February flew by in a flurry of fun!  Ground Hog Day was special because it was the beginning of a special friendship with a furry fellow, Mr. Ground Hog.  He so kindly awoke each day from his hibernating to teach us about the changing seasons.  We sang songs about Mr. and Mrs. Groundhog.  The children pretended to be the ground hogs "popping up from the fluffy snow."  When Mr.Ground Hog sees his shadow, we sing "Winter's here to stay - OH, NO!!" - although there are some of us who really LOVE winter!  When Mrs. Ground Hog pops up, she doesn't see her shadow, and we sing "Spring is on its way - HOORAY!" - and everybody  really loves spring!  We used a big circle of white felt to represent the snow, and a big beam flashlight to make the sun shine as we pretended various scenarios for Ground Hog Day.  When it turned out there would be "SIX MORE WEEKS!!!" of winter to look forward to, we immediately made a chart with six big sections on it, to look for signs of spring. This is when we became very well acquainted with Mr. Ground Hog. It turns out that he chose to hibernate in Miss Laura's apron pocket.  Every day the children very gently awakened him lightly tapping on their laps and calling, "Excuse me..."  Mr. Ground Hog was always a little sleepy, but he was a very good sport about speaking with the children and the teachers about the Signs of Spring.  We observed and charted the increasing numbers of tulip bulbs growing by Hazel's Clover Cottage, the longer days, bird song, icicles melting, mud around the flag pole, and many others.  Mr. Ground Hog always helped choose the magic marker to draw the picture, but he had lots of trouble with his colors.  He'd be looking for green, for example, and pull out a blue one!  "Nooooo!!!" The children would shout and laugh as Mr. Ground Hog kept making mistakes.  "I know, Miss Gloria," he would say, "I know, green is verdi," and he'd dive back in and pull out - Oh, no, Mr. Ground Hog, that's red!!!  The children were thoroughly engaged and having so much fun, all the while making observations, learning many things about nature, counting, and practicing the names of the colors in English and Spanish.

February is also the month of Valentines.  We recited a fingerplay about making a Valentine:

"Fold, fold, fold the paper/ Snip, snip, snip the paper/ Glue, glue, glue the paper/ Press, press, press the paper - and give it to YOU!" 

Then we sang a fun song: 

"When you send a Valentine, That's the time for fun. Push it underneath the door, Ring the bell and run, run, run, run, Ring the bell and run!"  That gave us a lot of exercise running in place! 

The holiday provided opportunites for snipping and gluing as the children had cutting practice and fine motor work while picking up those snips with their little pinchy fingers and gluing them on the heart-shaped paper. 

In February, we added "Hooray for Mr. Lincoln!  Hooray for Mr. Washington!" to our repertoire of patriotic songs.  After reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning, the children march with American flags singing "You're a Grand Old Flag," "God Bless America," and now a special birthday song to former presidents!  We found their pictures on money (and one of our two-year-olds spotted Mr. Lincoln coming out of his dad's wallet!) and the children decided whom they would like to see on money.  A lot of moms and dads, and even a few dogs were given the honor! 

Our study of Mother Goose continued into February with the recitation of "Hickory Dickory Dock."  The children made grandfather clocks with faces and a little mouse crawling up or down.  We used a crowing rooster alarm clock to play a game where the children pretended to be asleep, and the clock happily woke them up!  We looked at faces and hands - and then we looked at a clock's face and hands.  They are different!  A clock's face has numbers! The boys and girls made beautiful clocks from paper plates which can be used to practice telling time.  We sing and play songs about clocks while tick-tocking the seconds away on our wooden spoons.  Some of those songs include "My Gradfather's Clock,"  "The Syncopated Clock" and "Hark to the Sound of the Old Wooden Clock."  The children also use their spoons to keep time with the piano, and when the music stops - they stop!

Love and best wishes,

Miss Laura, Miss Gloria, Mrs. Shirley, Miss Donna and Miss Michele

Things are "hopping" at Hazel Drive as we start a happy brand-new year of 2012!  Our days include music, exercise, make-believe, playing with toys, enriching language experiences in both English and Spanish, and self-expression through art materials.

The children have been immersed in Mother Goose nursery rhymes this month.  They are learning the rhymes, acting them out, singing and dancing, and illustrating them in art projects.

Each child pretended to be "Jack, Be Nimble"  and jumped over the candlestick as everyone recited the rhyme using the child's own name.  Later, the children had practice in name recognition when the rhyme was written and attached to a decorated "candlestick."

"Humpty Dumpty" is a fun musical game that we play.  We wobble on top of the "wall" until we tip over and wiggle our feet in the air trying to get up! The Shape-osaurus showed up one day to help us learn about rectangles.  A rectangle has four corners and four sides: two long and two short.  The children learned how to snip strips of paper into rectangles to make a wall for Humpty Dumpty. 

The boys and girls love the story of "The Three Little Kittens" acted out by Beanie Babies.  They really laugh when the little mouse appears at the end of the story and gets chased around by the kittens, who have now cleaned up their act and their mittens!  The children decorated pairs of mittens which now decorate our wall.  They learned a song called "Mitten Weather."

          Thumbs in the thumb place, fingers all together,

          This is the song we sing in mitten weather,

          Whether they are wool, or whether they are leather,

          Thumbs in the thumb place, fingers all together.  

We played a game with a big bag of gloves and mittens.  We learned about "pairs" and matched the pairs of gloves and mittens. We talked about other things that come in pairs.  We sang our song and made soft clapping sounds with our hands.  There were even wool and leather mittens in the bag! 

In addition to the ABC Box, which brought us the letter "N" this month, another little box contains the numerals 1 - 10, and the children know we are going to be doing some counting when the Number Box appears.  It helped us in counting eggs and recognizing the numerals as we learned "Hickety, Pickety, My Fine Hen."  Then they glued and counted the eggs on their own colorful hens.

We have a lot of fun with "Little Miss Muffet."  We sit on our bean bags "tuffets" and pretend to eat as the music begins.  When the spider comes, the children get up and run, run, run in place!  A descending glissando on the Rainbow Piano tells the children when to sit down. Everyone is smiling and laughing from the exertion, but the story is not over, oh, no!  Next Little Miss Mair sat in a chair, or Little Miss Mug sat on the rug.  She eats many different foods throughout the game, and a variety of creatures join her (An alligator? A big, brown bear? A dinosaur?) ...and frighten Miss Muffet awaaaay!  Run, run, run! There are many surprises, and the children just love it!

The Winter That Never Was of 2011-2012 had just enough snow in it for our littlest children to experience its delights - for the first time and for a short time!  We sang about Frosty the Snowman, and the Five Little Snowmen who melt one by one, and teach us about subtraction.  We use our flannel board "TV" to tell those stories, and to learn about Suzie Snowflake whose beauty actually elicits gasps!  It still has been cold enough for Hazel the Rabbit to don a yellow coat over her own fur coat! 

The children have enjoyed learning about hibernation.  The older children used paper bags, cotton balls (for the snow) and various materials collected from nature to make caves for hibernating stuffed animals, who have been snoozing the winter away! They all have had so much fun pretending to be sleeping bears, cozy in their cave made from a blanket and our play kitchen table.  They love to hear the story again and again, with very informative variations, and then wait for the birds to start singing to signal the coming of spring! 

Our Kindergartners and Big Hoppers continue to learn many math concepts as they use pretzel sticks, Cheerios, dominoes, and other objects to count, add and subtract and recognize mathematical sentences.  Drawing lessons involve the use of the white board, chalk board and paper and writing implements to identify and draw shapes, letters and numbers.  The Kindergartners are learning how to read the clock - a lost skill in our digital age, but an important one which also teaches other concepts such as quarters, halves, addition and subtraction.  All the chlidren continue to flock to the pre-writing table where they trace directional lines, curves and loops with the dry erase markers, each according to his interest and ability! 

All of our learning experiences in January were enhanced by the presence of a student intern.  Miss Alanna was beloved by the children, and added a wonderful dynamic to our school with her lively personality!

Until next time...Keep Warm!

Miss Laura, Miss Gloria, Mrs. Shirley, Miss Donna and Miss Michele

Hope you had a joyful holiday season!  The children were filled with anticipation during the month of December.  We added to their excitement with stories, games, songs and projects to make the season merry and bright!

The sound of jolly Christmas music filled our school.  We had a lot of fun dancing to my cousin Jeff Sorg's Christmas CD and all the songs from the old "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" show with Burl Ives as the snowman!  We sang "Feliz Navidad" with gusto as the guitar rang out and the children and teachers danced!  The jingling of bells could be heard as we sang many old favorites with the Rainbow Piano.  We played musical games to help the children learn to listen and identify when there is a change in the music.  We sing "Jingle Bells" and shake our bells.  When we hear the words "dashing through the snow," we place our bells on the floor, jump up and become horses and trot around to the music. When the refrain is heard, the horses trot back to their places, pick up their bells and sing and play along. They were all smiles when we did our own version of "Deck the Halls" where the children played their instruments during a certain part of the music. Listen!...Wait for it!...Here it comes..."Fa la la la laaaa, La la la la!"

All the boys and girls know about the calendar at Hazel Drive.  It has squares that get filled up day by day with shapes with numbers on them.  December had green wreaths and red poinsettias.  When the calendar gets filled up, we start a new month and the past months with their pictures are placed on the bulletin board above the calendar. The children enjoyed the opportunity to make a calendar as a gift.  They were given three colors to choose from.  First one hand was painted and  hand prints were made.  Then another color was chosen for the other hand.  Then the hands were rubbed together, and an amazing thing happened: Like magic, a new color was created! How in the world did you do that?!!  Later when the hand prints were dry on the paper, the artwork was covered with clear contact, and the calendar pages, with their squares and numbers, were attached with brass fasteners.  The children helped to wrap their gifts with paper printed with red and green circles.  The results were beautiful, and they were all very proud and happy!  We hope you will enjoy the gift all year long!

In addition to all the the holiday festivities, we continued our learning activities in pre-math, pre-writing, pre-reading and Spanish.  The children just love to write and erase with the dry erase markers and continue to use them to develop their writing muscles!  The letters "P" and "S" were featured in the ABC box this month.  Sammy the Snake was introduced to the boys and girls.  He is a long, plush friend who helps the Little Bunnies get to and from the playground. He can even make himself into an "S" and he makes the sound of an "S" too!  The Shape-osaurus came down off the wall and shared his love of squares with us.  The children made collages of squares, and topped them off with glitter and a bow.  The Shape-osaurus returned to his spot on the wall surrounded by glittery gift boxes!  Our song about Five Little Snowmen teaches about subtraction as each snowman melts and we count the remaining ones on our fingers and our flannel "TV."  The Kindergarteners continue to engage in skill-building activities.  They love to browse through Miss Gloria's project book and choose a craft to make.  They used white play dough and materials from nature to create beautiful nature scenes.  These now surround our little hedgehog who has completely retreated into his tree trunk for a long winter's nap, and is covered with a blanket of leaves.  The children learn about the seasons' cycles as we patiently wait for him to awaken, and think about our tulip bulbs in the hard ground in front of Hazel's Clover Cottage. 

As we turn the calendar page to a new year, we acknowledge the cycle of the passage of time.  This is so beautifully confirmed by the growth that we see in the children.  We hope that the year ahead is filled with blessings for your families and for our little school.

Wishing you health and happiness in 2012!

Love, Miss Laura, Miss Gloria, Mrs. Shirley, Miss Donna and Miss Michele

November brought us mild temperatures as the last of the dry leaves whirled off the trees!  We celebrated the season with songs, stories and learning activities.  The calendar became filled with brown leaves of various shapes and sizes as we counted the days until Thanksgiving. 

The children learned a fun song about many traditional Thanksgiving foods.  We sang "Ready for Thanksgiving, here we go!" and watched each food appear on our "big screen TV" (our flannel board!)  Miss Laura sang, "Did you mash the mashed potatoes?" and was rewarded with the musical reply "Yes, we mashed the mashed potatoes!"  ""Did you stir the gravy?"  "Yes, we stirred the gravy!" and so on.  More and more foods appeared as we sang.  Miss Laura often got mixed up on what exactly was being roasted!  The children all knew it should be a turkey, but sometimes an elephant or a dinosaur were suggested, and that was very funny!! (Miss Laura knew it had to be something really big to feed the family!)  Some days we spread out a big tablecloth on the floor and put the foods on it to practice our good manners.  We said,"May I please have the pumpkin pie?" and "Would you please pass the apple cider?" "Thank you," and even "You're welcome!"  Good words, all of them, often used by our friends Mr. Please and Mr.Thank You who are continually popping into the children's mouths and coming out again!  We also made place mats for the occasion that can be used over and over.  Mrs. Shirley taught us a song about turkeys who hid from the farmer. They "gobble, gobble, gobble" and "wobble, wobble, wobble" and then they hide!  The children asked for that game again and again! Hope your Thanksgiving was filled with thankfulness and love!

The children in all age groups have engaged in many interesting learning activities.  We have pre-writing materials designed by Miss Gloria.  The children write with dry-erase markers on straight, diagonal, curved, angled and looped dotted lines that are the building blocks of writing. They use the small eraser at the tip of each marker to carefully erase the lines, once more creating the movements necessary for writing, and enjoying the magic of erasing!  Each student can work the task according to his age and ability. They flock to this activity daily, and are getting plenty of exercise of those small muscles.  Our pre-math activities include games and songs that teach adding and subtracting and recognition of numerals, such as counting objects, matching the numerals, singing number songs, and doing the calendar.  The Kindergarteners are learning addition with dry-erase boards and "dominoes," again created by Miss Gloria. They eagerly count the dots on the dominoes, convert the numbers to a numerals, write their plus and equals signs and add them together!  This month the ABC box contained objects starting with "M" and "T."  We also played a sorting game that reviewed the letter sounds we'd learned previously.  The children just love the ABC box!

We continuously review Spanish vocabulary while learning new words.  The children are getting very good at counting and know their colors very well!  The parts of the face and body are now familiar.  And Pin Pon has been coming to our circle times to wash his face and shake hands or hug everyone!  Do you remember that he is a handsome doll made out of cardboard?  He washes his little face (carita) con agua y con jabon (with water and soap!)

As the month drew to a close, we made packets for our pumpkin seeds.  The children colored pumpkin shapes which were stapled together to form envelopes, and each child counted out ten seeds, matching the numerals written on the paper-covered table.  Mr. Pumpkin is now high up on top of the kitchen cabinet guarding our basket of seeds until the winter is over and it is planting time again.  The children learned that one pumpkin contains many seeds, and each seed can produce several pumpkins!  That's something to look forward to! In preparation for winter, the children are also learning about hibernation.  There is a cute little hedgehog in a hollow tree.  Little by little, he is retreating into the tree trunk and will soon be asleep covered by his blanket of leaves!

Some of us might like to sleep through the winter, but others among us will definitely embrace it! Hugs to you!

Miss Laura, Miss Gloria, Mrs. Shirley, Miss Donna and Miss Michele