April 2018 Calendar

Families, for those of you who prefer to plan ahead, I have attached our April calendar below! 

Can you believe it is almost April? 

St. Patty's Babies!

Our babies did not miss out on our St. Patrick's celebrations! They caught leprechauns, dressed in their finest green attire, and had a photo shoot! As you can tell from their smiles, lots of fun takes place at our sweet little school. 

What you see here and below is much more than just a photo shoot. Infant dress up and dramatic play fosters language development. Green was definitely our word of the day! 

Infant dress up and dramatic play also builds reciprocal expressive skills as the caregiver smiles and responds to the infant's actions. Check out Kayden's smile!

This photo shoot also builds attachment to caregiver. 

The caregiver smiles, hugs and sings to each child throughout the process eliciting a feeling of being safe and loved. 

And did we mention the gross motor development that occurs during an activity like this? 

"Clap Harlan, clap!"

Clapping while sitting up requires a lot of focus and muscle strength. 

What a fun way to meet our milestones! 

Thank you Ms. Amber and Ms. Anissa!

<3 

Green our Scene!

March's theme is Green our Scene! This theme focuses on reducing, reusing and recycling. Toddler Two created their own recycled robot toy as a team project. We pained paper to cover cereal boxes, and paper towel rolls for the robots arms and legs! We named her Cindy! 

Savannah is exploring object awareness and representation by turning a simple item into a new creation!

Adelynn is getting to explore different colors and textures while developing fine motor skills!

Lilian wanted the robot's attire to match hers! 

As you can see, this simple project includes several learning domains. 

Fine Motor, Expression, Social Emotional, Teamwork, Color Recognition and Object Awareness! 

Dr. Seuss Dress Up!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! You were a wise one! 

Our babies in Toddler Transition loved dressing up as Thing 1 and Thing 2! 

We even practiced counting to 2! :) 

My teacher is the "Teacher of ALL Things!"

"Thing hair is BLUE!"

ONE, TWO, CHEESE! 

Sensory Shapes!

There are so many ways to learn! While talking about shapes after singing our shapes song, we decided to explore shapes with lots of different senses. We used our hands to touch our shapes and feel the texture of cream. We used our ears to hear the sound the shapes made as we moved them around the table. And we used our sight to watch the shapes transform as we explored them! 

Which shape is your favorite?

Wow! This shape feels mushy now!

My shape is flat now!

I made more circles with my circle!

Hmm... I'm not sure about this. I may leave my shape. 

Sensory Shapes are FUN!

Here's a piece of my heart! 

My triangle made one circle and one rectangle!

Ms. Ashley, what shape is my hand? 

Sensory development is key to developing awareness, balance and creativity. Come play with us!

Journal Writing

To practice our fine motor skills, comprehension, artistic skills, and use our imagination, we often let our littles write in their own personal journal. They choose what to write, what mediums to use, and they get to share their stories with friends! 

Check it out!

Red and Yellow are Contrasting Colors! Can you guess what my journal entry is about? 

The letter of the week is "P" so I chose PURPLE!

Orange is the color of my favorite fruit, oranges! :)

Trees are SO TALL! 

PINK UNICORNS!

Red is ROJO, and we read a story about a red dog!

We love to see the confidence that activities such as this can bring. They become more proficient in their public speaking skills, learn new words from others and feel acceptance from the group! 

We can't wait for another journal day! 

Healthy Infants

To wrap up our Fitness Fanatics month, we created a healthy food bin for our older infants to explore and we read stories about healthy foods to our youngest infants!

This activity builds fine motor/grasping skills, uses visuals to assist with memory development and promotes healthy early habits!

YUM! Tomatoes, onions and cheese! That makes spaghetti!

Reading to infants fosters attachment to caregiver and builds early language development and memory processing. Thank you, Ms. Krystal!