¡Feliz cumpleaños a tí!
Ms. Alexandra came to our classroom today to begin our study of the Spanish language. She taught the kids a special birthday song in spanish to sing to our friend Lily who’s birthday was today! Happy Birthday Lily! We will have Spanish classes every Wednesday and Friday from 12-12:30!
Artists at Work!
Ms. Penny visited our classroom today and brought with her one of Paul Klee’s great works. The children worked on step one of one of their main art pieces for the art show in November! You can see the their own rendition of this piece on November 13th at Creative Tots annual Art Show! Mark your calendars! Miss Penny will be visiting us twice a week until the art show and we can’t wait to see what she has planned next! Visit the blog often to catch a sneak peak at our creations!
It came quickly and the kids were bubbling with excitement on day one. As with each year, the photo opportunities extended throughout the day as first-time preschoolers arrived with the customary barrage of flash photography.
The children were excited today during group time when Elmo came to visit with his friend Dorothy the Fish. Dorothy will be surprising the kids each week with a special letter on her fish bowl. Elmo helped us count to three as we unveiled the mystery letter “L”. Apart from touching and feeling, the toddlers will also “see” the various physical differences between the different letters and quickly begin to recognize the new letters each week. We will be focusing on letter recognition and letter sounds as we sing and learn with Elmo and Dorothy!
Dorothy the fish introduces our toddlers to the new letter this week
Miss Joanie introduces Sankal to her favorite guitar "Brownie"
Today the children were excited for the return of their beloved music teacher Miss Joanie. The kids sang some of their favorites and learned some new tunes as well. It is easy to see why Miss Joanie has become one of our favorites here at Creative Tots. They learned rhythm and rhyme through the use of timing and cooperation while forming a small rock band. Her guitar “brownie” was on hand to let the children try their musical abilities. She will certainly be here all year and will instruct the children on the form and structure of various musical styles.
The toddlers are always up and moving when Miss Joanie visits
The first time I saw a light table was at a Reggio Emilia inspiried preschool in New York City. Every classroom had one and I began to wonder what they were all about. After researching the various ways these could benefit preschool age children in their learning process, we decided to get one for our own classroom.
Today as I walked by our light table I overheard a child saying, “Let’s count the squares! While the other child responded, “I’ll count the diamonds then we can count them together!” They were referring to various translucent geometric shapes that had been placed on the light table for the children to manipulate. We have been talking about classifying and sorting objects by different attributes (color, shape, size, number of sides, etc.) What I was witnessing was the children taking what they had learned in small groups and applying it to their other classroom experiences. Great work kids!
Our light table allows children to experience everyday objects in a whole new way. In the coming months we will be using the light table for a multitude of activities as well as free choice play with ever changing manipulatives. Here are some of the activities that may take place at our light table this year: building our names and sight words with special translucent letter tiles, exploring and creating colors with color paddles, using various stencils, using the light table to trace our letters and names, manipulating shapes to become more aware of spacial relationships through the use of translucent geometric pieces while discovering the basics of geometry, viewing x-rays of various types of animals and shells, and finger painting on parchment paper (just to name a few). These should be great experiences for your children and ones that they will not soon forget.
Kinesthetic name and letter recognition with the Toddlers
Today we were working on tracing the letters in our name. We let the children dip their finger in red paint and helped guide them as we traced each letter. This was to help them become familiar with all of the letters in their names and to get a feeling for how to write each letter. The color we are focusing on this month is red so we used red paint and red circle dots.
Practicing one-to-one correspondence skills as well as visual recognition of numbers this week
Well, the year has begun and our little ones have not missed a step. The children have been doing a fantastic job getting to know their new (new to some) classroom and all the different procedures and routines in “the big kid room!” We have kicked off the year with a math focus on numbers one, two and three. As we attempt to hang onto summer just a little bit longer, we used ice cream cones to work on our one-to-one correspondence skills as well as visual recognition of these numbers. We will be focusing each month on three new numbers and using them in all sorts of fun activities as we gain confidence in our all our math skills. We also worked on some of our secret art pieces for the art show, but you’ll have to wait until November to see them!
Introducing our special "letter birds" as the eager Early 3's beginning picking eggs from the letter bird's nest.
Every Monday we will be introducing a letter of the week. Today during group time our special bird flew in to help introduce the new letter. Each student got a chance to pick a egg from the bird’s nest and open it to find out our special letter. This picture is showing everyone opening up their eggs and holding up the special letter “L”.
Creative Tots is ready for another year. We are excited to build on the phenomenal school year we had last year and have quite a number of things in store that the kids are going to love.
First a small order of business for those of you who are new to the Creative Tots Toddler Program Only . . . the first week of school is considered a transitional week for just our toddler students. What this means is that they will only be in school for 1 ½ hours for the week of September 8-11th instead of the regular full 2 ½ hours. If your child is enrolled in the am toddler session it will run from 9:00 to 10:30. The pm session on Tuesday and Thursday will run from 12:00-1:30. Regular hours 9-11:30/12:00-2:30 will begin the following week.
Thank you so much. We look forward to an amazing year!
Creative Tots
Creative Tots has specialized in the private education of both toddlers and preschool age children for over 15 years. We began in the heart of Madeira and now also have a new Mason location. We are specifically designed to focus on early childhood development for children ages 18 months to 5 years.
Click below to learn more about our program offerings: