Time to Fly, Ladybugs! 🐞

Here we are at our last week of school. How did this year go by so quickly? Well, like they say, time flies when you’re having fun!! It has been a pleasure and a joy teaching your children this year. Miss Jennifer, Miss Kelsi and I laugh every day. The funny stories, songs, big hugs and moments where we see connections happening (both academically & socially) make our job the best in the world.

We hope the children will look at their ladybug rocks that they painted & brought home and remember a fun year, too.

During circle time this week we read A House for Hermit Crab and pointed out how much our Ladybugs have grown and are ready to move on to bigger classes, just like the hermit crab grew out of his shell.

We also read The Invisible String and learned that “people who love each other are always connected by a very special string made of love”. Mommies, daddies, grandparents, best friends, and even teachers will always be connected to you by a string of love no matter where you go! Above all, we hope that they take that love and the kind hearts that we work to nurture in each of our students and make the world a better place to be in wherever they go! ❤️

Thank you all for your support, kind words & cards, generous gifts to us and the classroom and for trusting us to care for and support your children as they grew and learned this year. We will miss our Ladybugs and have made them promise to wave (and maybe even give us a hug 😊) when we see them in the hall next year. We hope you will stop to say hello, too! To those friends who are moving on to new schools, we send our well wishes and hope you remember the good times we had together as Ladybugs 🐞 ❤️

Enjoy each moment of your summer together with your families, because like I said…..time flies!!

With much love,

Miss Sue, Miss Jenn & Miss Kelsi

Sometimes Preschool is a Zoo!

This week we will NOT be having lunch bunch. Pickup time will be 12:00 on Wednesday, May 21st.

This Thursday, May 22nd the T/Th Ladybugs will have their Last Day Celebration and on Friday, May 23rd the MWF Ladybugs will have THEIR Last Day Celebration from 10:15-11:00 am (this early time will help us avoid the heat a bit). We hope our families can join us on the playground to celebrate together! Children will be dismissed from the playground at the conclusion of our party at 11:00.

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Our butterflies finally came out this week & finished their metamorphosis (one of the BIG words we learned during this process, along with probiscus!). We ushered them out into the world in the church’s front garden.

It has been a zoo at school lately. No, not the children, although they are buzzing with energy. Our classroom was filled with wild animals this week. We had fun creating a Duplo jungle and building treehouse homes for the different animal families. There were snakes, lizards and frogs in the “pond” at our sensory table. The children used fine motor skills and coordination to feed a monkey as many bananas as they could in 1 minute (and then count them). We also used forks to paint lions manes at the easel and Model Magic to roll snakes. We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Chicka Chicka 123 and did some letter and number study this week. We sorted magnets into their correct categories- Letter or Number- and practiced naming them. We also drew our own trees and cut letters and numbers to add to them.

The Ladybugs became scientists testing their predictions as they explored with magnets. They were able to independently mark their predictions and then test them using this great magnet kit!

We had our last birthday celebration this week. Happy 4th Birthday, Aidan!!

Next week we will be reflecting on how much we’ve grown, re-visiting some of our favorite classroom toys that we haven’t seen for a while, and helping to clean up our room for the next group of Ladybugs. And then we will PARTY together!!

Have a wonderful weekend, and we hope to see you on Sunday between 3-5pm at Miss Debbie’s retirement party!

Happy Mother's Day!

During our final week of school we will NOT be having lunch bunch. Pickup time will be 12:00 on Wednesday, May 21st.

On May 22nd the T/Th Ladybugs will have their Last Day Celebration and on May 23rd the MWF Ladybugs will have THEIR Last Day Celebration from 10:15-11:00 am (this early time will help us avoid the heat a bit). Please join us on the playground to celebrate together! Children will be dismissed from the playground at the conclusion of our party.

SO…here we are with only 2 weeks left of school. Next week we will be having our LAST of many things- LAST chapel, LAST music class, and LAST lunch bunch. We have been creating souvenirs of our time as Ladybugs and will be talking about all our favorite things that we did this past year together. Miss Jenn, Miss Kelsi and I are soaking up all the hugs, smiles, and special moments as we know that our time with your children is so short.

Our ladybugs are excited, confident and too big for our room!!! There is some Spring fever going on & everyone has been a bit emotional, too. Even if they don’t understand why, the children are feeling the change coming. Next week we will be visiting the Whales and Ducks classrooms to learn what exciting new things we can look forward to for next year. Feel free to pop in and say hello and ask for a quick look, too! Miss Missy and Miss Shelly don’t bite, I promise! They would be happy to meet you.

This week we wrapped up our insect unit. We painted with string to make spider webs and added scratch art bugs caught in it. We decorated butterflies with jewels, stamped butterflies with paint and LOTS of glitter and even designed some on the light table. We are still waiting for our butterflies to emerge from their chrysalises!!! We hope some will wait until the beginning of the week so we can watch. We also did some science as we sang Here is the Beehive and dipped “bees” in “pollen” (Cheeto dust 🤣) to pollinate our flower garden this week.

We want to thank you all for taking a moment to join us this week in our classroom. We were thrilled to see all of our smiling Ladybugs sharing time with you at our Pastries with Parents event ❤️. We know it was very special to your children, and we hope it will be a special memory for you, too.

Have a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend with your sweet Ladybugs!

Bugs Everywhere!

Our school year is coming to a close and we have some important events coming up. Please mark your calendars!!

This Thursday & Friday (May 8 & 9)- Parents- You are invited to pop in at drop off time (between 8:50-9:15) on May 8th (TTh kids) or 9th (MWF kids) for Pastries with Parents. We will have snacks, photo ops, and gifts for you from your Ladybug. We are looking forward to celebrating YOU!! *Note: we have Chapel on Thursday, 5/8, so will need to make sure we wrap up our celebration by 9:15. PLEASE JOIN US!!!!!

During our final week of school we will NOT be having lunch bunch. Pickup time will be 12:00 on Wednesday, May 21st.

On May 22nd the T/Th Ladybugs will have their Last Day Celebration and on May 23rd the MWF Ladybugs will have THEIR Last Day Celebration from 10:15-11:00 am (this early time will help us avoid the heat a bit). Please join us on the playground to celebrate together! Children will be dismissed from the playground at the conclusion of our party.

NOTES FROM OUR WEEK-

Our 5 little caterpillars grew into big, fat caterpillars very quickly. All but one (the troublemaker who keeps bumping into his friends & making them shake and wiggle! 🤣) have made their chrysalis. We are hoping they will emerge before the end of next week, so we can watch the butterflies spread their wings!!

We are having so much fun with our insect theme and will continue it into next week. This week we created gardens for bees to pollinate in our sensory table, painted ladybugs (you’ll see more about that later…don’t ask questions! It’s a surprise 🤫), had picnics with ants, rolled dice & counted dots to make caterpillars and practiced drawing lines to make Tall, Tall Grass in our journals.

Our MWF Ladybugs made amazing beehives on Friday. They followed 3 steps to create their pictures.

• paint the bubblewrap & press their paper on top to make a print

• draw a bee

• cut out the bee & glue it into the beehive!

Many of them surprised themselves with how much they could do on their own. There were some BIG proud smiles!

We celebrated Wren N.’s 4th Birthday on Friday. Happy Birthday Wren!

Have a wonderful weekend with your not-so-little-anymore Ladybug!

Easter & Butterflies

May 8 & 9- Parents- SAVE THE DATE! You are invited to pop in at drop off time (between 8:50-9:15) on May 8th (TTh kids) or 9th (MWF kids) for Pastries with Parents. We will have snacks, photo ops, and gifts for you from your Ladybug. We are looking forward to celebrating YOU!! *Note: we have Chapel on Thursday, 5/8, so will need to make sure we wrap up our celebration by 9:15.

May 22 & 23- Ladybug End of Year playground celebration. Families- please join us for our year end celebration! We will have popsicles & playtime on the playground together to celebrate our year as Ladybugs!

Ladybug 2 week recap (sorry for missing last Friday!)

Last week we decorated eggs, hunted for eggs, matched and filled eggs! We read The Story of Easter. Everyone rolled dice to choose a design to add to a giant egg on our whiteboard. They had to count the dots (many are able to recognize the number represented by the dots without counting- we are subitizing!) and try to draw the matching design on our egg.

Thank you all for sending in eggs for our hunt!! We had a FANTASTIC time!! Each child counted 6 eggs and helped friends find eggs when they were having trouble. Our Ladybugs are so kind ❤️ We hope you had a great Easter break with your families.

This week we have visitors in our classroom….the Caterpillars!!!! We are so excited to have 5 live caterpillars that we can watch as they become butterflies. We learned about the life cycle of a butterfly and found models of the life cycle on our science tray, along with pasta shapes to represent the eggs (tiny shells), caterpillars (rotini), chrysalis (medium shells), and butterflies (bowties) in our sensory table. We sorted them and had fun hiding them among the flowers. Of course, we also read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Everyone was familiar with the story, so they helped “read” the book as I tracked the print with my finger.

We enjoyed making butterfly & caterpillar art projects this week, too. We made our own Hungry Caterpillars and painted giant coffee filters with watercolor paints. We also practiced following lines with markers to make designs on butterfly wings and practiced making patterns with dot markers on caterpillars. We even danced our way through the butterfly life cycle in music class!

Last week we celebrated Kennedy’s 4th Birthday!

And we had a special visit from Catherine’s sister, Caroline. It was so special to have Caroline, a former CCP student, come with her mom to read us a story! Thank you Carol Ann & Caroline ❤️

And this week we celebrated Aiva & Ava B.’s 4th Birthdays!

Have a wonderful weekend with your cute little Ladybugs!!

Dino-mite!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Monday & Tuesday 4/14 & 15th - We will be having an Easter egg hunt with the classes. If you haven’t already, please bring 6 plastic eggs pre-filled with non-candy trinkets (stickers/ dollar tree party favor type stuff) with you at drop off. The eggs will be combined and then hidden for all the children to find. They will each bring home 6 eggs in Easter bags we made at school. Thank you!

April 16 & 17- School Pictures (class picture will be taken as well as individual pictures)

April 18 & 21- CCP Closed for Easter weekend

May 8 & 9- Parents- SAVE THE DATE! You are invited to join your Ladybug at drop off time (between 8:50-9:15) on May 8th (TTh kids) or 9th (MWF kids) for Pastries with Parents. We will have snacks, photo ops, and gifts for you from your Ladybug. We are looking forward to celebrating YOU!!

May 22 & 23- Ladybug End of Year playground celebration. We will have popsicles, playtime on the playground & celebrate our year together!

*A RECAP OF OUR WEEK*

I hope everyone had a great Spring Break! I know many of the children shared with you that I was in Japan & Korea during break & earlier this week. So I was sleeping while they were having school! 🤣 They thought that was very silly. Here are some pictures of a few highlights that I told them about.

While I was gone Miss Kelsi & Miss Jenn continued our dinosaur theme. The children had fun comparing foot sizes - dinosaur feet that is! They tried to see if they could all fit inside a real-sized dinosaur footprint. It was a tight fit!!! It was also a lesson in being kind and tolerant as everyone had to squish together to fit. The highlights of the week, however, were creating a lava explosion in the volcano and hatching dinosaur eggs!! We used baking soda and vinegar for both of these activities- easy to find and replicate at home. Everyone predicted what would happen when adding vinegar to the baking soda in the volcano and then rejoiced in the “explosion” that occurred (and re-occurred & re-occurred…..this can keep a preschooler busy for quite a while 😆).

At the end of the week, we decorated bags to use for our egg hunt next week. We really love glitter glue and squeezing those little bottles is great for strengthening our “writing” muscles.

As our Ladybugs matured from toddlers into preschoolers, they have gone from playing beside their classmates to playing cooperatively. They are developing real friendships. But in this process of learning how to work together there are some very big feelings. In Chapel this week, we talked about forgiveness. We are going to try to practice forgiving people when they bump into us or say an unkind word to us. We all agreed we still love our friends, even when we are angry, and it is important to let it go and be friends still.

Have a wonderful weekend with your sweet Ladybugs!

Dinosaur Roar!

OUR FINAL IMPORTANT DATES (please note them on your calendars!!)

March 31- April 4 CCP Closed for Spring Break

April 11- We will be having an Easter egg hunt with the class on Monday & Tuesday 4/14 & 15th. Please bring 6 plastic eggs pre-filled with non-candy trinkets (stickers/ dollar tree party favor type stuff) by April 11th. The eggs will be combined and then hidden for all the children to find. They will each bring home 6 eggs in “baskets” we will make at school. Thank you!

April 16 & 17- School Pictures (class picture will be taken as well as individual pictures)

April 18 & 21- CCP Closed for Easter weekend

May 8 & 9- Parents- SAVE THE DATE! You are invited to join your Ladybug at drop off time (between 8:50-9:15) on May 8th (TTh kids) or 9th (MWF kids) for Pastries with Parents. We will have snacks, photo ops, and gifts for you from your Ladybug. We are looking forward to celebrating YOU!!

May 22 & 23- Ladybug End of Year playground celebration. We will have popsicles, play & celebrate our year together!

We had so much fun with our dinosaur theme this week! It was a HUGE hit with most of the Ladybugs!! There were lots of props in our block center to build DinoLand. Some of the dinosaurs got in fights, some climbed volcanos and some munched on trees. All of the children playing were compromising, communicating, imagining, planning, and having fun!!. We talked about the differences between plant eaters & meat eaters, sorted types of dinosaurs and counted dinosaurs to put in matching numbered eggs. We practiced cutting as we made stegosaurus in our journals. We had fun digging for fossils and making imprints in the kinetic sand in our sensory table, too. And there are some gigantic painted T. Rex romping around the walls of our classroom now!! Yikes!

We are so proud of our brave and talented Ladybugs. We weren’t sure if some of them would make it onto the stage to sing for you at our Spring music program, but everyone was so excited that you came to watch them perform. They did it!!! ❤️ Thank you for coming.

Jenn, Kelsi & I would also like to thank you ALL for making us feel very special during our Teacher Appreciation week! You have been so generous and kind. We had such a yummy lunch from Al’s and were touched by all the beautiful pictures, flowers, and sweet gifts…we have been showered with kindness and love. Thank you for making us feel so appreciated. We love our school family!

We hope you have a wonderful Spring Break next week with your Ladybug. See you in April!! ☂️ 🌸

Welcome Spring!!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Tuesday - CCP Spirit Day- wear your CCP shirt and/or red (for Ladybugs!) It is also CCP Spirit Night at Al’s Burgers!

Wednesday- MWF kids will have their Spirit Day. Wear your CCP shirt or red for Ladybugs!

Wed/Thurs., March 26 & 27 - Ms Vicki invites all parents/special adults to come to Ascension Hall after drop-off on your child’s music day (Mar 26 - MWF Ladybugs and Mar 27 - TTH Ladybugs). Vicki will have some light refreshments for adults and the children will sing several songs for you to show what they have learned in music class. It will last about half an hour.

March 31- April 4- CCP Closed for Spring Break

April 16 & 17- School Pictures (class picture will be taken as well as individual pictures)

April 18 & 21- CCP Closed for Easter weekend

This week we read The Three Billy Goats Gruff and built bridges for farm animals to cross. We added monster finger puppets to be our trolls. It was a STEM activity (building & problem solving), fine motor (control with the finger puppets), and literacy activity all rolled into one!

Ladybugs were also having lots of fun playing with our farm toys, a farm floor puzzle, farm stamps at the easel, farm puppets, and designing flower gardens.

Good news! As they play we are noticing more and more that our kiddos are using the skills we have taught through Conscious Discipline with their friends!!! Some examples are:

• “Stop! I don’t like that”, when someone crashed into their toys or played too rough

• Checking on a hurt or sad friend and wishing them well or helping them take a deep breath

• Independently going to the Safe Space to calm themselves and rejoining the group when they’re ready

We are so excited and proud to see them growing and becoming confident. 😁

We had 3 special events at school this week, too.

We celebrated Palmer N.’s 4th birthday. Her dad even read a Bluey story complete with Australian accent- it gave everyone the giggles! Happy Birthday Palmer!

Catherine’s mommy is a dentist and came to teach us about taking care of our teeth on Thursday.

And Wren N.’s mommy brought the baby chicks that they just hatched for a classroom visit on Friday!

Thank you all for visiting and sharing with us ❤️

Have a wonderful weekend with your sweet Ladybugs!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

UPCOMING EVENTS:

March 25 - CCP Spirit Day- wear your CCP shirt and/or red (for Ladybugs!) It is also CCP Spirit Night at Al’s Burgers!

March 26 & 27 - Ms Vicki invites all parents/special adults to come to Ascension Hall after drop-off on your child’s music day (Mar 26 - MWF Ladybugs and Mar 27 - TTH Ladybugs). Vicki will have some light refreshments for adults and the children will sing several songs for you to show what they have learned in music class. It will last about half an hour.

March 31- April 4- CCP Closed for Spring Break

April 16 & 17- School Pictures (class picture will be taken as well as individual pictures)

April 18 & 21- CCP Closed for Easter weekend

THE LADYBUGS HAVE BEEN GROWING!

This week the Ladybugs continued our gardening theme. We practiced cutting and made flower gardens in our journals. Our GrassHeads have grown lots of “hair” already, so it was time for some haircuts for them. We continued to enjoy painting flowers at the easel, also.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we searched for letters to add to pots of gold in the rainbow sensory table. We also practiced taking turns to roll dice, count, and collect shamrocks in a Leprechaun themed board game.

Thank you all for taking time to meet with us for conferences this week! We appreciate having the time to connect with you and share a bit about who your child is at school and also to learn more about their lives outside of school ❤️ .

Thank you, also, to Heather Spiel who came to the T/Th class to teach a quick music lesson and show us her violin! We love having special visitors!

We had a request to share our Clean Up song with you all (it is magic…give it a play & see if it works at home, too!) https://open.spotify.com/track/5DmFTIXDKISut46X50RJWX?si=4734471b5e1b41f5

Have a wonderful weekend with your sweet Ladybugs!!

It Was a Colorful Week

It was a colorful week in the Ladybug room. We started off the week using dot markers to paint rainbows to brighten up our room for the coming Spring! We talked about all of our favorite colors as we painted. We used color paddles & flashlights in our science center. Seeing the room change colors and using the flashlights to project the colors onto the wall was really cool! We read a book called Color Dance this week that introduced color mixing & different shades of colors. We learned big color words such as chartreuse and vermillion! We used cellophane squares on sticky boards to make color collages and discovered the overlapping colors made new colors. Some friends mixed fingerpaint to make colors. We also experimented with adding white and black to see how the colors changed.

Introducing our new friend, Ava. She used the colors of the rainbow to paint a beautiful (and symmetrical!) flower. Welcome to our class, Ava!

We continued to practice our names. Using our Read Build Write sheets, we found our name to read, used magnet letters to build it, and then practiced writing the letters with dry erase marker. We tried to use all of the colors of the rainbow to trace the letters of our name, too.

Every year the Ladybugs plant seeds and grow Grass Heads. We have attached a photo of each child to their cup, and the grass will begin to grow resembling hair. When it gets long enough the children will have fun giving their Grass Head a haircut! 😆 We need to water them often (working on those fine motor muscles with the spray bottle 😉). We learned about the process of a plant growing- seed, roots, sprout, then plant. Everyone knew they need water, air and sun to grow, so we put them in front of our windows and are hoping for sunny days!

We celebrated Frankie’s birthday this week. Happy Birthday Frankie!!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

THIS WEEK- March 12 & 13 - School is closed on Wed. & Thurs. for spring conferences, but feel free to plan with a friend to watch each others’ children on the playground during your conference time.

March 25 - CCP Spirit Day- wear your CCP shirt and/or red (for Ladybugs!) It is also CCP Spirit Night at Al’s Burgers!

March 26 & 27 - Ms Vicki invites all parents/special adults to come to Ascension Hall after drop-off on your child’s music day (Mar 26 - MWF Ladybugs and Mar 27 - TTH Ladybugs). Vicki will have some light refreshments for adults and the children will sing several songs for you to show what they have learned in music class. It will last about half an hour.

March 31- April 4- School Closed for Spring Break

Have a wonderful weekend with your growing Ladybug!!

These Are the People in Your Neighborhood

We have learned about the importance of everyone working as a team to help make our community great as we studied so many community helpers this month! We began with mail delivery (valentines) and doctors (hearts) earlier in the month and have really enjoyed our hair salon, too. In the past two weeks (well…..week + 1 day because of our snow days!!) we have discussed dentists, constructions workers, and police officers, as well. We also sang songs and read stories about many other jobs. We had fun reading along with the book Trashy Town! We learned to read STOP and NO and repeated the rhyming verse “Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the trashy town!”.

Georgia used a hammer to build stairs!

The T/Th class had a blast giving Miss Jenn a spa day!

The Ladybugs cut out their police hats all by themselves and enjoyed being traffic cops during a game of Red Light, Green Light

Not only was it fun using toothbrushes to paint and adding glitter to make our teeth sparkle, but we worked on fine motor skills maneuvering the toothbrush to spread the paint.

We’ve also continued to challenge our Ladybugs to spell and even write their names on their own. We used playdough to roll snakes and make letters, and we tried to write our names in our journals along with dictating what we want to be when we grow up. Now that will be fun to look back on years from now!! 🤣

We had a really fun shape hunt in the classroom, too! Everyone searched for shapes hiding around the room and colored them on their sheets as they found them. Everyone loves a treasure hunt!

Upcoming events:

PRESCHOOL SUNDAY - This coming Sunday, 3/2, is Preschool Sunday at Christ Church. PLEASE bring your child to sing! We need every voice! Meet us in the Disciple room at 8:40am to “warm up” our voices. The service lasts an hour or less. If you have other obligations, you may slip out after the children sing, but we hope you will stay to worship and celebrate. We would like to really pack the sanctuary with preschool families!!

March 12 & 13 - Conferences - School is closed for spring conferences, but feel free to plan with a friend to watch each others’ children on the playground during your conferences. Note that we also have no school those two days.

March 25 - CCP Spirit Day/Night at Al’s Burgers!

March 27 - Casual music programs in the fellowship hall. (This is a new event! ) Shortly after drop-off on this Thursday, your child will sing a few songs with their class & Ms. Vicki for an audience of parents and special loved ones in Ascension Hall. More details to come…

Have a wonderful weekend with your growing Ladybug!!

Happy Valentine's Day

The weather this week was pretty gloomy, but the Ladybug room was still buzzing with energy and excitement as Valentine’s Day approached. Our dramatic play center transformed into a post office and friends were busy writing & delivering cards all across the room! We also used our scissor skills to make cards to give family (We really do love you to PIECES!). At arrival on Monday and Tuesday, everyone was encouraged to make a bead bracelet and share it with a friend. Our Ladybugs saw that their act of giving and kindness brought huge smiles to their classmate’s faces.

We searched for letters in our Valentines themed sensory table, and attempted matching items to their beginning letters. We also practiced building shapes with our magnatiles and played shape Bingo.

The Ladybugs were SUPER excited to share and receive Valentine cards that they brought from home!!! They all waited patiently while each friend passed out their cards and could hardly contain themselves as their bags filled up. We noticed that they all made sure the bag came home with them at the end of the day!!! There were some very big smiles and big hugs between friends! Miss Jenn, Miss Kelsi & I really felt the love, too. Thank you for your cards and gifts. ❤️

We celebrated 3 more birthdays this week! Happy 4th Birthday to Sienna and Happy 1/2 birthdays to Barrett & Jacob!

I will be sending an email shortly with the link to sign up for March conferences. School will be closed during conference days, March 12th & 13th. Please make arrangements to have childcare during the conference, so that we can all chat as adults and without disruptions. We promise it will be quick! Often parents have arranged to watch each other’s children (play on the playground!) while they have their conferences.

School is closed for Teacher Workday on Monday!

Happy Valentine’s Day & enjoy President’s Day weekend with your little Ladybug!

Put a Little Love in Your Heart

This week, as we prepare for Valentine’s Day, the Ladybugs have been talking about ways we can be helpful and show caring & kindness. We started by brainstorming and came up with this great list:

As we do writing together, the children learn that words have meaning and that there are different ways to use them. We talked about adding a title & making a numbered list as we wrote their ideas down.

We found lots of ways to work cooperatively in our classroom and ways to show kindness. We created hearts with a buddy to decorate our window for Valentine’s Day, helped each other put together puzzles, and made cards to give friends and loved ones.

We took care of each other in our dramatic play Doctor’s Office. There were real xrays to examine on the light pad, too. We learned the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme and used band-aids to put Humpty back together again.

We found many other uses for hearts this week, too! We worked on sorting, graphing and patterning with hearts and made heart prints at the easel. We also did a science experiment using 3 liquids- water, soda and vinegar- to see how conversation hearts would react in each one. Everyone made predictions (BIG new word!) about whether they would sink or float. We had fun watching the bubbles in the soda carry the hearts up and then pop to make them fall. They were dancing!!!

Which is a perfect lead in to the finale of our week- our Valentine Dance!!!! The Ladybugs practiced some of their best dance moves and chose their favorite dancing songs. The Chicken Dance and Goldfish songs were top requests! I hope everyone is having fun at the dance tonight (sorry I couldn’t make it this year 😔). We are so lucky to have such wonderful parents organize this special event for us!

Next week we will be getting ready for Valentine’s Day!! Bring in your cards by Wednesday/Thursday. We will have the children deliver them to their friends’ “mailbags” and bring them home to read!

We had four birthday celebrations this week!!! Happy 1/2 birthday to Wren M., Jameson & Cora!! And Happy Birthday to Miss Kelsi, too!

REMINDERS:

*SCHOOL WILL BE CLOSED ON FEBRUARY 14TH AND 17TH *

We are still looking for volunteers to visit and teach us about their jobs during our community helpers theme this month!! We have had dentists, physical therapists, artists, doctors, carpenters- all sorts of interesting jobs to learn about in past years. Please come share something about your work with our class. Let me know what works for you, and we can schedule a time!

Looking Ahead- Conferences will be held on March 12th(MWF class) & 13th (T/TH class). More information coming soon!

Have a wonderful weekend with your little Ladybugs!

Going on a Bear Hunt

We have expanded on our winter theme this week by including bears in our play in addition to our polar animals. We were happy to have so many bear (and other stuffie) visitors from your homes! Our bears joined us in our storytime, singing & center play. Some even helped do our jobs at circle time! We made feasts for them in the bear “den” and pretended to be bears ourselves! We finger painted over a polar bear and revealed a negative space polar bear hiding in our paintings!

Everyone enjoyed our Pancakes & Pajamas Day! Thank you all for helping to make this a special day for our Ladybugs- whether you donated, cooked, served or just remembered to send them to school in PJs! We could feel the love ❤️

We have been working hard to learn more of the letters in our names. This week we practiced cutting mosaic squares to glue onto the letters. Some friends also traced their name with markers and turned them into rainbow letters. The Ladybugs are showing more interest in letters and numbers everyday. We had fun learning a new game called Penguin Race to the Top. We rolled the dice & colored a square above the matching penguin to see which would reach the top first! I think the rainbow scarf penguin won. They did a great job taking turns and keeping score on their own!

After all our talk of hibernation and bears, we mentioned that the groundhog might come out soon to see if Spring is coming. We explored shadows and used a light to make shadows with puppets and toys from our room.

We also celebrated another 1/2 birthday this week! Lydia’s mom brought yummy cookies and read an ABC book. Happy 1/2 Birthday, Lydia! We will have a very busy 1st two weeks of February full of birthday celebrations- Sienna & Miss Kelsi and ALL of our August babies!

DON’T FORGET:

Our annual Valentine Dance will be on Friday, Feb. 7 from 6:00-7:30 pm. Put on your dancing clothes and shoes! The fellowship hall will be transformed into a party! This event is for your whole family. It’s always a favorite!

Valentine’s Day- Please send in Valentines with your child the week of February 10th. They will deliver them to one another on Wed. 2/12 and Thurs. 2/13 using their decorated bags we’ll make here in the classroom. Have your child sign their names on their Valentine cards and leave the “to” part and envelope, if there is one, blank. This way it is easier for them to personally pass out their cards and not be overwhelmed by reading all of their friends’ names. Give your child a chance to help create & personalize their valentines in some way. This can be by adding stickers, drawing a picture, writing their name on their own (or even just a letter or two), or decorating homemade cards. Whatever they do will give them ownership & pride and make the experience of delivering the cards soooo meaningful to them ❤️

*SCHOOL WILL BE CLOSED ON FEBRUARY 14TH AND 17TH *

We are still looking for volunteers to visit and teach us about their jobs during our community helpers theme in February!! We have had dentists, physical therapists, artists, doctors, carpenters- all sorts of interesting jobs to learn about in past years. Let us know if you’d like to share something about your work with our class, and we can schedule a time!

ALSO- we are in need of a box of gallon size ziplocs & a refill bottle of foaming hand soap. Let me know if you can pick that up for us. Thanks!

Have a wonderful weekend with your little Ladybugs!!

It Certainly is Winter!!

What a crazy week! With the holiday and the snow we only saw each class once this week. Our polar theme has been well represented in the weather forecast!

Last week the Ladybugs practiced drawing straight lines (vertically, horizontally & angled) to create snowflakes. This week they used those skills to draw a winter scene filled with snowflakes and a snowman in their journals.

They had so much fun with penguins and other polar animals in the water table. Penguins floated in tubes with matching shapes and polar bears balanced & jumped off of icebergs into the water. We learned polar bears can swim!

We mixed glue & shaving cream to make snow paint. After painting with the fluffy paint, the children cut out polar animals to add to their winter scene.

And at circle time we followed directions & danced to Jack Hartmann’s “Penguin Dance Chant”. Then everyone took turns trying to hold a balloon between their knees and waddling across the room like a penguin!

Everyone also discovered the “cave” tent set up in our dramatic play area. Next week everyone is invited to bring a bear (or other stuffie if they don’t have one) to hibernate in the cave with them. We will be learning about hibernating animals.

Don’t Forget!: Pancakes and Pajamas - We will have pancakes and get to wear our PJ’s to school this Wednesday/Thursday, January 29th/30th!

Also, a heads up- Miss Jenn will be on vacation next week. Miss Kelsi & Miss Vicki will be here subbing for her.

LOOKING AHEAD

Our annual Valentine Dance will be on Friday, Feb. 7 from 6:00-7:30 pm. Put on your dancing clothes and shoes! The fellowship hall will be transformed into a party! This event is for your whole family. It’s always a favorite!

Valentine’s Day- Please send in Valentines with your child the week of February 10th. They will deliver them to one another using their decorated bags we’ll make here in the classroom. Have your child sign their names on their Valentine cards and leave the “to” part and envelope, if there is one, blank. This way it is easier for them to personally pass out their cards and not be overwhelmed by reading all of their friends’ names. Give your child a chance to help create & personalize their valentines in some way. This can be by adding stickers, drawing a picture, writing their name on their own (or even just a letter or two), or decorating homemade cards. Whatever they do will give them ownership & pride and make the experience of delivering the cards soooo meaningful to them ❤️

One more thing…We will be discussing community helpers in February, and we’d love to have some parents come to visit and teach us about their jobs! We have had dentists, physical therapists, artists, doctors, carpenters- all sorts of interesting jobs to learn about in past years. Let us know if you’d like to share something about your work with our class, and we can schedule a time!

Have a wonderful weekend with your little Ladybug!

Ice & Snow

Well we only got a tiny bit of (icy) snow last weekend, but the children were very excited to tell us about their adventures. Some made tiny snowmen, went sledding, “ice skated” in their boots, and some caught snowflakes with their tongues! We continued our exploration of ice and snow in the classroom, too.

We painted ice and watched as it melted and mixed with the paints. We played with pretend snow in the sensory table- skewering it with the Yeti’s spaghetti 🤣 and building by moistening one end of the packing peanut snow and sticking the pieces together (just like snowballs). We painted with watercolors and revealed hidden snowflakes drawn with crayon. Then some friends tried drawing their own pictures to paint over! We also pretended shaving cream was snow and used it to draw pictures and letters.

Along with talking about the wintry weather, we have been learning about polar animals. We added polar animals to our block and sensory areas. We sorted them and other animals into their habitats. And we learned some new names for them. For example, reindeer can be called caribou!! That one was a fun word to say! We read about the caribou, arctic fox, polar bear, seal, walrus, and musk ox. On Friday we did an experiment to feel how blubber helps keep the animals warm (we will do it on Tuesday, also).

The Ladybugs are working on some new literacy skills. We practiced rhyming words and matched mittens that had pictures that rhymed. We also practiced making straight and diagonal lines as we tried to draw snowflakes. This will help as they begin to write letters soon.

It was Reese’s 4th birthday last Sunday, so we celebrated with her and her parents on Monday! Happy Birthday, Reese!!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

School is closed this Monday, January 20

During the week of Jan. 27th we will be focusing on bears, hibernation and shadows (Groundhog Day, ya know). The children may bring a favorite bear (or other stuffie if there is no bear) to play with at school during that week. Please make sure it is small enough to fit into their backpack!!

Pancakes and Pajamas - We will have pancakes and get to wear our PJ’s to school on Wednesday/Thursday, January 29th/30th. Watch for more details coming from our Room Reps, but for now, please mark your calendars.

LOOKING AHEAD

Our annual Valentine Dance will be on Friday, Feb. 7 from 6:00-7:30 pm. Put on your dancing clothes and shoes! The fellowship hall will be transformed into a party! This event is for your whole family. It’s always a favorite!

Valentine’s Day we ask that everyone please send 11 cards signed by your child (do not write friend’s names on them) for them to “mail” to each friend. Bring your cards the week of February 10th. We will make “mailboxes” at school. Give your child a chance to help create their valentines in some way. This can be by adding stickers, drawing a picture, writing their name on their own (or even just a letter or two), or decorating homemade cards. Whatever they do will give them ownership & pride and make the experience of delivering the cards soooo meaningful to them ❤️

One more thing…We will be discussing community helpers in February, and we’d love to have some parents come to visit and teach us about their jobs! We have had dentists, physical therapists, artists, doctors, carpenters- all sorts of interesting jobs to learn about in past years. Let us know if you’d like to share something about your work with our class, and we can schedule a time!

Have a wonderful weekend with your little Ladybug!

Wishing for a Winter Wonderland

Happy New Year & welcome back! We hope everyone had a wonderful break. Everyone came back to school with smiles and excitement to see their friends😃. Now it’s time to jump into 2025!! Time is flying by, and our Ladybugs are growing up quickly. It seems that some have grown taller in just a few weeks, and we noticed that many are becoming more independent in doing things like getting dressed for the playground and opening snacks. And as they are ready, we are adding some new challenges in the classroom each week.

For example, we have begun making patterns with our calendar numbers (because our number sets have 2 sets of pictures to choose from). Everyone has done so well with name recognition, so we will begin focusing more on learning the individual letters in their names and practice making the letters using various tools, too (for example- playdough, craft sticks, blocks and, of course, writing tools). We also changed the sit spots on the carpet to number spots to sneak in a little numeral recognition.

Not only have the children changed, but we talked about how the year & season have changed as well. We learned a song, “It’s a New Year, Yes it Is!”, and had a parade to celebrate. Everyone was very excited about the possibility of snow this weekend, so we talked a lot about winter and snow, too. We practiced using scissors to cut out snowflakes to turn our classroom into a winter wonderland! We also made snowball (marshmallow) sculptures and had an indoor snowball fight (they particularly delighted in nailing us, the teachers 🤣) There were some great throws and lots of work on eye-hand coordination! Some explored how paint sticks glided across shiny foil- kind of like the paint sticks were skating on ice. We rolled dice to match the numbers on a snowman. Some friends counted the dots and found the number. Children who weren’t ready for that challenge simply rolled the numeral dice to match numbers.

You really need to check out our picture album to see many of the fun activities that were not packable to take home! Here are a few:

We had a new friend join our T/Th class! His name is Ogada, and it was his birthday this week, too so we celebrated his first day with a birthday party. Hooray!! Welcome to the Ladybugs, Ogada and family.

Our 1/2 Birthday celebrations have begun, too. We celebrated Mary’s 3 1/2 yr old birthday on Thursday 😁 🎉

And finally, Lunch Bunch began this week!! Wow…so much excitement for 1 week. We really had fun.

Well, as I finish this it has REALLY begun snowing!! Yay!

We hope you have “snow” much fun with your Ladybug this weekend!!

Merry Christmas! 🎄

This week was full of excitement and cheer. The children all had a wonderful trip in their jammies on our Polar Express! We enjoyed hot cocoa while we listened to the audiotape (yes, we had an actual cassette tape…a history lesson for our Ladybugs 🤣). Then everyone had a blast decorating & eating real cookies after weeks of pretending to be bakers in our dramatic play area!

Your Ladybugs were very excited to finally be able to present you with the gift that they made wrapped in paper they painted all on their own. We hope it brings you joy and good memories for years to come ❤️

And finally, after weeks of practice in music class and pep talks about being brave and supporting each other on the stage, the Ladybugs gave an adorable performance at our Christmas Concert. We are so proud of them all!!

Miss Jennifer, Miss Kelsi & I want to thank you all for being such wonderfully supportive parents and for sharing your precious children with us! We are so grateful for your kind words, such generous gifts, and the children’s sweet notes and drawings. Our hearts are full❤️ We wish you all a joyous & magical Christmas with your families!

with love, Miss Sue, Miss Jenn & Miss Kelsi

REMINDERS- School will reopen on Mondays, Jan. 6th and LUNCH BUNCH begins on Jan. 8th/9th. (Check your email for a message with details about this!)

Joy to the World

Despite the rain we had this week, there has been SO much joy in the Ladybug classroom!

Busy placing orders from our bakery

Everyone has been working on cutting skills while giving Santa’s beard a trim or cutting out items for their wishlists. Friends have been practicing patterning with red & white beads to make candy canes to hang on the Christmas tree at home. And they have been working on sequencing and size order as they create trees from triangles and nest the stacking Santas back together, too.

We have finished creating and wrapping some very special gifts for mom & dad. Please make sure to put them under your tree to open Christmas morning (if your child will let you wait that long….I know mine never could wait!! 😉 )!

EVENTS NEXT WEEK

Polar Express Day on Monday & Tuesday, Dec. 16/17th. Send your child in pajamas (please still have them wear sneakers and jackets, because we will still have playground time). We will be decorating cookies to eat with our hot cocoa for snack and listening to the Polar Express story while we ride the “train”. Thank you all for signing up to contribute items to make this a fun day!

Our Christmas Concert will be on Wed., December 18th at 9:30.

We have been working hard to learn our Christmas program songs and will be practicing in the chapel on Monday & Tuesday. Hopefully that will help everyone feel confident when all the families come to watch! However, if your child gets overwhelmed and ends up in your lap instead of on the stage, please keep them with you during the performance (maybe they will sing along in your lap!). We want this to be a fun, not stressful, time for all. ALL classes are invited to be here. (Drop your children in the classroom at 9:00 and then find a seat in the sanctuary.) This concert is our Christmas gift of love to you. After the concert, we will say goodbye for the holidays. Of course, you may want a family photo in front of our BIG Christmas tree before you go!

Take some time to see Christmas through your child’s eyes this weekend. I know we are all busy with preparations, but children help us remember to stop and see the magic of the season ❤️ 🎄

Have a wonderful weekend!

We Caught the Gingerbread Man!

Run, run as fast as you can!! We had fun searching for clues all around the school and catching our gingerbread man. He brought us gingerbread cookies- YUM! I think everyone loved their cookie. I can’t say the same for the gumdrops they tried at snack. We had been doing some engineering (building) with cups, cardstock and gumdrops, so of course everyone kept asking if they could eat the gumdrops. We had some set aside just for this purpose we assured them. When we gave them each one at snack, some were very surprised at the taste!!

Our kitchen turned into a bakery this week and the children told us it was their workshop. Lots of holiday cheer!! We explored magnetic properties using bingo chips and jingle bells to decorate our Magnatiles creations. Some Ladybugs discovered that they could make the bells move & dance by sliding the magnet wand UNDER the tray! Whoa!!

We read various versions of the gingerbread story- The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Pirates and The Gingerbread Bear. Retelling stories helps develop sequence, vocabulary, and comprehension.

We were also a bit busy making some surprises……. 🎁

We will have our Polar Express Day on Monday & Tuesday, Dec. 16/17th. Send your child in pajamas (please still have them wear sneakers and jackets, because we will still have playground time). Thank you all for signing up to contribute items to make this a fun day!

On Thursday, Dec. 18th we’ll have our Christmas Music Program at 9:30. We’d like our T/Th classes to attend also, so bring your children at 9:00 on Wednesday & find a seat in the sanctuary (hint: best seating is middle to left) to watch your Ladybugs sing!! As the children enter to take their place for the concert please try to refrain from getting your child’s attention (there will be time for pictures afterwards). The Ladybugs will sit with the other classes to watch the performances until it’s their turn. If your child feels they cannot participate and comes to join you, please keep them with you until the end of the concert. It can be very distracting to the rest if one of their classmates is moving about. We welcome you to take pictures of your children dressed in their festive clothes in front of our beautiful tree after the concert! Class will be dismissed for Christmas break following the show. CCP will reopen on January 6th.

When we return from Christmas break it will be almost time to begin having Lunch Bunch at school!! How exciting! Be on the lookout for an email with more details.

Have a wonderful weekend with your sweet Ladybugs!