Kindergarten is Learning About Frogs!

Kindergarten has been busy learning about all things frogs. Did you know that some are poisonous and others are not?

News From the Older Toddler Class

This week we have continued our study of “Way Out West.” The children have learned about animals in the west including coyotes, armadillos, and prairie dogs. We have pretended to be prairie dogs popping in and out of our prairie dog dens (made out of large boxes). This has been a lot of fun! We have also enjoyed exploring different textures and talking about how the different desert animals feel. This gave us the opportunity to discuss opposites such as hard and soft, and to identify hard and soft items.

Our students are always full of surprises. One child who typically does not dance in music did a wonderful job of dancing in class this week. Some of our friends who have been aggressive in the past, showed a great deal of control in music class this week. One friend is making good progress in his potty training. Way to go! Dica and I discovered that one child in our classroom knows their shapes. They had not shared this information with us previously. We also made the discovery that this child can throw and catch a ball. We were impressed and enjoyed discovering these new pieces of information.

We are excited to announce that we have a new child in our classroom. We are learning many things about him every day. One thing that we learned is that he loves to climb. There are several children in our class that love to climb. We greatly appreciate the kindness and friendliness that his new classmates have shown him this week.

Spiders are Crawling in Erin M.'s Class

The students in Miss Erin's class voted on the "creepiest" bug, and the vote was unanimous, everyone agreed that spiders were evoked the most chills. To celebrate the importance of these creepy crawlers, we decided to make our very own eight-legged bugs. We would like to share some with you some our favorite facts about spider that we have learned over the last few weeks." Spiders have been around for at least 380 million years!" Anotherinteresting fact is that some spiders have the inherent capability to diveunderwater. Who would have thought? If you have a student at the Meridiancampus, please make sure to take a peek at our critters crawling on thewindows. We hope you enjoy our CREEPY CRAWLERS!

Treasure Hunting in Ms. Erin R.'s Class

Are you familiar with those canisters that are filled with rice and other tiny objects? You could spend an hour shifting the canister, to find all of the objects hidden in the rice. This week our class made our very own Find-It canisters.

Tuesday we filled ziplock bags with rice, added some food coloring and shook. Everyone loved watching the rice turn from white to purple, blue, red, pink, green or any combination of those colors. At the end of the day we had a large pile of mutli-colored rice.

Thursday each child took their rice, and another bag with assorted trinkets. We layered them in the canisters. Trinket, rice, trinket, rice…etc. The lids were super-glued, ribbon was added with a list of what is in the canister and personal Find-It games were completed! Check them out!

Getting Creative with Utensils the Middle Toddler Room

The children in the Middle Toddler Classroom have been cooking up a storm in the kitchen this week! We’ve learned all about cups, bowls, pots and even sponges so we know how to clean up too! Le Cordon Bleu has nothing on us because we know how to use all of these things for much more than just cooking! We loved forming our own little band with cups for castanets, bowls for bongos and our pots for drums. We showed our artistic side when we used our cups and bowls to make spectacular paintings. We’re not sure how they teach their students about cleaning at Le Cordon Bleu, but here in the MTC we believe in having lots of fun and that’s exactly what we did! We’ve found that lots and lots of bubbles is the key, so if you have any cleaning this weekend, we suggest you grab some fun looking sponges, add plenty of bubbles, and we bet your toddler will come running to help you!

May Happenings in Pre-School

The Jean Road pre-school class has been busy learning about deserts and the old west. Tumbleweeds and rattle snakes were topics we covered last week. Did you know that tumbleweeds scatter seeds as they roll through the desert? Pretending to be tumbleweeds, our preschoolers curled up like a ball and rolled across the room for some gross motor time. The topic of rattle snakes has been a big hit with our boys. We read about why snakes use their tails to warn and scare away other animals and people.

In our letter skills time we are learning the letter y and z. Yorky the yellow jacket and Zack the zebra are the puppet friends for this month. We love our puppet friends and of course, learning about letters!

We are hard at work preparing for our transition the Meridian campus next month. We are working on our self help skills. Putting on and zipping up own coats is a new found skill for many of our classmates. Our pre-schoolers are very proud of their skills! Putting on our own shoes and socks is big news! We have made such progress this month; it is very exciting! Way to go pre-schoolers!

Students are Showing Kindness in the Older Toddler Room

The value lesson for the month of May has been “Kindness”. The children demonstrate kindness to each other in many different ways. It is so pleasant to watch these interactions. Here is a poem that we have learned about being kind.

BE KIND

Be kind to others,
If they are big or small
Treat everyone nicely,
And be friends with them all

Here are some of the ways that we have been seen being kind:

• Cole often gets coats for others and has attempted to help them put them on. He also shows kindness in playing baseball with his friend Chase.
  
  


• Chase shows kindness also when playing baseball with his friend Cole.
  


• Logan is often very helpful when it is time to clean up the classroom. He also shows kindness to his friend Davindra when he plays with him outside and they share toys.
  


• Sydney and Garrett were playing on the dragon together. When Sydney’s boots fell off her feet, Garrett was concerned. He picked them up and helped put them on her feet. Sydney said, “Thank you”.
  
  


• Sydney, found Chase’s “tumbleweed art project” in the parking lot. She was very concerned and insisted that she and her mom return it to us. Her mother said she called it “bumble weed”. This was very caring and sweet.
  


• Davindra showed concern for his friend Logan. Logan had run into a door and was very sad.



• Zhian was seen gently dancing with Tillie during Music Together Class. The children were dancing with scarves. Zhian gently moved a scarf across her face. Tillie smiled sweetly.



• Drew showed kindness by helping bring chairs from circle time to the table. He also showed kindness by bringing Garrett a ball when they were shooting baskets.
  


• Violet showed kindness by crawling sweetly upon Craig’s lap during Music Together Time. This made him smile.
  


• Tillie shows kindness by waiting very patiently to get assistance to complete art projects.
  
  


• Garrett shows kindness by sitting nicely in his chair during circle time.
  


• Sydney shows kindness by always putting her projects away nicely.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Spring Ideas from Ms. Mariola's Room

Spring means being outdoors, jumping high, enjoying the weather (finally),occasional showers and buds swelling into flowers.

Here are some activitiesyou can do indoors and outdoors:

• Carrot Tops! Cut tops (large ends) of carrots off- about 1". Put themflat side into a small bowl of water, filled to ¼" level. Watch! In one ortwo weeks, you will see greenery shooting from the tops.

• Spring spelling. Think of five words that have to do with spring, such as sun, insect, rain, buds, bloom, etc. Learn to read and write them.

• Create a garden by planting flowers, vegetables or herbs. Get a smallplant, pot, soil, some water and follow gardener's directions as to when to water and how much sunlight to give your growing plant.

Friday Newsflash 5.20.2011

Friday Newsflash
May 20, 2011

I. School Closures-
Don't forget! We have two school closures this coming Friday and the following Monday.
May 27th- Report Card Preparations
May 30th- Memorial Day Holiday

II. CHA Summer Session-
During Summer here at CHA we will be offering exciting activities such as a visit from the Reptile Man, cooking, water play days, pajama days, sports and much more! Be sure to sign up as soon as possible. See Ms. Michelle for details!

III. New Staff Members-
Please join us in welcoming two new teachers to our Jean Road Campus! Ms. Marissa has joined Ms. Danielle in the infant room and Ms. Kelly has joined Ms. Kim in the Early Toddler Room. We are so glad to have you join our team!

IV. Chinese Coming Soon-
Our Meridian Campus students now will learning Chinese! In June when Summer gets underway, all students will interact with Chinese, Spanish and German in a playful environment! They will sing, dance, play games and do crafts. They will also learn customs and culture. All classes will be immersion format and are taught be wonderful and knowledgeable instructors! (Ms. Gabi will continue with Spanish, Ms. Susan for German and Ms. Yuan joins the team for Chinese!)

V. Father's Day Fishing Trip-
The Meridian Campus Father's Day Fishing Trip is coming up soon! Don't forget to mark your calendars for June 10th. We will fish, picnic, and even enjoy some games of catch! We will leave CHA around 9:00 am and be back around 2:00 pm. School will be closed that day in order to fully enjoy the day's event! If you plan on attending, please sign up next week on your classroom door!

VI. Follow Us on the Blog-
Teachers are weekly posting insights into their classrooms on the CHA Blog. There is artwork, class stories, children's writing, work samples and more! Check out what your child's teacher has posted recently on www.chaconnection.blogspot.com. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well!

Facebook www.facebook.com/thechildrenshouracademy
Twitter www.twitter.com/thechildrenshr

VII. Menu-

Monday- Breaded Fish Sticks, Green Beans, Pears
Tuesday- Sloppy Joes, Potato Salad, Applesauce
Wednesday- Potato Soup, Cheddar Cheese, Crackers, Peaches
Thursday- Canadian Bacon and Pineapple Pizza, Salad, Mandarin Oranges
Jean Rd.- Cheese Pizza
Friday- CLOSED- TEACHER IN-SERVICE

Spring Art in 1st and 2nd Grade!

Check out our awesome Spring Art projects! These cover the windows in our classroom and make it look fabulous!

Caterpillars with Many Feet

Shiny Ziploc Bag Butterflies

Handprint Tulips


Sticker Rainbows

Physical Activity in Mr. Alex's Class

Physical activity is an integral part of the day when teaching young kids. I think it is very important to vary the kind of movements and exercise that the kids experience on a daily basis. Our curriculum called for a balance beam as our large motor activity for the day but with the one balance beam I anticipated the kiddos losing interest quickly and decided to make an obstacle course that incorporated a balance beam. I wanted to obstacle course to challenge the most physically advanced children while also having the lesser skilled children enjoy success, but most importantly I wanted to see the children have fun!

Luckily the day was nice and sunny so we took the obstacle course outside. The obstacle course began with the hop scotch carpet where the children hopped balancing on two feet or one, next the kiddos moved on to the cones which they weaved in and out of and found their way to the balance beam which they slowly walk across and finished by crawling through the tunnel. When it was time to go inside the kids did not want to see the obstacle course taken down but I assured them we would do it another day. It was really great to see the kids challenge themselves physically and really have fun doing so.

Fairy Tales by Ms. Sally Jo's Class

Yesterday my class wrote their own Fairy Tales. I started them out with "Once upon a time..." and they came up with their own stories. I loved what they wrote and just had to share them!

A Fairy Tale
by: Brock Fiorello

Once upon a time there lived Fairy Tales. They were sad because their town was ruled by a mean troll. Then one day a fairy came and gave a poor goblin powers. The goblin beat the troll and saved the town, and he was made king. He said to the fairy, "thank you". The End

A Fairy Tale

by: Bella Mann

Once upon a time there was a young girl named Bella. As her life past she was a beautiful girl in the daytime and a hideous ogre in the nighttime. She was guarded by a dragon and locked away in a dragon's keep. She was saved by a cute, cute ogre named Christiaan. The End

A Fairy Tale

by: Christiaan Bedford

Once upon a time there was a queen in her castle. Then before her eyes came a prince. A cute prince named Christiaan. The queen's name was Bella. The End

Monday Newsflash

Monday Newsflash
May 16, 2011

I. CHAF Auction-
The Auction Committee and CHA staff would like to thank everyone for your continued support and commitment to our school. With your help, we raised approximately $30,000 at this year's auction event! Thank you so much for making this year's auction the best one yet!

II. Thanks to our Auction Sponsors and Supporters-
A special thanks to our top auction sponsors: Old Spaghetti Factory, Lauren Carr Catering/Balanced Table, Pavilion Construction, YoTopIt, Microsoft, and YardRents.com. Thank also to everyone who donated goods or services to help make our auction a huge success!

III. School Closures-
Don't forget! We have two school closures coming up at the end of the month!
May 27th- Report Card Preparations
May 30th- Memorial Day Holiday

IV. CHA Summer Session-
During our Summer Session we will be offering exciting activities including a visit from the Reptile Man, theatric play, cooking, water play, pajama days, sports and much more! Sign up today with Mish, so your child can have fun in a caring and comfortable environment!

V. Chinese Coming Soon-
The Children's Hour Academy is excited to share big news! Our Meridian Campus students now will learning Chinese! Starting with the Summer Curriculum in June, all students will interact with Chinese, Spanish and German in a playful environment! We will sing songs, play games, do crafts and learn customs and culture, as well as handy phrases of course! All classes will be immersion format and are taught be wonderful and knowledgeable instructors! (Ms. Gabi will continue with Spanish, Ms. Susan for German and Ms. Yuan joins the team for Chinese!) Education, Exploration and Excitement! This is what CHA is all about!!!

VI. Scholastic-
The last Scholastic book order of the school year has been placed in your mailboxes! These orders are due on Friday May 20th. Stock up on books for your child's summer reading!

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- Cheeseburger, Buns, Corn, Pears
Tuesday- Taquitos, Tossed Salad, Applesauce
Wednesday- Spring Vegetable Soup, Saltine Crackers, Peaches
Thursday- Chef Salad, Garlic Bread, Mandarin Oranges
Friday- Ham and Turkey Sandwiches, Fruit Salad, Chips

Mother's Day Vases by Erin R.'s Class

For Mother’s Day we made flower vases. We were just ending a unit on recycling, so what better way to make bases, than out of recyclables. This was a multi-step project. We first had to get messing with some glue and papier-mâché 2 litter plastic bottles. After letting them dry we went back and painted them. We then cut the tops off and inserted a flower. We made the flowers out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners. Everyone also decorated the gift bag the vases went into. All in all it was a lot of hard work, but it was so great to see the end result!

Great Job Kindergarten!

Guess whose class all got 100% on their spelling tests today! That’s right Ms. Sally’s Kindergarten Class did!!!

Celebrating Snakes, Snails, and Purple in the Middle Todddler Room

Snakes, snails and the color purple! An interesting combination and the amazing children in the Middle Toddler Class have made it work. We’ve moved like snails and snakes, we’ve done snake and snail artwork, we had a special purple objects box, and we even had a little purple party! It has been a very fun week.

We have had a great time making lots of different artwork this week. We made some purple paintings with a toy snake as our brush, we used our crayons to color some snails that we then attached ribbon to so that we could pull them around at a “snail’s pace”, and we really loved using our “Do A Dot” purple paint to make some awesome purple polka dot pictures. On Friday we had a great time getting out our big box of purple objects. We shook up our big covered box and everyone was so excited when we dumped it out and found purple balls and bead blocks! Since we were so happy and having so much fun with our purple objects we decided to add some purple plates and cups and we made it into a purple party!

Making Predictions in Kindergarten

Kindergarten worked on their math skills this week! We made predictions on how many raisins were in a box and then counted how many there really were. Check out our graph to see just how many raisins we had!

Monday Newsflash 5.2.2011

Monday Newsflash
May 2, 2011

I. Mother's Day Breakfast and Tea-

Both campuses will be celebrating Moms at Mother's Day Breakfast or Tea this week. All Moms, Grandmas, Aunts and friends are invited.

* Jean Road will be having Mother's Day Breakfast on Wednesday and Thursday from 7-9am.

* Meridian Campus (Alex, Erin, Erin, & Mariola) will be having Mother's Day Tea on Wednesday, May 4th, at 3:30pm

* Meridian Campus (Sally Ann, Sally Jo, & Hayley) will be having Mother's Day Tea on Thursday, May 5th, at 3:30pm

II. Teacher Appreciation Week-

Just a friendly reminder that this is Teacher Appreciation Week. Have you told your child's teacher lately how much you appreciate them?

III. Auction Tickets on Sale-

Did you know that we have received over $22, 000 retail value of items to bid on? Auction Packages include Summer Fun, Date Nights, Birthday Extravaganza, and much more! If you have not purchased your Auction tickets, now is the time! Also, look for raffle tickets coming soon!

IV. Special Thanks to our Top Auction Sponsors-

A special thanks to: Old Spaghetti Factory, Lauren Carr Catering/Balanced Table, Pavilion Construction, YoTopIt, and Microsoft.

V. School Closures-

Don't forget! We will be closing at 4:00pm next week on Friday, May 13th for Auction preparation. We will also be closed May 27th for Report Card preparation and May 30th for the Memorial Day holiday.

VI. 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

VII. Menu-

Monday- Chicken Strips, Mashed Potatoes, Pears

Tuesday- Kosher Dogs, Buns, Corn, Applesauce

Wednesday- Tomato Soup, Pasta w/Parmesan Cheese, Peaches

Thursday- Bean and Cheese Burritos, Salad, Mandarin Oranges

Friday- Ham and Turkey Sandwiches, Fruit Salad, Chips