Little Busy Bodies Preschool

Newsletter

November 28 & 30, 2011

Dear Preschool Parents,

I love the Christmas season and all the festive, magical books that come with it! It’s not quite December yet, but I couldn’t wait. This week we read two wonderful books on the idea of giving and sharing during the holiday season. The first book we read was “Claude the Dog, A Christmas Story,” by Dick Gackenbach. In this book we learned about the spirit of Christmas. Claude gives away all his Christmas presents to his down-and-out friend, Bummer, but receives an even better present from his young master. After reading this story, we discussed how it is fun to receive gifts, but often times it is MORE fun to think of something nice you could do for someone else or a gift you could give to another to help brighten their spirits. We feel better about ourselves when we are thinking about others. So that is what we did! We made Rolo turtle bites with a secret friend in mind. Unless you’ve already eaten them, the children can secretly deliver their small bag of treats to a friend, and hopefully ignite a spirit of giving in them as well.

 The second book of the week was “Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree,” by Robert Barry. The Christmas tree shows up at Mr. Willowby's home by special order, aboard a big pink truck: "Full and fresh and glistening green--The biggest tree he had ever seen." But it's just a little too big, so he asks his butler, Baxter, to trim off the top few feet that brush up against the parlor ceiling. Baxter realizes that this snipped-off top would make a perfect little tree for "Miss Adelaide, Mr. Willowby's upstairs maid." But she, too, must clip off the top of her tree... which then ends up with Timm, the gardener. Timm's trimming goes on to Barnaby Bear, the tippy-top of Barnaby's tree ends up with Frisky Fox and family, and then Benjamin Rabbit finds the top few inches that Mrs. Fox snipped off. And so it goes, until soon the whole countryside learns that it's simply "grand to have a tree--Exactly like Mr. Willowby." (Amazon.com review) After reading this book, the children made and decorated their own Christmas tree art, working with size ordering.

REMINDER

*KING/ QUEEN OF THE WEEK Dec. 5^th & 7^th: Ethan

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

*DEC 19-JAN 2-NO SCHOOL WINTER BREAK

                             

Have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving vacation next week!

Sincerely,

Amber

Little Busy Bodies Preschool

Newsletter

November 14^th, 16^th, 18^th 2011 

Dear Preschool Parents,

Happy Thanksgiving!! 

We had a jam-packed week here at preschool. On Monday, we finished up our segment on plants by reading “Tops & Bottoms,” by Janet Stevens. This is a fabulous book about a hare and his lazy neighbor, bear. Hare strikes a deal with bear where he gets to use bear’s land to plant crops. Hare will do all the planting, watering, and harvesting, but split the crops 50/50 with bear. He’ll even let bear choose which part of the plant he wants: tops or bottoms. First bear chooses tops so hare plants a root crop (carrots, radishes, and onions) leaving bear with a useless harvest. The story continues on in this humorous fashion, leaving a furious bear as he continues to get tricked by hare. After reading the book, we talked about how different vegetables grow and whether we’re eating the tops, middles, or bottoms of the plant.

With a few days left before the Thanksgiving holiday, I decided to read a fun book entitled “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie,” by Alison Jackson. When an "old lady" comes to Thanksgiving dinner she swallows a pumpkin pie--whole. To wash down the pie (which was really too dry) she gulps some cider which "rumbles and mumbles and grumbles" inside her. The book carries on in this fashion until she’s gobbled the entire Thanksgiving feast!  After reading this book, we talked about the First Thanksgiving and our purpose now in celebrating this holiday. We talked about the pilgrims in length and the children were very familiar with the details of the first Thanksgiving. However when I had the children complete a sheet about the details of their own Thanksgiving, none of them could tell me the real reason we celebrate Thanksgiving. I suppose the personal connection will come later. We also made pumpkin pudding. The kids had fun measuring and mixing ingredients, and most enjoyed eating it as well.

Finally, we ended our week with “A Turkey for Thanksgiving,” by Eve Bunting. Mr. and Mrs. Moose invite all their animal friends for Thanksgiving dinner and the only one missing is Turkey. When they set out to find him, Turkey is quaking with fear because he doesn't realize that his hosts want him at their table, not on it. After reading this book, we made our own classic hand turkeys.

Simply to keep you updated, we are now working on our next essential skill in developing phonological awareness… rhyme. Rhyming is the ability to identify words that have identical final sound segments.

REMINDER

*KING/ QUEEN OF THE WEEK Nov. 28^th & 30^th: AJ

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

*NOV 21 & 23-NO SCHOOL THANKSGIVING WEEK

*DEC19-JAN 2-NO SCHOOL WINTER BREAK

                             

Have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving vacation!!

Sincerely,

Amber

Little Busy Bodies Preschool

Newsletter

November 7^th & 9^th, 2011

Dear Preschool Parents,

Yeah for cooler weather! I was so excited when the temperature read 54 degrees! I ran and put my Uggs on.

This week we continued on with our plant theme, focusing more on how plants help us. Before reading our first book, I showed the children several items: a piece of wood, cotton t-shirt, pineapple, bell pepper, Aloe Vera, and a book. I asked the children what all of these items had in common. Of course they didn’t know, but came up with some interesting answers! I explained that we get all of these things from plants. I tied this idea into our first story of the week, “The Giving Tree,” by Shel Silverstein. In this story, a tree and a boy befriend each other. In the beginning the tree is everything to the little boy, a leafy playground, a partner with which to play hide-n-seek, a shady place to nap. The tree is happy because the boy is happy. In time, the boy wants more. He asks for money, the tree tells him to sell her apples. When he asks for a house, she offers her branches for lumber. When the boy is old, too old and sad to play in the tree, he asks the tree for a boat. She proposes that he cut her down to a stump so he can craft a boat out of her trunk. He does so and only a stump remains, yet the tree was happy…but not really…and so the story goes. The story is a classic and the moral is wonderful, but we focused on the idea of what the tree was able to provide the boy. The children were very surprised to find that plants and trees provide us with so many things that we use every day.

The second story we read this week was, “Lunch,” by Denise Fleming. This book is incredibly simple, but a wonderful book that the children love. I introduced this book by showing the children a wide variety of real fruits and vegetables. We named them all and took polls on who liked which ones. I then told them that we were going to read about a mouse who loves all of these vegetables. Mouse is incredibly hungry. He's so hungry that once he starts eating, he can't stop. He begins with a turnip. Fleming allows the viewer to see only the top of the white vegetable. The text on this page reads, "He ate a crisp white--". The reader is able to guess what Mouse is going to eat by using the two adjectives that Fleming gives and the part of the vegetable made visible on the page. Excited, the viewer turns the page and on the left discovers that the "crisp white" vegetable is an immense turnip. On the right, the text reads, "Tasty orange--" and there is a hint of the next vegetable that Mouse sees….carrots. The book continues in this fashion as Mouse sinks his teeth into a long list of fruits and vegetables. By the time he’s done, his belly is bulging and he’s covered in messy food remnants. He drags himself to bed, leaving messy footprints as he goes, to take a nap UNTIL….dinner time. We then discussed in more detail how to tell a fruit from a vegetable. SEEDS!!! We cut several food items open and checked for seeds then placed them in the appropriate category.

REMINDER

*KING/ QUEEN OF THE WEEK Nov. 14^th & 16^th: Reese

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

*NOV 18-Preschool Make-up Day

*NOV 21 & 23-NO SCHOOL THANKSGIVING WEEK

                             

See you on Monday!

Sincerely,

Amber

Little Busy Bodies Preschool

Newsletter

November 2^nd & 4^th, 2011 

Dear Preschool Parents,

            I switched a few things up in the schedule and decided to continue on with the seasonal topic of pumpkins and how plants grow. I miss living in an area that has true seasons so as a result, I’m living vicariously through the characters in our fall books. 

The first book we read this week was “Pumpkin Jack,” by Will Hubbell. This is a neat book to read after Halloween has come and gone. The children often feel sad to put their costume away and see the pumpkins they carved begin to wilt, but this story continues the magic of the season. “Pumpkin Jack” tells of a boy named Tim who carved his pumpkin and named him Jack. When Halloween was over and the pumpkin was beginning to rot, Tim’s mom told him to get rid of it. Instead of tossing it in the trash, he sets it out in the garden and throughout the weeks he sees it begin to change. Its skin shrivels and it becomes flatter. After the winter snow, all that is left is a stem, some seeds, and a crumpled pumpkin skin. But the story doesn’t end here. In the spring, a plant begins to grow! Tim tends the vines, and by the following Halloween, he has a garden full of pumpkins. This is a wonderful story that invites children into the world of science and peaks their interest in conducting their own pumpkin experiment. We decided to follow Tim and put a few carved pumpkins out in the backyard. We will see for ourselves the natural process that occurs as they break down. A little sprout in the spring would be a welcome addition. Please, Mr. Pumpkin Fairy?? Focusing on the lifecycle of the pumpkin, each child also planted a seed in a Ziploc bag. Hopefully these will sprout in the next week and the children can see how a seed becomes a plant. We also planted several seeds in a plastic tub.

The second story we read this week was, “Too Many Pumpkins,” by Linda White. In this story, Rebecca Estelle hates pumpkins with a passion. As a child she was forced to eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner when times were financially tough. So when the pumpkin truck drives by and accidentally drops a few ripe pumpkins into her garden with a splat, Rebecca Estelle decides to ignore the pumpkiny mess…and eventually the HUGE mess of growing vines in her garden. She decides that if she doesn't tend it and doesn't water the plants, her pumpkin problem will go away. WRONG! The untended pumpkin vines flourish, and Rebecca Estelle discovers she has a BIG problem on her hands: too many pumpkins! After some thought, she decides to turn something negative into something positive. She makes enough pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, and pumpkin desserts to feed her entire town. Out of nothing, Rebecca Estelle makes something marvelous: a harvest feast she shares with the entire town. After reading this book, we made chocolate chip pumpkin muffins as a class. We intended to share them with all of you as Rebecca Estelle did in the story, but didn’t quite have the time to get them cooled and wrapped. I may try to drop some off…we’ll see how life goes.

                                                                

REMINDER

*KING/ QUEEN OF THE WEEK Nov. 7^th & 9^th: Olivia

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

*NOV 18-Preschool Make-up Day

*NOV 21 & 23-NO SCHOOL THANKSGIVING WEEK

                             

HALLOWEEN CANDY WRAPPERS MAKE GREAT WORD WALL CONTRIBUTIONS!!

See you on Monday!

Sincerely,

Amber