A Visit From the Dentist

Hello All,

Oh, it's been fun at Cherub today....first up we had a visit from the Dr. Harmon's Dental Office in Pleasant Hill. The dental hygenist talked to us about healthy food for our teeth, sugar bugs, how to brush our teeth and the importance of flossing on a regular basis. Then we saw a DVD about Danny the Dinosaur going to the dentist and all the things you might see at the dental office. Check your child's cubby for a take home packet with toothbrush and important dental health information.

We have been having fun, creating all sorts of "G" things, talking about how our hands help us everyday and that our hands are never for hitting or shoving. Yesterday afternoon, we pretended that we were firefighters and were going to a fire, took turns being the Fire Captain. Oh, how much fun we have here...

Hugs all around,
Miss Sue

Monday, Monday

Hello Friends Far and Near,

We are busy, starting off this week with "G" words....ghost, go, gorgeous, goats, give and more! Our 3s made goldfish with glitter! Soon to be on a bulletin board near you! Our 2s made giraffes and had free art and enjoyed color/shape matching.

Oh the fun we had outside, watching the equipment moving around the yard and playing in a grass area, sand, small slides and running, running, running.

Lots to do, playing in the Cherub Grocery Store and learning about all things G. What fun is this....listening to books, singing songs, having fun and learning to love learning!

Hugs to all,
Miss Sue

Fun Friday in the Sun!

Hello to Everyone Around the Planet!

It's Fun Friday...the weather is super, duper fantastic and we are soaking up every minute of it outside! We spend the morning outside and had circle time, sang songs, read stories and just enjoyed our warm weather! I hear it might rain next week, so we are making the best of it!

The sandbox is a great hit and so are the picnic tables outside. We had lunch picnic style in the warm sun....but most important, everyone had fun exercizing their large motor muscles! Climbing, rolling, digging, running, running and more running kept us busy most of the morning.

This afternoon will include bubbles again, a wet and fun sensory table with all sorts of things to discover and bringing out our easels to paint with.

Only one picture today due to a persnickity camera that only wanted to take one photo...but I think you get the picture of our great day!

Have a great weekend and make sure to make a memory!
Miss Sue

Frogs on a Fence and more!

Hello!
What a busy day! We continued our "Frogs on a Fence" art project, wrote Fs all over paper, played outside, listened to stories and enjoyed our outside time! It is simply "FABULOUS" as Miss Johanna says outside. We enjoyed our morning time on the patio playing with our wagon, balls, bikes, scooters and spending time watching our playground being demolished!

Sensory tables, coloring, gluing, laughing, sharing, sunshine and more! Life is good! Enjoy the pictures!

Miss Sue

Sand, Glorious Sand!

Hello Friends of Cherub,

As I said yesterday, we have lots of changes happening here at Cherub. Due to our retaining walls being repaired, we are playing here on the patio and in the afternoon in the infant grass area. We were able to use two of our plastic boats to fill with brand new, clean sand that is covered each evening! We have had a ball using it starting yesterday....Johanna and our volunteer, Teresa helped get the sand...over 500 lbs. of it for the two boats! Whew!

And we are continuing to explore the letter "F"...we have a flower stand where people can buy/sell flowers! Also, we have brainstormed all kinds of words that begin with "F"; friend, foot, fur, full, forest, first, football, flowers, fun, fountain and many more. Today we will be making "Frogs on a Fence"as our art project, so it will be fun to see those on our bulletin board.

Speaking of artwork, etc. Please look and take home all the art and other papers in your child's cubbie! They are overflowing and we need room for new things coming your way.

Have a great day,

Miss Sue

Lots of Changes!

Hello Friends Around the Planet,

We have all sorts of new changes here at school. First off, our retaining wall in the big playground is being redone, so we are playing on the patio and infant grass area for the next 2 months, if there is no rain! Wow! We had fun watching the backhoes, bobcats and other equipment come into the yard and start their work! Everyday will be a new experience as the project progresses on.

Next, today was the first day of children bringing their lunches. Everyone dropped their lunch into the laundry basket near the sign in sheet. This meant bringing your lunch box/bag and seeing what sorts of surprises were in your lunch for today...we had chicken salad (yummm!), shrimp wrap, pizza, rice and veggies, pb & j sandwiches, a V8 juice and lots of other yummy things in lunches. Everyone seemed to enjoy what they had today. Then children learned about packing and zipping/snapping their bags/boxes up and put them back into the laundry basket to be taken home.

Plus the 3/4/5 year olds are working on the letter "F". We brainstormed what began with "F" and a creative multisensory way to write our "F"s. We made "Fog Paintings". We used grey paint and fingerpainted with it to make as many "F"s as we could in the paint. We had lots of them! It was a fun, sensory way to learn about letters.

Our 2 year olds made a color collage and matched colors and shapes together. It was a blast. Check out our bulletin board to see our masterpiece!

Lots more fun to come this week....come join us soon! Enjoy the pictures!
Miss Sue

*check out our white board...it changes everyday with updates of what your child did everyday. Questions? Please ask!

Lots of lots of FUN!

Hello All,

Wowee! Lots of fun and learning going on over the last few days. Our 3 year olds and 4 year olds have been learning about writing their names, number recognition, name recognition and more! Our 2 year olds are working on learning how to share, keeping their hands/bodies to themselves and all about colors!

Check out the white board daily for updates about the curriculum....there is lots to see and check out and great conversation starters with your children about what they did at school today.

Have a great evening! Enjoy the evening!
Miss Sue

Happy Valentine's Day 2012!

Hello Followers,

We know how to throw a party...how to make it rock! We had a great day today with our Valentines theme! We had fun this afternoon following the Valentine's Trail to our party! We have been reading a book that shows the same thing and that we were able to follow a trail from the backyard to our party! Oh the fun we had! We had many generous donations of food and goodies! Thank you to the many families that contributed! We didn't even request anything! Thank YOU!

Check out the home made tablecloths, the spectacular food and all the fun we had at our party after a morning of delivering Valentines to each other, counting, organizing, reading, singing, dancing and more to make our day complete!

Hugs and Kisses to you!

Miss Sue

Valentines Day is On It's Way!

Hello Followers,

We had a rainy, drizzily Monday...dreary on the outside but oh so fun on the inside! We had lots of fun getting ready for our Valentine's Party tomorrow! We always start our day with a check in from each child and see how their weekend was. Next we sing the days of the week song, talk about the weather, anything else they might like to share....

Then we really got busy! We broke up into our 2s group and our 3s/4s together to work together. Our 2s worked on their colors and shapes, made Valentine's Day headbands that will be worn tomorrow all day and especially at our party! Our 2s worked on playing together as a group and taking turns and sharing...a large task for 2 year olds Lots of fun for them as they created and worked together!

Our 3/4s group worked on their own Valentine headbands, decorating and gluing to their hearts content! Then we made 2 tablecloths for our party tomorrow with lots of color and embellishment to make it very festive. We finished up our family gifts and got them ready to go home! Our 3s/4s helped with sorting, organizing and counting to help set up lunch today. We also played with some styrofoam "blocks" to build with, enhancing our wooden block area. They were fun to play with and oh so easy to knock over! (This was some donated styrofoam packing that we used). Also, we colored on our chalkboards and had a great time! We had lots of indoor time, since it was pouring rain the entire morning.

As a big group, we listened to books, sang songs and danced! Wow! It was truly a busy morning!

Enjoy the photos!

Miss Sue

The Pizza Makers

Hello Followers,

Thanks for your check ins from near and far! Most of us have heard the saying,"Many Hands Make Light Work". Well today we had that in action! We had our popular "Make Your Own Pizza Day" here. It has been a big hit, with our friends asking for 2nds, 3rds and more!

We put our 3 and 4 year olds to the test...could they get 2 dozen toasted english muffin pizzas completed in time for lunch? It was a terrific assembly line of work and product going on. We had 4 mavin pizza makers working together to get our lunch ready for all of us. Many of them commented: "I am making my pizza for so-n-so", "I put love in my pizza for so-n-so"! I was inspired!

Outside we had a Valentine's Day themed sensory table with pink and blue sand mixing together to make purple. We had cups, we had measuring spoons, sifters, heart shaped molds and more to make a great experience! Everyone got to take a turn and enjoy the mixing, pouring, sharing and laughing.

Soon it was time for lunch...lots of ravenous, anticipating customers waiting for their pizza. It was like a scene from "Restaurant Impossible" with the hungry patrons waiting outside to eat. Big thumbs up for the pizzas, carrots, broccoli, apples and oranges for lunch. We were completely eaten out of everything! Everyone loved the pizzas and finished them off.

This afternoon, we will continue with our surprise parent Valentine project, play, play, play outside since it is superfragilistically wonderful outside!

Have a great day!
Miss Sue

My Funny Valentine

Hello Cherub Followers,

Oh the fun we are having with Valentine's Day coming up! Today we began our surprise Valentine for our parents. We glued and arranged and created! We are learning to use our fine motor muscles by working with glue sticks to glue our hearts on the paper, we chose colors that we named and counted how many hearts we we using. Lots of skills at work here...

Yippee, it is sunny today and we got to go out and play sans our coats! Oh how good that feels! Due to the rain yesterday, we had lots of wet equipment outside and luckily we have a great group of friends who enjoy wiping things down. We have even "magic carpet" riders who slide down the slide on a folded blanket to dry it off. We have folks who use smaller towels to wipe down stairs, ladders, steps...and oh what a good job they do!

Enjoy our Valentines in progress....

Hugs all around,
Sue

Hearts and Haute Couture!

Hello Friends around the Planet,

Today we have been busy....we started making our Valentine bags that we will place and bring home our Valentines in. Wow! They came out great! Lots of color and variation on the theme was what we were going for! Check out the photos!

It was raining or at least drizzily this morning, so no outside time for us! We played with our fabric tunnel, our parachute with balls in it and tried to keep them in the parachute, played the butterfly match game and much more. Then we had rotations of people playing with blocks, our farm yard and the kitchen. We had many hungry diners who were more than willing to wait to have their turn to cook, serve and clean up! Check out the Haute Couture of one of our waitresses! It doesn't get better than this!

Smiles to you on this rainy day,
Miss Sue

Valentine's Week Preparations are Underway!

Hello All,

This week is all about hearts, love, Valentines and caring and sharing! We have begun to get decorated for the holiday! Check out our pictures...this is just the initial preparation, lots more to do to get these projects ready for bulletin boards and to send home!

This could be a Jackson Pollock painting our the results of a group art project...wonder what it will turn into?

Hugs all around,
Miss Sue

Do You Want to Be My Friend?

Hello Followers of Cherub,

Wow! It has been a busy week with the study of Eric Carle, his artwork and the large number of books he wrote! Today we read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and "Do You Want to Be My Friend?" We talked about what a friend is and how to be one....several responses were: "No hitting, no spitting, no pushing..." Well, I happen to agree with those guidelines and added being kind, being helpful, being friendly and playing with someone who looks lonely.

Earlier this week, we read "Ten Rubber Ducks" a "tale" of rubber ducks falling overboard and where they wind up...so we needed to make some ducks ourselves and uber "embellish" them. Check out our bulletin board. Plus, we read "The Very Busy Spider". We talked about spider webs, how they work and made our own spiders and web! Check it out in the lunch room!

We always have fun...we are looking forward to Valentine's Day and have a full platter of ideas, fun, activities and more to keep us festive! Come join us anytime....we are waiting for YOU!

Hugs,

Miss Sue