We have spent the first week of March listening to Irish music. The children have learned a bit about bagpipes, and many of them start to dance as soon as the music begins to play.  We’ve listened to the music from Riverdance and talked about Irish dancing. In some of the music, we listened for drums being played along with the bagpipes. The children have also enjoyed learning the names of other musical instruments such as flute, clarinet, French horn, trombone, and guitar. They have seen photos of people playing these instruments and enjoyed matching miniature replicas of these instruments to the photos. 

This week, we tasted asparagus: raw and cooked. Many of the children enjoyed the cooked asparagus. They noticed the difference in taste between the two, as well as the distinct crunch of the raw. 

We are so grateful to Angela and Michael Huttemann for working with our children to create a gorgeous collaborative handprint masterpiece, which will be available for purchase at the gala. 

Our children also had the opportunity to work with Ms. Sarah, our art teacher, to complete another project for the gala. They each pressed their fingerprints onto a ceramic vase. Upon completion, their fingerprints will look like insects crawling on its surface. We are eager to see the finished product!

We hope you enjoy some quality time with your families over the spring break, and look forward to seeing everyone back at school on March 25th.

Warmly, Christine & Lizette

The children enjoyed the sunshine and warmer weather this week. They ended last week tasting lemons, and this week, they gave plantains a try. We discussed the differences between plantains and bananas. Plantains tend to be larger, with thicker skin. They are also a bit starchy, whereas bananas are sweeter. We had the opportunity to taste mangu, which is a Dominican dish consisting of cooked, mashed plantains. We’ll end the week trying plantain chips. 

Stay healthy, and enjoy the first weekend of March! 

Last week wound up being a shorter week than we expected due to the snow. The toddlers enjoyed a delightful Valentine’s Day celebration filled with joy and camaraderie. They enthusiastically joined forces to create a “friendship fruit salad,” pooling their efforts to open containers, meticulously wash, and expertly prepare the array of fruits. Along with their fruit salad, they enjoyed raspberry muffins and sipped cranberry juice. They exchanged valentines and were thrilled to take home their specially decorated bags filled with goodies -spreading smiles all around.

We explored the themes of kindness and friendship, emphasizing the importance of helping others. Within our classroom, these values are demonstrated vividly as the children willingly assist each other in opening water bottles, offer to carry a friend’s lunch or drink to their designated spot, help one another hang their coats, and retrieve slippers from their cubbies.

Our food-tasting experience extended through this week and included both avocados and guacamole. The avocado was more popular than the guacamole. 

The toddlers have been exploring Arctic animals and engaging in hands-on experiments with ice and water. They’ve been actively observing how water interacts with ice, noting how it causes the ice to melt and drawing connections between the two states of matter.

See you next week! Christine & Lizette

A large part of our work with toddlers is to lay the foundation for developing emotional intelligence—the ability to recognize, understand, manage, and express emotions. Cultivating emotional intelligence in toddlers is crucial for their social and emotional well-being.

Teaching children to identify and name emotions is the first step in teaching children about their own emotions and the emotions of others. Being able to identify and name their feelings can help children to feel heard and understood. Introducing toddlers to a diverse range of emotions through books, stories, and discussions will develop their emotional vocabulary. Since toddlers often mimic the actions and attitudes of the adults around them, demonstrating healthy ways to express and manage emotions is crucial – such as taking deep breaths to calm down when feeling frustrated. One of our favorite books this month was In My Heart: A Book of Feelings by Jo Witek. We have read it numerous times, and it has inspired discussions about times when we’ve felt a variety of different emotions. The children especially enjoy hearing the anecdotes that I share with them about times when I have felt brave, happy, sad, etc. 

For this week’s food-tasting experience, we tried beets. The children seemed very fond of exploring the whole beet and were quite eager to taste this vibrant root vegetable. Some studies have shown that children need to be exposed to a new food at least a dozen times before they make a final decision about truly liking it or not, so perhaps consider adding beets to your menu this week – maybe topped with crumbled goat cheese!

The children decorated their Valentine’s Day bags this week, and we’ve been reading Valentine’s books that celebrate friendship. We’re looking forward to exchanging cards next week. 

Wishing you all an enjoyable weekend. 

Christine and Lizette

The week flew by! We tried broccoli. Raw did not go over very well, but the steamed broccoli was a hit! 

We were thrilled to have a few warmer days to enjoy on the playground. The children are becoming much more independent in dressing themselves for the outdoors. Zipping one’s own coat can be quite tricky. We tend to get the zipper started for the children, then encourage them to zip it the rest of the way up. Many of the children are now able to get their coats on and off independently as well. Has your child shown you the special ‘flip’ that we do at school? They stand by their hood (or toes to tag if they have no hood), put their arms into the arm holes, and flip the coat over their head, beaming with pride upon completion. Taking their coats off can be a bit tricky as well. Rather than jumping in to complete the task for them, we tend to help the children just a little in order to set them up for success. For example, help the child to take one hand out of their coat. Then, that hand is free for them to use to take off the other side. I often tell them that we work as a team to get the job done. We can see on their faces that they feel empowered even in the tasks that we adults may consider small.

A few favorite activities this week have been painting at the easel, re-telling Bear Snores On (by Karma Wilson) using the felt board, and driving the PlasmaCars in the gym. We walked to the gym without our rope, “just like the big kids,” which was very exciting. 

We have a new group of Middle School students who visit us weekly as part of their Social Impact program. The children are delighted when our new friends join us. Bryant, Anders, Emma, and Allie have been enthusiastic role models and also really seem to enjoy their time with the toddlers. 

Wishing you all a healthy weekend filled with a perfect balance of fun and relaxation.

Christine & Lizette

This week, we enjoyed strawberries as our food-tasting experience. Despite the children’s familiarity with the fruit, they were in awe as we cut the strawberry to reveal the white inside. We discussed the edible seeds on the outside of the strawberry and remembered that some seeds are not edible, such as those from an apple.

We’ve noticed since our seaweed tasting a few weeks ago that a few children have brought seaweed for a snack- and it sparks conversation each time!

We had the opportunity to expend some energy in the gym this week. We worked on catching, throwing, and kicking balls. A few children did a few laps around the gym. We discussed how running and exercise change the way we breathe and make our hearts beat faster.

We’ve also enjoyed some time outdoors. There is so much to learn through the senses – especially when there is snow on the ground. We particularly enjoyed listening to the sound of the snow crunching underneath our boots with each step.

We have been talking a lot about woodland animals, such as chipmunks, skunks, raccoons, and bears. A few of us have shared stories of encounters with these backyard critters.

Happy Birthday to our friend Kai, who we celebrated in class this week.

Please note that a handful of photos in this week’s batch are from last month but never made it into the post. I will share a funny song that we discovered by accident, which the children love. If you play it at home, I hope you’ll have the chance to see their bodies move and groove to the music as they listen. (We always listen to music on a speaker using Spotify, even though I share via YouTube.)

Also, for those of you whose children will be moving into Primary next year, please consider attending the Moving Up information night on Thursday evening, February 1, at 5:30 pm. It is a great way to gain more information about your child’s year ahead.

Happy and healthy weekend!

Christine & Lizette

Happy New Year! We were all thrilled to see each other again,  relishing the return to school after a rejuvenating break spent with our families during the holiday celebrations at home. 

The children seamlessly re-acclimated to their routines, displaying a keen enthusiasm for their independence. Alongside honing their fine and gross motor skills, they eagerly engaged in learning activities encompassing colors, shapes, counting, the concept of opposites, and the Spanish language.

We spent the week revisiting their favorite songs and books, as they’d make requests for their favorites each day.

Ms. Lizette brought one of her favorite snacks to share with the class – dried seaweed! The children were eager to taste it. The majority could not get enough of the salty, thin, green, crunchy snack. Food tasting is a fun way to encourage the children to try new foods, in addition to enriching their vocabulary.  

We sincerely hope you enjoy the weekend. Stay warm and healthy! -Christine & Lizette