Toddler Room

February News

February News: Next month’s theme we will focus on, Cultural Awareness and Friendship. For Geography, we will explore Asia. For literature, we will read the book, Little Blue & Little Yellow, by Lio Lionni.

January Recap

Happy new year! I can’t believe how fast this year flew by, filled with lots of fun and exciting things. This month's theme was Winter, Snow & Ice. The continent we focused on was Antarctica and had several fun experiments in class. In the classroom we made our very own synthetic snow. We made a sensory box and filled it with fake snow and toy winter animals like the polar bear, winter seal, a walrus, and a penguin. We also did another experiment by freezing toy penguins and watching the ice melt throughout the day which would release the penguins. This helped the children understand how extreme cold weather causes water to freeze and extreme hot weather increases water evaporation.



This month's book, The Mitten, is a heartwarming story about a boy named Nicki who loses his mitten in the snow. A simple lost mitten transforms into a cozy haven for a parade of forest animals, each looking for warmth during the icy winter. The children loved all the new workstations for the winter theme. They had a spooning activity with fake snowballs made of Styrofoam. We also had work that focused on using tongs to pick up the snowflakes from one bowl to the other to work on their hand motor skills.

For language, they practiced the phonics on letters O, P, K, and R. For artwork the children painted snowflakes and dotted with white polar bears. For enrichment, the children made penguins with cotton balls. They also learned winter words in Spanish like, midtones, chaqueta, botas, bufanda, and pantalones. 

December Recap

December was full of joy and fun festivities in the Toddler class. Our theme for the month was celebrations around the world. We learned about the Christmas traditions in America, Germany, and Mexico. The children loved the Spanish traditional songs we use in the posadas in Mexico like, Feliz Navidad, Campana Sobre Campana, and Mi Burrito Sabanero. The letters of the month were L, M, and N and learned the phonics to Jack Hartmann sing along. The children really enjoyed our Montessori work cycle which was inspired by Christmas. The children learned and practiced decorating a Christmas tree as part of their work. They also loved working with Christmas puzzles, scooping “snowballs”, and working with ornaments using tongs.

Throughout the month we sang Jingle Bells and Santa Shark to prepare for our Christmas performance. For our Enrichment program the children made a cooking activity with Ms. Diana, making a snowman out of bananas and pretzels. For Spanish we learned a few Christmas and winter words; elf-duende, Santa- Papa Noel, and frio-cold. For music we practiced our Christmas songs. For art the children made yellow jingle bells and worked on their hand motor skills by gluing yellow squares on their jingle bells. They also made Christmas light art with their own little fingerprints as their colorful lights. And lastly, they got to write or “scribble” Santa letters. Our literature book for December was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. The story is about love and friendship and discussed the importance of both. 

November Recap

In the beautiful fall month of November, the Toddler class learned about what we are thankful for. During circle time, we read the book Fill my Bucket; it taught us how to be kind and courteous to others. Even though our children are very young, we love teaching them about treating everyone with kindness. We had them start to practice how to clean up after themselves. For art, the children created turkeys from their handprints and practiced saying, 'thank you. The Toddlers had lots of fun during our Thanksgiving potluck; they filled their tummies with all the yummy food the parents provided. 

October Recap

October was a fun and spooky month. The theme was all about the solar system and outer space. We came up with a tune and made up a song about the 8 planets. We celebrated Noah’s birthday this month and the children were fascinated to find out that when the earth circles around the sun it is the reason they have a birthday. 

We talked about the fall season and the beautiful colors it brings on the falling leaves like red, yellow, orange and brown. The book for October was, Were Going on A Leaf Hunt. The children loved it because we got to go outside and look for leaves on the floor. They made their own fall tree made up of each child’s fingerprints with all four fall colors. 

We made an art project for the letters E for Elmo, F for Firetruck, G for Gum Ball, and H for happy. For practical life activities we worked on spooning little pumpkins from one bowl to another bowl. We also used tweezers to pick up cotton balls from one side to the other, and we practiced squeezing clothes pins to strengthen the hands and improve motor skills. 

Some of the Halloween art did were spooky ghosts with dot markers. Creepy Spiders made from paper plates and flying bats made from coffee filters that the children colored with washable markers. The Halloween parade was a blast, and all the children looked so adorable in their costumes. Thank you to all the parents for participating in our costume parade and pizza party! 

September Recap

September was a great start to the school year! The children made new friends, learned school routines and are having so much fun. It is the best day every day when your child is happy to come to school.
 
September’s theme was, Welcome to School and All About Me. For Art, the children glued yellow paper squares to an outline of a school bus to help develop fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and an understanding of stickiness. They also had an opportunity to be creative and use their imagination by coloring a portrait of their family. Lots of scribbles! This month we taught the letters a, b, c, and d. The children did an art craft of the letter a sideways as an alligator's head, and they glued on the teeth and eyes. They loved it! They had fun using dot markers to color the outline of the b for butterfly. For letter c, I cut colored circles, and I had the children glue them in the shape of the letter c for caterpillar. And for letter d, I used each child’s handprint with paint to create a duck. They made their own duck differently by gluing it and adding google eyes and a beak.
 
During circle time we sang songs like, “The Wheels on the Bus”, “The More we get Together”, and “I Love You, You Love me”. We practiced the numbers 1-4 in English and Spanish. We also use this time to demonstrate how to do a proper work cycle by grabbing work, taking it to the table and putting it back on the shelf. This month we had the children work on spooning balls from one bowl to another bowl.

Summer 2024 Recap

Our Summer program has come to an end! We had so much fun in the Toddler class. Every week we had a theme. The themes were Party in the USA, Underwater adventures, Outer space, Volcanoes, down on the farm, Camping, Things that fly, and Fitness fun! During circle time we discussed each theme. We made crafts, did cooking, and went on video field trips! Our class favorite was learning about farm animals. We painted muddy pigs, made barns, and made cotton ball sheep. Our toddlers had so much fun milking a cow! Another craft we enjoyed was making paper airplanes and flying them outside. Our favorite science activity was making a volcano!



We will miss water days! The children really enjoyed some fun in the sun! We had kiddie pools, water tables, and a splash pad. This summer we had in-house field trips. We had a reptile show, enjoyed the jump house, and had a police officer visit. Frozen’s Elsa also paid us a visit and sang a couple songs to our children.