and even moss to take back to the classroom to explore. The Butterflies seemed super amazed and interested in the Jasmine bush right outside our cottage as it bloomed lovely fragrant flowers. We often picked up (not picked!) the fallen flowers to smell the jasmine. We identified characteristics in the nature items we collected and used language such as soft, rough, and spiky. We discussed so many times why nature is important and why we should even use kind hands to all things around us. For instance trees give us shade from the sun, oxygen to breathe, paper to color on, wood to build houses and even food to eat! So, please don't break the branches or pick the leaves off. We talked about Earth as a whole, and made plenty of earth art with blue and green shaving cream or blue and green tissue paper! We used all our findings on our nature walks to make more art with the rubbing technique! We counted birds and beads outside! We used 5 little ducks and 5 little butterflies songs to practice simple subtraction. We played A LOT in water and added green and bugs to it! To wrap up the month we focused on insects and planting some beautiful flowers in the garden in hopes to attract more nature life!! The butterflies had a blast talking about Sean Sean the Leprechaun and enjoyed using greens and yellows for loose parts to create things on the light table and help trace the letter E for earth and N for nature.
April
Our students are so lucky to be surrounded by the amount of nature we get to witness everyday at The Cottages. Our campus grounds went perfectly with our curriculum last month! We saw flowers bloom on the trees and bushes around, caterpillars creep and make cocoons on the playground walls, birds flying and landing in the trees, lizards running, and insects crawling and flying! Our outdoor experiences during the month of March will help us veer into the month of April into learning about Cycles of Life.
The month of April will help us learn and get in more detail of all the cycles of the nature we see every day. We will learn how the seed becomes a tree, caterpillar becomes a butterfly, and how an egg becomes a frog or a bird. Each week we will focus on one cycle. In the classroom you will see sensory bins full of different kinds of uncooked noodles representing the eggs, caterpillars and then butterflies! We will count and organize bottle caps and other loose parts as we turn them into our own representation of birds or frogs we see outside. We will learn to document and describe lifecycles of a butterfly and findings of cocoons. We will also observe the sprouts of the flowers we planted in their very own scientific book we will create together. All month long we will make new nature scavenger hunts for the butterflies to keep their eyes out for. Invitations for mud play will be available at least once a week so we will be getting messy. Having open ended messy play like mud and water is so important for two and three year olds right now. It helps tap into their creativity, explore all possibilities, enhance their senses, practice cooperation and of course...having fun while learning!
Literacy
As we continue working on one letter every two weeks, we will focus on tracing it and writing it ourselves after seeing the letter. We will talk about its sound and try to name other words that begin with it. This month's letters will be B for bugs or butterflies and S for sun or sunflower.
Activities
We will be doing some garden yoga this month. Some examples of poses we will be working on are-
Pretend to be a frog (squat down)
Pretend to be a seed (child's pose)
Pretend to be a tree, (tree pose)
We will also be doing a collaborative art project of decorating a Classroom butterfly as a group. An invitation of all art materials will be provided for this project. Some examples of art materials and mediums will include will be DIY nature paintbrushes and finding leaves or moss to tie to a stick to paint with!
Mrs. Waddles!
We are asking families who've had visits with Mrs. Waddles to please email the pictures to Mrs. Liz. We are going to start making the poster board here shortly now that more than half of the students have had their turn. Thank you in advance.
Donations
Chalk
Bubbles
Plastic bags
Paper towel rolls
Unwanted towels
Uncooked noodles bow tie, shell ,and rotini past
Mathematics
After I was done assessing the students, I quickly came to realized what a lot of friends needed to work on (which wasn't a lot, in fact, another advance activity we can start on) recognizing numbers 1-10! So we made a Pom Pom system on poster board with the corresponding number in hopes that will be an easy tool that’s always available to the butterflies!
Bumblebee Cottage News
March Recap
March flew by fast with our inquiry into Ireland. We had the opportunity to learn about this island and some of its customs which laid the groundwork for Sean Sean the Leprechaun's visit on the day after St. Patrick's Day. We learned to say some terms in Irish, count to ten, as well as the meaning of the symbolism behind the Claddagh ring. Our special culinary arts experience, Irish Soda Bread, was baked fresh and sampled by the children, giving us another unique peek into traditional Irish culture. We also began an inquiry into plants and flowers in honor of the coming of spring on March 20th. Green was a color of focus as we created a variety of artwork, giving plenty of opportunities for the Bees to creatively express their growing understanding of the world, as well as to hone those fine-motor skills as they practiced cutting with scissors, creating collages, and exploring shapes and line. The sign-in sheets are a big hit and we applaud all of our families for helping encourage your child to use their writing skills, whether they are writing their names on their own or if they are encouraged to explore writing with your assistance. It all goes a long way to establishing their confidence as young students!
April Alphabet Review
We have reached the end of the alphabet, yet many of the children are showing much alphabet knowledge. As you have seen, we are now including the opportunity for a themed word as the sign-in. This helps to extend their understanding of the alphabet and give them ample opportunity not only to practice spelling both old and new vocabulary. Even for our younger Bees, spelling a variety of words helps them to gain a deeper appreciation for the uses of the alphabet in the context of writing beyond their own names. Therefore, we will continue to give opportunities to experience how text is meaningful and can be read, as well as with increasing familiarity with letters and their sounds as we review the alphabet in totality.
Earth
Earth Day is Apil 20th! Now that spring has officially begun, we will continue the inquiry of plants and flowers into April. Moreover, we will seek to cultivate the understanding of good stewardship of our planet with an eye to recycling and responsibly disposing of trash. In April, we will explore the importance of trees in nature, to keeping our waterways clean. We will be considering the water cycle to see the relationship between clean water on the planet and how it cycles into our skies above. Our aim is to help each Bee see how they have the power to protect and care for our planet. In so doing, we hope to further instill a sense responsibility and remind them how, no matter their age, they can make a positive difference!
Sky
Just as it is important to learn of our role in caring for the earth, we also wish to encourage our Bees to gain a sense of our place in the universe. We will encourage the Bees in tracking the cycle of the moon throughout the month. This will help give them a visible understanding of the passage of time, how the word "month" is related to the moon's cycle. Rocketships are a favorite in our classroom, too! Therefore, opportunities for discovery of the solar system will be a great way to experience this topic. From stars to planets, we will be looking at both earth and sky!
It's Warming Up!
A reminder to families that with the rising temperatures, the mornings may still be a bit chilly, but the afternoons can scorch. Therefore, this may require a change of cooler clothes, if you have not done so already. It also helps to have a dry set of clothing handy as, in addition to getting messy, water activities may result in soaked garments. Finally, please be sure to apply sunscreen and leave a bottle with your child's name for re-application later in the day, as needed. If you'd like to provide sunscreen please make sure to fill out a sunscreen authorization form in the front office. We thank you for your attention to these details as we continue to provide fun and inviting learning experiences for our little Bees.
Dragonfly Cottage News
March Recap
The Insect Inquiry was a huge success! The class loved learning about metamorphosis, parts of an insect, and dictating and drawing their own stories/drawings. We went on nature walks and found some cool beetles on the playground. We also enjoyed our visit from Officer Terris! The Dragonflies enjoyed his visit so much they were talking about it for weeks after! Thanks again to the Sarasota County Police Department for your daily service to keep the city of Sarasota safe!
April Inquiry
We will dive underground and learn about worms this month! We will have some real live worms to look at, touch, and measure. We will learn about how worms help benefit the Earth and in gardens to help plants, flowers, and vegetables grow. We are also looking forward to planting in our garden this month. We will be accepting donations of soil and seeds if you are able to contribute towards us gardening this month.
Earth Day
We will be learning about Earth Day this month as well. The children will learn about how Earth Day is everyday and not just one day.
Non-VPK Days
Please note there is one Non-VPK day this month. VPK only children will not attend school on Thursday, April 18th.
Dragonfly Bucket Garden- Donations Request
Soil
Sunflower Seeds
Flower Packets
Watering Can