Apr i l /May 2012 i ssue

The Curious Kids Gazette

April showers bring May flowers! But…wait…it is supposed to rain in April. I guess we will have to wait until May and look for more flowers in June?!?

During April, our classes worked really hard on their Earth Day canvases. Make sure you check them out in the lobby. It is great to see how they change from year to year. We love looking back at the 2009 ones and seeing how much more creative our classrooms and teachers are becoming! Also, stop in to Prek2 to see how their indoor garden is growing!

It was so much fun celebrating National High Five Day too! We had many High Five trains walking through the classrooms and everyone giving great high fives with their very decorated, individually-made hands!

The weather is getting pretty hard to judge in the mornings so please make sure your extra clothes bins have different types of clothing in them so if your child is too hot or too cold, we can change them. Make sure you are sending in labeled sunscreen and bug spray bottles! We make every effort to go outside twice a day and that sun can be pretty strong already this time of year!

Our Teddy Bear pictures were a great success. Make sure you stop in on May 9th and 10th after 4:00pm to look at your child’s pictures. We do take them again in November for the next school year so keep looking for that date!

We look forward to another busy month as we start to wrap up our “school year” (only May and June left!!). Please make sure that you send in your summer schedules if you are taking any time off! We look forward to seeing our returning college students who always help out each summer!

Miss Tracy and Miss Lisa

Miss Tracy and Miss Lisa’s News

Important Reminders • Starting June 1st, we will be

following a strict “late payment policy”

• Please remember tuition is due on Thursdays.

• The tuition box is also for anything private! If you would like to leave Tracy or Lisa a note, feel free to place it in the tuition box!

• Keep checking the Parent Board for information!

• Don’t forget that late fees apply

Important Dates

Wednesday, May 2 – Miss Wanda’s

birthday

Thursday, May 3 – Yogacize

Friday, May 4 – Last Day of the

Prek2 Clothing Drive

Friday, May 4 –National Bird Day

Saturday, May 5 – Miss Karen’s

birhtday

Saturday, May 5-Cinco de Mayo

Tuesday, May 8-National Teacher

Day

Thursday, May 10 – Congratulations

Miss Vanessa on your 2 year

anniversary!!

Sunday, May 13 – Mother’s Day

Monday, May 14-National Frog

Jumping Day – don’t forget to wear

your green

Tuesday, May 15 – National

Chocolate Chip Day

Sunday, May 20 – Miss Sharyn’s

birthday

Wednesday, May 23 – Mr. Kim

Friday, May 25 –Pajama Day

Monday, May 28 – Memorial Day –

CENTER CLOSED

for pick-ups after your registered times.

• Please help yourself to the Bay State Parent Magazines. There are lots of FREE events listed in them!

• Make sure to have at least 1 complete set of extra clothing here at school for your child.

"Knowledge is love and light and vision." -Helen Keller

Infant Info April seemed to just fly by for the Infant room! We did so many fun things

this month. We had some nice weather and did some water play inside the classroom. Some of my friends loved it and some friends didn’t quite know how they felt! Once it warms up we can really get wet outside on the playground. Our canopy should be up soon to keep these babies cool in the shade. We did some projects for our new birthday board that is up, lots of baby buggies! Overall, April was a fun filled month.

This month we had two friends move to wobblers, my friends miss them already! We did some renovating in our classroom and finally got rid of the stackable cribs from the other side. The Infant 2 side has so much more space for our babies to move! Speaking of moving, my friends are working hard on those milestones! So we will be keeping them busy on their tummy, with the walkers and also at the ballet bar. Also, we have been working hard on a special project in honor of Mother’s Day. Don’t be alarmed if your baby’s foot is pink; it’s just paint!

☺ Also, if you haven’t seen our May Day basket, check it out at Miss Lisa’s desk!

Wobbler Word Spring has sprung and Wobblers are on the move! We welcomed some new

faces to the group which we are very excited about! In April we focused on Flowers, Baskets, Eggs and Baby Animals. We worked on colors as we painted flowers. We loved mixing colors together to make new ones. We also experimented with water paint color paint when we made eggs and they loved it! For Baby Animals we made some bunnies, puppies and kittens. We are continuing to work on animals and animal’s sounds as they are important in our development. In May we look forward to using our sensory skills as we explore ponds, swamps and weather. We will be doing a lot of water, mud and sand play this month. And we will continue to work on our gross motor and fine motor skills as

the month progresses.

Page 2 of 4 School NewsletterNews

Toddler 1 Times Spring Fever! In Toddler 1 we kicked off this month with Animal Babies. We

explored baby elephants, sheep, pigs, and cow- the noises they came, what they look like, what color they are and how they move around. Then we hopped onto Bunnies, Baskets, and Eggs. We hopped our hearts out, learned to weave, painted with water color and used our feet to make bunny ears. With all of the bunnies and eggs around we were able to practice our counting and colors. The colors continued with Flower Power! There are so many different kinds of flowers and so many different colors to explore! We learned how a seed with sun and soil can grow into a flower! For the flowers to keep growing it is our job to take care of the Earth. We used our imaginations and inquisitive minds to reuse items in our classroom- newspapers, toilet paper rolls, plastic bottles, and paper. Check out our Earth Day creation!

Next month we look forward to Exploring Nature!

Page 3 of 4School Newsletter News

Preschool Pitch Another month come and gone! And more friends have come! We started

welcoming some Toddler 2 friends to our classroom. And they are having so much fun! April was full of fun. We began our month with bunnies, baskets and eggs. My friends worked on their fine motor skills weaving their own baskets. We also played ‘Guess What’s in the Basket’ by closing our eyes and guessing what we felt in the basket. My friends were pros at this- no tricking them! We made bunny ears and turned into high hopping bunnies and learned a bunny finger play. We rolled plastic eggs to each other to see how far they would go and dyed and decorated real eggs. Boy did they come out great! Flower Power was next. Many flower songs were sung and a lot of talk on how to take care of flowers. After we learned how to care for flowers we planted our very own and took care of them the best we could. Baby animals were a cute topic. We talked about the names of different baby animals and how the mommies and daddies take care of their babies. My friends made puppy ears and into cute little puppies. Recycling was our last topic. My friends found recycle symbols on many things. We also learned how to sort paper and plastic. Next month we will be covering the theme ‘Exploring Nature!’ there will be lots of talk about swamps, ponds, spiders, bugs, the jungle and weather. I am sure my friends will love turning out classroom into a jungle and our sensory table into a swamp! Happy May!

Toddler 2 Times Happy May! Last month in April we had a lot of fun with our Spring Fever! Some favorite activities were painting baby animals with puffy paint, egg marble painting, and learning about how we can help keep our Earth clean! We especially enjoyed reading a sesame street pop-up book about helping our earth. We were very sad to say good-bye to Miss Jackie. We all helped make a bouquet of handprint flowers for Miss Jackie to take home with her to remember us by! Coming up in May our focus will be on Exploring Nature. We will learn about spring weather, ponds and swamps, bugs and spiders and the jungle! We will start off the month by learning about spring weather. We will make rainbows, we will make rain in the sensory table, and mix together puff paint to make rain clouds. Next we will earn about ponds and swamps. Our friends will get dirty with mud, jump like frogs and make lots of ponds animals during art. While learning about bugs and spiders our friends will surely have a blast while searching for bugs with their magnifying glasses. W will do lots of counting the legs on different bugs, bug stamping, and make a big hairy spider to hang from the ceiling! Our last theme of the month will be the jungle! You will hear a lot of animal noises coming from Toddler 2 during this week. Our friends will make elephant trunks, use their fingers to make spots on a leopard, and slither like snakes! We are excited for what May

has to bring us!

Prek 1 Perceptions April showers bring May flowers… we certainly talked a lot about our excitement

for flowers. We learned the life cycle of a flower and what a flower needs to grow. We drew pictures and observed flowers outside blooming! We also talked about bunnies and baskets. We made paper plate baskets and used our fabulous artistic abilities to decorate eggs. We loved talking about baby animals. We learned the names of babies and played a matching game where we matched the baby with the mommy or daddy. We also talked about keeping our Earth clean and how important recycling is. We made up a super hero whose job is to help keep the earth clean, his name – Trash Man! We had so much fun creating this super hero! In May, we are going to be talking about one of our favorite things – BUGS! We will also study ponds and swamps, the jungle, and the weather. It looks to be a super fun

month with awesome science and art projects!

Staff Bio Hi, my name is Amanda Atkins. I am the new Assistant Preschool

Teacher! I love working with children and have especially enjoyed being the Preschool room here at Curious Kids! I am a recent graduate from Worcester State University and have a degree in Business Administration. I have lived in Massachusetts all my life and love it here! I enjoy horseback riding and playing tennis in my free time. I am so excited to watch all the kids grow and learn at

Curious Kids!

Prek 2 Perceptions April was such a fantastic month for us in Pre-K2! We started our garden

in our classroom, made some fun bird nest cupcakes and we held our food and clothing drive. One of our favorite things to discuss was saving our planet and how we each could help keep it nice and clean. We spoke a lot about the three R’s; Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. All of our friends had some great ideas on how to use the three R’s in our daily life. I bet they would love to share them with you! In the beginning of the month we focused on a lot baby animals. We learned a lot of names that we didn’t know before. Also, we spoke a lot about gardening and flowers. We learned that bees are very important to flowers as they pollinate them, helping then grow. One of the favorite outdoor games we played was “Get the Pollen.” We pretended that we were bees and would race down to grab pollen and then hurry to put it into our flowers. This is actually a great lead into the month of May! Our first topic is going to be all about bugs! I can’t wait to see what we learn, talk about, and create. Everyone is already beginning to be interested in the bugs we have outside. We will also be spending time on the weather, jungle, ponds and swamps. This should

be an exciting month and I can’t wait to get it started!