"What I Know About Insects" by the Kindergarteners

Kindergarten has been hard at work learning about insects! Here are some things we have learned:

Agastya: Insects have antennas called feelers.

Briana: Some carry food with their middle legs.

Cooper: They only have 6 legs.

Emily: They come from eggs.

Kate: They feel with different parts of their bodies.

Luke: Some fly, others don’t.

Morgan: Ants have pinchers.

Paul: Ants eat leaves.

Paul W.: They have 3 body parts: thorax, head and abdomen

Signs of Spring from Ms. Sally Jo's Class

Here's what my class sees as the signs that Spring has come!

"Signs of Spring include flowers, grasses, and Earth Day! I see the trees shaking. I go outside in the Spring, and when it rains I come inside. The birds chirp all day."
By: Dane


"Signs of Spring are the flowers blooming. The flowers come out to sing in the wind. The birds chirp and fly. I ride my bike in the sunlight."
By: Christiaan

"Signs of Spring are when birds sing and the flowers start to bloom. The Earth wakes up. Earth worms wake up and play. You can fly your kite. You can go to the park. You can eat ice cream. People ride their bikes. The sun comes out."
By: Brock

"Signs of Spring are when the sun comes out and the flowers bloom. When the kids come out to play. When the leaves start to grow once more."
By: Bella

Reflections for Poetry Month by Ms. Mariola's Class

"What is poetry?"

1. Hailey - Poetry is when you write stuff, like "I love you".

2. Arianna - Poetry is when you write something like a message, and then you
draw a rainbow.

3. Wiley - You can read some books while big kids are learning in their
classroom. You can make honey sandwiches and you can with toys in the
summer.

4. Gus - You can go on Easter Egg Hunt and you can find candy in the eggs.

5. Jessie - Poetry it's a kind of food that reindeer eats and I watched that
on TV and I think I'm right.

6. Ashkon - Poetry is something you can do at Easter and you could write a
letter for someone. I think that's poetry.

7. Jack - I think it's a little party. That is the only thing I thought
about.

8. Nicholas - Poetry, it's like a little tree and it has a paws suit, and
someone climbs up the tree.

9. Will - Poetry, it's a Christmas song.

10. Jonathan - I think poetry is when you pull something.

Tie-Dyed Eggs with Ms. Hayley's Class

This week in Art Class Ms. Carrie taught us how to use silk ties to make “Tie-Dyed Eggs.” The beautiful patterns from the ties are stamped on to the eggs. You can make your own tie-dyed egg following the simple steps listed below:
1. Cut silk into a square (or a piece) large enough to wrap around a raw egg.

2. Wrap a raw egg with a piece of silk, making sure the printed side of the material is facing the egg. Silk can still be used if it doesn't fit perfectly around egg.

3. Place the silk-wrapped egg in a piece of white sheet, pillowcase, or old tablecloth and secure tightly with a twist-tie.

4. Place the egg(s) in an enamel or glass pot. Fill pot with water to cover eggs completely. Then, add three tablespoons of white vinegar.

5. Bring water to a boil, turn heat down, and simmer for 20 minutes (longer if you plan on eating the eggs).

6. Remove eggs from water with tongs or spoon and let cool.

7. Remove silk from cooled egg.

8. For shiny eggs, wipe with vegetable oil after completing step 7.

Penguin Day in 1st and 2nd Grade!

Today we celebrated the black and white bird with our very own Penguin Day! We brought in our sea animals from home, made a penguin snack from Oreos and Hershey's Kisses, and watched March of the Penguins! Check out our Penguin Day Pics!

Friday Newsflash 4.15.2011

Friday Newsflash
April 15, 2011

I. Easter Egg Hunt Change of Location- Due to possible rainy and muddy conditions, the location of the Easter Egg Hunt has been changed to the Meridian Campus. Thank you for bringing your eggs! We look forward to seeing you tomorrow! We will begin promptly at 11:00am.

II. Auction Tickets On Sale- BRING YOUR CHECKBOOKS! Support your child’s school!! We will be selling tickets during pick-up time (4:00-6:00)at BOTH campuses this Tuesday, April 19th! Susan will be at our Jean Road Campus and Michelle will be available at the Meridian Campus. Join us on May 14th for an evening of outstanding company, good wine and beer, delicious food, and wonderful items for bidding!!

III. Special Thanks to our Top Auction Sponsors- A special thanks to: Old Spaghetti Factory, Lauren Carr Catering/Balanced Table, Pavilion Construction, YoTopIt, and Microsoft.

IV. Hearing/Vision Screenings for Meridian Campus- Hearing and vision screening is being offered at the Meridian Campus on April 28, 2011. If you are interested there is a flyer with more information in your mailbox.

V. Jean Road Music Together Education Night- A part of your tuition is a Parent Education Night. Some of the research from the Center of Music and Young Children, which produces the Music Together curriculum, and the physiology of how the music is processed by the young brain, as well as how these musical building blocks support all learning will be covered. Teacher Craig VanNess will team up with Kayla Hughes - center director of Music Together of Beaverton - a board certified Music Therapist and teacher who is very well educated in the field.
Parent Education Night will be on Thursday, April 21st , 6:30-8:00pm. at First Baptist Church of Beaverton. Please plan to attend and R.S.V.P to Craig at craigvanness@comcast.net. Refreshments will be provided and we thank you for arranging your own childcare.

VI. Reminder about Child Pick-Up- Please remember that even if a family member or friend is on your list of people whom you have approved to pick up your child, we still need a note or phone call from you in order to release your child. Thank you for your cooperation!

VII. Follow Us on Facebook, Twitter, and our Blog- Be sure that you are keeping up to date on all of the latest CHA information. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and our updated online blog.
Facebook www.facebook.com/thechildrenshouracademy
Twitter www.twitter.com/thechildrenshr
CHA Blog www.chaconnection.blogspot.com

VIII. Menu-
Monday- Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Bake, Buttery Carrots, Pears
Tuesday- French Dip Sandwich, Sweet Potato Fries, Applesauce
Wednesday- Jewish Chicken Soup with Matzoh Balls, Peaches
Thursday- Grilled Cheese Sandwich, Fresh Cabbage Salad, Mandarin Oranges
Friday- Baked Chicken, Baked Beans, Fruit Salad

Developing Awareness of Endangered Animals

The last few days we have been spending a great amount of time talking about
endangered animals. Some of the animals we have learned facts about are
listed as follows: zebra, rhinoceros, mountain gorilla, tiger, and the
humpback whale. Many of these animals have had their habitat destroyed due
to farming, logging, and pollution. As a class, we have discussed the
importance of preserving the remains of these natural habitats to ensure
that these species survive. One of our favorite facts about the rhinoceros
is that a rhino's horn continues to grow throughout its lifetime. We
decided to create a "Save the Rhinos" poster to hang in our school hallway.
Please join our efforts in understanding the importance of saving our
endangered species! We can all make a difference.

Things are Hopping in Preschool

Preschool this week has been learning about rabbits and textures. Large muscle activities have included hopping on letters, trying the bunny hop, and our favorite hopscotch. In art time we created bunny masks complete with fluffy cotton ears. One of our science lessons was exploring a bunny’s favorite treat... carrots!

We began by talking about how rabbits like carrots and that they are very healthy for people too. Each child had slices of raw carrots and a spoonful of cooked pureed carrots. We talked about how they carrots were the same and how they were different before we taste tested the two items. Matthew and Seobin loved the cooked carrots and had third helpings. Sydney and Isabella enjoyed the raw carrots and had third helpings of them. Jacob and Gabe preferred to finger paint their plates with the pureed carrots but took bites of both types. Emi said both types were good and ate all her samples. Taste testing is so much fun!

Ten Little Spiders Made a Web in Mr. Alex's Class

Today our class learned about spider webs, and had a talked about patience during circle time. The children and I spoke about a spider having to be patient and work very hard to make their webs. I wanted to have the children engaged in an activity that involved patience and helped them learn about spider webs. To guide the children's learning about the patience and hard work it takes to make a spider web I decided that they were going to work together and take turns to make a spider web of their own.

The children sat in a circle and passed a ball of yarn to their friends one at a time. After each kiddo got the ball of yarn, the yarn was taped down and passed to another child until they all decided they were finished. As the kids were passing the ball of yarn around making their web we spoke about needing to be patient and wait for our turn, but also spoke about how much harder it is for one spider to spin a web opposed to ten kids. Below is a picture of the kids spider web that was produced through patience and hard work!

Dinosaurs in Action!

Does your child love dinosaurs? Come to the Auction and bid on our one of a kind piece of Art! The first and second graders are proud to announce that we are finished, and we are looking forward to see how our hard work pays off at the Auction! See ya there!

Spring has Sprung!

Ms. Sally Ann and Ms. Sally Jo’s classes have finally decorated the tree in the hallway! The 1st and 2nd graders made some beautiful flowers from tissue paper, and the Kindergarteners colored some beautiful butterflies!

Dots, Dots and More Dots!!

Kindergarten has finally finished our class auction project! WOO HOO!! Make sure you come to the auction so you can bid on it!

The Middle Toddler Classroom has Gone to the Birds!

This entire week we have been working on beautiful bird artwork, flying like birds, listening to great bird books, and even trying out some bird food! Oh my! It has been a very busy and really fun week and we have loved every minute of it!!

One project in particular was really impressive. Our amazing toddlers painted some birds and then when the pictures were dry, they added some beautiful feathers to make the birds even more outstanding. Ms. Felicia carefully cut them and assembled them (they are three dimensional) and they are now proudly displayed in our classroom.

We also spent a lot of time working on a cute new song called “Little Bird”. As we sing our song we act it out and there is one part in particular that we’re trying very hard to master and that is “shaking our tail feathers”. It is a true joy to watch our class happily practice the song and it always brings a big smile to our faces.

And just in case you were wondering about the bird food……… We ate some gummy worms with our snack one day! A few of our toddlers thought those worms looked a little too real and were pretty leery of trying them, but once they did, YUM! So yes, we really have gone to the birds here in the Middle Toddler Classroom and we have loved every minute of it!

Hopping into Springtime with the Older Toddlers

This week the Older Toddler Class spent the week exploring nests, birds, rabbits and eggs. During our lessons the children listened to a rhyme called “A Nest". One of our art projects was creating a brown collage in a paper bowl to form a nest. We also made nests out of a paper bag and placed paper eggs inside. During one of our dramatic play games we pretended to be baby birds in a nest. With nests come Mama birds! Our calendar pieces and pattern for the month uses three different birds. We have matched bird pictures in matching games and have matched birds of one color to a nest of the same color. We have also matched colored birds to same color of birdhouses. The children have enjoyed pretending to be birds. They have hopped, pretended to fly, have peeped and tweeted, and pretended to be baby birds in their nest.

The children explored rabbits by discussing the “Rabbit" picture card. We pretended to be rabbits and hopped all around our room. We made a rabbit puppet to play with as well as learned a new song.

“Little Rabbit”
(Tune: “Itsy, Bitsy, Spider”)
A fluffy rabbit took a look around.
He wrinkled up his nose, but didn’t make a sound.
He nibbled on some grass on that nice and sunny day
He shook his furry tail and he hopped away.

Animals in Ms. Erin's Class!

This week we have been talking about endangered and exotic animals. In Art we made our own tiger masks. We each used a paper plate and painted it orange. From there, the masks became more diverse. Students were able to decide how many stripes they wanted and where to put them. One friend even hung stripes off the mask. Some tigers have smiles, while others have frowns. At the end, everyone had fun putting their masks on and being tigers!

April is Literacy Month!

Ideas for parents to help their child at home with learning:

Read to your child every day. Talk about the words, pictures and ask questions about the story, author and illustrator.

Visit the library often. If they can write their first name, they can get their own library card at the local library.

Provide paper, crayons, pencils, markers, scissors, glue, etc. so your child can draw, color, cut, glue, and most importantly WRITE!

Do puzzles together. This promotes problem solving strategies and critical thinking skills.

Play games. This promotes taking turns, sharing, paying attention and following directions. Find games that have an academic focus (Candyland, Memory, Chutes and Ladders, Hi-Ho Cherry-Oh, Trouble, Uno, Go Fish, etc.)

Sing songs and nursery rhymes together. Find the words that rhyme and come up with more.

Read signs as you drive down the road. Choose a particular color and count only the cars o0f that color.

License plates are a wonderful teaching tool as you are driving down the road. Choose a particular color and count only the cars of that color.

License plates are a wonderful teaching tool as you are driving around. Identify the letters and numbers.

Label items around your home. Teachers reading, letter--sound relationships, letter identification, etc.

Shaving cream--Spread it on a large surface and let them practice writing their letters in it.