Dear Families,

    Spring is here! Spring is here! How wonderful it is to feel the cool morning air and watch color begin to appear in the world around us!

  The children always look so big this time of year as their growth spurts become evident in their longer limbs, joyful energy and engaged minds – bursting with all they know and are curious about! 

Our Dog Study was so much fun and it was a little bit sad to bid our school “pups” goodbye!

    Jane’s M/W crew focused on working together to make one big dog out of cardboard – and a person to go with it.  Doggy Doggy and Tiger were a collaborative effort where ideas were tried and agreed upon all along the way.  Doggy Doggy and Tiger spent some time joining our mornings at school as the children incorporated them into their play.   The T/Th crew read “Bark, George” multiple times and found it to be VERY funny!  We thought it would be fun to make headpieces representing the different animals and then share our theatric interpretation with the other groups.  There was a lot of laughter shared with everyone.  With performance complete, we researched dogs in books.  Everyone decided they wanted to become dogs….like the dogs at their homes.  Everyone studied pictures of their dogs and created ears and tails to match.  All the “dogs” were “trained” and received treats as we wrapped up our dog study. 

    Katey’s M/W group researched and learned all about helper dogs; police dogs, search and rescue dogs, guide dogs and fire dogs. We found out such interesting facts about them that we all wanted to share the information with everybody else in the school. We decided to write and perform skits showing what helper dogs do. After our performances, we decided to make books about our helper dogs. We each made our own book and then we put them all together for a big “Helper Dog” book that everybody could read and put it on the book shelf. The T/TH group decided to do a big play production. We wrote the play and found out everything we needed to make for the set. There was a lot of designing, painting and drawing. It took a long time for all the parts to come together. When we were all finished we performed and it was so much fun!

   Kate and Janet’s groups learned so much about the parts of dog bodies and added to their vocabulary. Muzzle; flews; dewclaws; rump; hocks; canines and incisors were a few of our new found labels. We sketched a giant dog and then analyzed the different parts to create a reference book for others to peruse. We all wanted to of ourselves as dogs were created to accompany child designed and built dog houses. Then we wrapped things up with a couple of dog plays including the creation of accompanying sets and props. “BINGO” was play number one and a combined version of two story books became “Sally Finds Spot.” Spot wandered over to the duck pond at a construction sight when he was finally located!

       A big shoutout to Eve’s mom Adina for bringing their dog Fiona to help us learn dog safety and see a few dog tricks!!! Fiona was a wonderful addition to the morning!!!

 If you haven’t heard yet, the final focus of this school year is a study of playgrounds. 

Stay tuned for all of the many different ways this “play” focused study comes into being!

STUDIO DISCOVERY FRIDAY

Traveling along the path of our deep dive into the five senses the children have learned so much about how our sense bring messages to the brain to give us information. So far they explored: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and last on the list: touch.

How wonderful it is to see the trees; to hear music; to smell flowers; to taste delicious food; and to feel the warmth of a snuggle and hug!!!          

Spring Conferences 

We will be holding Spring Conferences to celebrate your children’s growth and accomplishments on Wednesday May 21st and Thursday May 22nd. We will have sign-up sheets with time slots for you to sign up with your child’s group teacher(s). These sheets  will be available soon. As always your children are welcome to come.

Parenting Discussion Night

Things got pretty busy for all of so we apologize for the space between our last parent meeting and this one!

We will be available for another session on Wednesday April 30th from 6:30 to 7:30.

We are looking forward to coming together again!!

DATES!!!!!!!

We will be closed Monday May 26th for Memorial Day. 

The last day of this school session is Friday May 30st. 

Summer session will start Monday June 2nd and run through August 15th. 

We will be closed to children the week of August 18th to prepare for the next school year.

Fall session will begin Monday August 25th.

THANKS and Happy Spring!!!     

Jane, Janet, Katey and Kate