The month of April was a short but busy month in Rosa!

The toddlers returned from Spring break and continued right back into their classroom routines. We welcomed several new friends in April. They all settled in wonderfully!  

The weather in April allowed for some walks around campus in the sunshine. The toddlers loved looking for bugs and new flowers during these walks. Inside the classroom a few favorite works were using tongs to move plastic bugs in a patch of turf, planting silk flowers in clay pots using kinetic sand, and sorting small wooden ladybugs by size.  

We ended the month of April with an Earth Day Celebration and concert with Eric Ode! 

We will start the month of May off with our semiannual Infant/Toddler Park Day.  We will be heading to Ferrel McWhirter Park to visit, walk the trails, and see all the animals. This is always such a fun event!  

Inside in the classroom we will be bringing in some new works for the toddlers to explore. These works include baskets of items to help distinguish sizes, sand paper letters for sounding out, and hands on materials to help understand the concept of one versus two.  

We will also be working on a special gift to bring home to celebrate Mother's Day.  The toddlers will have the chance to create something special using paint, glitter and glue!  Of course we are hoping for some more sunshine in May. We can't wait to get the toddlers back to the Nature Trail! 

In November, the toddlers spent time working on grace and courtesy. We talked about respecting ourselves as well as our friends and the environment. It has been wonderful to see them setting the tables, respecting their friends works and even helping each other get ready for transitions.

The month of December always seems to fly by! The toddlers in Rosa will start the month off by making a special gift to bring home to their families. This year they will be using pony beads, cookie cutters and a bunch of creativity to make their special gift.  

​We will also focus on the seasonal change from fall to winter, and how the days get colder and darker.   At the end of the month Winter break will begin, and I want to wish everyone a wonderful time with family and friends!

The weather in October gave us plenty of opportunities to work on bundling up!  The toddlers have been working hard at getting themselves ready to go outside.  They have enjoyed our morning walks and looking at all the signs of fall on the campus.  Searching for the biggest leaves on the playground was  a favorite outside activity!
 
Our classroom looks beautiful with all of the flower arrangements!  The toddlers enjoyed working on the their pouring skills, learning to use a funnel, and creating their own beautiful arrangements.  

Inside the classroom they have been busy sorting gourds, scooping and pouring fall themed items, and hammering golf tees into the large pumpkins.

In November, we will focus on grace and courtesy. We will spend time talking about respecting ourselves as well as our friends and the environment. We will continue to talk about the cold weather and the change in the outside temperature.  
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Thank you to all of the families that have brought in items for the sensory table, pumpkins and flowers! 

We have learned so much about Hawaii and the Ocean over the month of May! The children learned a few new Hawaiian words, practiced dancing hula, made leis, and sang Hawaiian themed songs. As always, our theme was carried out through the classroom including in our books, puzzles, art shelf supplies, and practical life works.

One of our most popular songs during circle time was “Coconut Soap” by Frank Leto. This was one of Ms. Jamey’s favorite songs while growing up in Hawaii. This song helps the toddlers learn different parts of their bodies while pretending to wash with coconut soap. During circle time we also learned a few words such as aloha (hello, goodbye, I love you), mahalo (thank you), maka (eyes), and piko (belly button).

The toddlers enjoyed using our water table and the shell washing work. This month in our water table we had pretend fish with different fishing nets and containers allowing them to “catch” the fish. The shell washing work included many steps and was a big work on our practical life shelf. The toddlers practiced scrubbing the shell with water and a sponge, wiped the shell dry with a small towel, and then folded the towel to put back on their tray. We hope you enjoyed the video on Bloomz of a child using this work!

We had various language matching work including shell matching and sea animal matching. The children matched a real shell to a picture of a shell and matched small sea animals together. We had an ocean book on our shelf with matching animals to each page as well. These works allowed us to practice the names of the different animals and what sounds some of them made.
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Over the month of June we will be learning about insects, enjoy time outside, and introduce bigger works into our classroom. One of the big works we will have is a knobbed cylinder. This work is used in the Early Childhood classroom and has so many direct and indirect learning purposes! It will help the toddlers learn visual discrimination of dimensions, prepare for math and writing, and develop their small motor skills. We can’t wait for all of our fun activities and themes during summer camp starting in July!

What a beautiful spring-filled April we have had! The toddlers didn’t seem to believe us when they didn’t have to wear a coat or were allowed to wear their coats without being zipped up while it was actually sunny out. It can be hard for toddlers to transition to spring and understand why our routine is changing. In the classroom, we had many spring and farm themed works. The toddlers also had the opportunity to visit the chickens and help feed them while out on the playground.
 
The barn and farm animals were well-used works in the classroom this month. We talked about many of the noises the animals made and what the baby animals were called. The farm puzzles and books were also very enticing. We incorporated eggs into our spring and farm theme this month as well. We had a work with colored plastic Easter eggs and matching colored pom-poms. The children could match the colors and practice opening and closing the eggs. We also had a few decorative eggs with strings attached. These eggs were used to hang on a small tree. This work is so fun for the toddlers and they don’t even realize how much coordination and fine motor control they are using to do it!
 
Our art shelf was another big hit this month. The children enjoyed coloring with crayons and colored pencils, using the Dot-a-dot paint markers, cutting with scissors, and using play dough. We provided plain paper, paper with pictures of flowers, and paper with pictures of decorated eggs for the toddlers to choose from. They enjoyed being able to make their own choice in materials and the process of creating art!
 
In May we will be learning about Hawaii and the ocean, a few of Ms. Jamey’s favorite topics! In Hawaii, May day is celebrated with leis, hula dancing, and parades. The Rosa class will get a glimpse into this celebration. The children will have the opportunity to make fabric flower leis and dance hula. We will have a lot of ocean themed work and books in our classroom as well.