Weekly Updates ~

Good Evening...

I hope everyone enjoyed the "warm" weather we had this weekend. It looks like it melted most of the snow up and the bright sun was really nice. Unfortunately, it is going to be another cold week with temperatures in the low 20's again. :-( We are counting down the days until the warm weather in Medical Daycare...the kids just want to go outside and play!! We just started "Music Thursdays" in which we break out our instruments in the afternoons and jam out during this gloomy weather. We also have "Movie Friday's" in which the students can bring in a favorite movie of their choice to share with their peers. Last week we watched the Chipmunks and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

So last week was a short week due to the holiday, but we still had a lot of fun stuff going on. Last week, I received some exciting news. Internet sensation "Chris P Bacon" will be stopping by on Wednesday to visit our kids. Chris P Bacon is a pig that was born without his hind legs and travels on wheels to get around. He is so cute! I encourage you to look up his videos on Youtube. Before his arrival on Wednesday, we are going to read stories on pigs and get ready for his arrival. Everyone is really excited to meet Mr. Chris P Bacon!!

As for last week... we got a new chalkboard and dry erase board that the students can use whenever they want during free time. They really love drawing pictures on it and practicing writing their names. In the toddler room, we focused on making collaborative paintings. We switched between tracing, finger painting, using stamps, paintbrushes, and bingo markers. We will continue to work on these the next few weeks. They love to get their hands messy and in the finger paints!! The results always turn out beautiful.

As for the Pre-School group, we have mainly been focusing on the letters of the alphabet, spelling our names, and reading books/stories. The students love when I read to them and when I use the iPad to read eBooks to them. They specifically ask me to read to them and they also have been asking that we need more practice with writing letters and writing their names. I can really sense their self confidence and self esteem growing in terms of getting better at writing and those skills, so I am extremely happy to see their excitement.

The Pre-School group also has been working on Mickey Mouse coloring pages (by request), a pea pod collaborative art craft, and free drawing/painting. This upcoming week, we are going to focus on sculptural art and start working with PlayDoh!! So far we have only worked in two dimensional mediums, so I am excited to see how they react to a new (and familiar) medium. We are going to work with colors and making shapes and designs with PlayDoh.

We are also continuing with forms of positive reinforcement. During circle time, students can earn tickets that will earn them stickers immediately (instant gratification) and ticket points so that they can have iPad time (to be used later). It has been working out really well and the students are working hard to earn tickets and stickers. If the class as whole does a great job, then we get to read a Disney story on the IPad that has sounds and music. Another incentive is that we can sing along to the students favorite tunes if they demonstrate good behavior and listening skills.

So... I hope you all enjoy the pictures and I am excited for another great week in Medical Daycare. As a reminder, tomorrow we are going to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is going to be a really fun field trip tomorrow to look at all of the great art!! :-)

Have a great week!!

Best,

Allison

Valentine's Day Week Fun ~ Updates of Last Week

Good Afternoon!

I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend and extra day off. We did get a little bit more snow this weekend, so I hope everyone stayed indoors and enjoyed their time with family and friends. I know that I didn't move from my warm bed practically all weekend--it was really nice!

As for last week, the students had a lot of fun creating Valentine's Day themed art projects. We made heart ornaments, heart mosaics, and used shaving cream to make heart shaped marbled paper. We used the marbled paper to send to people in the hospital as a Thank You for some of the recent gifts and donations we received. The students really like playing with the shaving cream, and for the toddlers we used non-toxic foam paint to create marbled paper. You can see the heart mosaics in the windows of our classrooms, and some I have already started sending home to parents.

We had a lot going on this week which included a visit from the New England Revolution soccer team that included a lot of fun games, prizes, and art projects. The students had a lot of fun meeting the players and engaging in activities.

We also had a special visit from Elmo (via the iPad) and he sung the ABC's with us! We are having a lot of fun learning the letters of the alphabet, how to write our names, and we are focusing on one letter a week to really start to understand what we're learning. Last week, it was all about the letter "A". We will finish up this short week with the letter "A" and then introduce to the students the letter "B" and make connections to words and the letters in our name. We are also going to continue to play our shape and color card flash game where the students earn tickets with correct responses in order to earn time with an iPad or to pick the movie for movie day Friday. We also started learning the months, days of the week, and the terms "yesterday" and "tomorrow".

As we all know, we have gotten A LOT of snow this season. So this week, to make the kids have fun with the snow we had outside, I decided to make snow sensory bins for the students to engage in. The students put their gloves on and made snow paint, hunted for dinosaurs in the snow, and just generally played and molded the snow. It kept the children busy for quite some time and the snow actually took a long time to melt!! It really has been a cold and crazy window.

I hope you enjoy the pictures from last week. As a reminder, we are going to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston on February 24th, 2014. Please, if you haven't already, bring in your permission slips so all students can attend. It will be a lot of fun and very engaging and culturally informative.

For this week, the students are going to explore tracing and making art pea pods. We are slowly getting ready for our renovations in the Medical Day Care so we are getting excited for our move into another part of the building temporarily while we get new designs and a fresh start to our classrooms.

Thanks for stopping by the blog!

Best,

Allison

Updates

Good afternoon everyone...Happy Sunday!

Last week was another crazy week with a mid-week snow day. The snow has still not melted in Brighton, but that has not stopped us from learning and having fun in class.

On Monday, our class went on a field trip to Fenway Park in Boston. We had our own private tour that took us throughout the stands of Fenway, to the press box, and to other private parts of Fenway that it really was a once in a lifetime opportunity. The students loved to see where the Red Sox play and where the most recent World Series Champions 2013 were able to work hard to achieve their goal. It was a little chilly and snowflakes started to fall, but we stayed warm and really enjoyed this unique opportunity and trip. We took a lot of great pictures - we even ran into a Mickey Mouse Sculpture covered in the Boston Red Sox logo!!

As for projects this week, we started to make "magic art". Students were given black scratch art paper and wooden sticks and started carving the black paper away to reveal rainbow and colorful lines of hidden color. The students enjoyed experimenting with this project and each one turned out completely different. The pre-school class worked on the scratch art projects while the toddler classroom started to make what I call "Pea Pods". They are a collaborative art project that involves making patterns and colorful designs with bingo markers on pea pod shape objects and then I assembled them in the ceiling in our classroom - look for them next time when you come in!! :-)

For our lessons, we continued to learn about shape and color recognition together, while also counting numbers on our hands and looking at a calendar. We are starting to learn the months, days of the week and how to count the days in the month. We are continuing to practice writing our names and now I have introduced a letter of the week. This upcoming week, we are going to focus on the letter "A". The students are really great at singing the alphabet, but now I am really going to put them to test by recognizing letters individually.

For this upcoming week, I have a lot of fun Valentine's Day themed projects ready to go. The students are going to love all of the neat crafts and art projects we are going to create. The incentive of using paint or other art materials has really helped our students get through the tough lessons and activities of the day.

Also, this week the New England Revolution soccer team are coming in on February 11th so meet our students and hang out and play with them for a little. We are really excited! We also have a field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston coming up on February 24th, so we have a lot to look forward to.

Thanks for stopping by the blog again and I hope you enjoy all of the pictures.

Best,

Allison

aaubry@fhfc.org