The time we all were waiting for finally arrived!  Our beautiful butterflies emerged, took time to strengthen their wings and enjoyed the well prepared environment your little ones created for them. Children enjoyed watching the butterflies walking around and using their long tongues to taste the fruits we provided for them. When the time came, we gathered together in the butterfly garden and opened the glass doors! We could almost sense the butterflies’ excitement as they felt the sun and the wind and immediately started to flap their wings. One of them flew high as soon we opened the doors, while the other four seemed a little more shy. I grabbed a little stick and offered it to them. After a couple of seconds the butterflies decided to fly, bringing smiles and laughter to your children while fulfilling their purpose as butterflies.

This activity always brings so many emotions for us as guides! In just a couple of weeks our school year will be over and as we reflect on the butterflies flying away, we realize that as with those tiny caterpillars,  we have observed and enjoyed every change in the lives of your children during this year! They have grown so much! It has brought so much joy to our lives just to step back and observe how independent, confident, and capable your children have become.  Like the butterflies brought so much joy to your children, your little ones have brought so much joy to us and we are so incredibly thankful to you for trusting us with them. Soon it will be time to open the “glass doors” and watch them fly and we are so sure each one of them is going to spread their wings and fly high!

On another note, we started our studies on birds this week and children have had a great time taking some time to listen to the birds outside and learning to recognize them by name. Cardinal, blue jay, robin, woodpecker, oriole, indigo bunting, warbler, house sparrow and goldfinch are some of the names you will hear often in our environment. Children got to observe, feel and smell the type of food birds eat and also learn some names like sunflowers seeds, millet, corn and wheat. They also helped to prepare our bird feeder.

This week some of our older toddlers got to visit a primary classroom and worked with some of the kindergartners and teachers. We explored cherries for food tasting, celebrated a  fantastic three year old birthday and got a fresh new member in our FWM community! Big congratulations to the Mica family on their new precious addition!

We hope you all enjoy the weather this weekend,

Stay cool and see you next week,

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria

Reminder: As the weather is getting warmer, please remember to apply sunscreen to your child before school arrival.

As the waiting for the butterflies to emerge continued this week, we learned about the life cycle of another fascinating insect: the ant! Eggs, larva, pupa and ant were some of the names they learned this week and children repeated over and over. We also introduced the anatomy of an insect using different giant insect models. Children learned that all insects have a head, a thorax and abdomen. They all have six legs and antennas which help them to feel and smell the world around them. They also learned that most insects have wings. To reinforce this lesson we learned the song: “Head, Thorax, Abdomen,” sung to the tune of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” song.

Here are the lyrics:

Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen

Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen

Eyes, antennas, wings, 6 legs

Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen

Children also learned that spiders are not considered an insect, however they are a nice animal to observe. Happily we had some live insects visiting our classroom throughout the week and children really took the time to make sure they had all the body parts we learned this week.

By the end of the week children got the opportunity to observe two butterflies emerging from their chrysalises, stretching their wings and walking around the environment the children prepared for them.

For food tasting we explored a pretty cool vegetable that wasn’t in our rotation list, but since one of our families grew it in their garden, we had the opportunity to taste it: rhubarb. A big shout out to Ms. Eli for sharing such an interesting plant and cooking for us some rhubarb to taste. Even though it seems children were not absolutely in love with it, they tasted it and enjoyed some of its tart/sour/sweet flavor. This was my first time exploring this vegetable so I truly felt like one of the toddlers exploring this food. I gave it a thumbs up… not sure how many of the toddlers will agree with me. The good thing was that nobody spit it out so I think it passed the test.

Some of the favorite books this week were: The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle, Backyard Bugs by Jill McDonald and of course, Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi.

We hope you have a great weekend and please remember to take some time to jump in the puddles with your little ones.

Mrs. Hood and Mrs. Maria

Your children continue to observe patiently how our very hungry caterpillars fulfill  their metamorphosis process and become beautiful painted lady butterflies! They have already witnessed how these tiny caterpillars have grown, climbed up, positioned themselves upside down and how quickly they had made their chrysalis.

At some moments the children seem to despair a bit because the butterflies are not coming out so this has been a great opportunity to talk and reflect about the importance of waiting and being patient. The children have helped to collect nature items to decorate our glass house and prepare the environment for when the butterflies emerge. We might come back on Monday to find butterflies out of their chrysalis but we are having our fingers crossed for them to wait and give the VIP show to the children next week. Regardless of what happens, we can’t wait for next week!

To reinforce this special life cycle lesson, the children have learned a new song and since it has been so LOVED by your children, we want to share it with you at the end of this note, so you can rock it at home and watch your children dance to it. We hope you enjoy watching them dance to this song as much as we do everyday!

Another highlight of this week has been the introduction to a Pikler triangle into our movement area. Children have been thrilled to explore it and challenge themselves in it. Using this equipment enhances gross motor development, Increases spatial awareness, provides vestibular stimulation, strengthens limbs, promotes proprioceptive learning (physical self-awareness) and enables open-ended play. A Big shout out to Mrs. Wilson in our toddler team for sharing this equipment with our class!

For food tasting children explored crunchy cucumbers and had a good time sharing about the purple item they brought from home. We absolutely love to witness the explosion of vocabulary that your children are experiencing lately! It has been so fun to hear them express themselves much more clearly!

Lastly, Mrs. Maria and I want to thank you for the love shown through this teacher’s appreciation week.  Your children’s cards are treasures to us and we value every expression of love coming from you all!  We feel so honored knowing each of your toddlers and working together with you to create the most beautiful experience for each of your children.

Enjoy the pics,

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria

 

This week we started exploring colors and discovering how mixing colors together creates new ones! We did the walking water experiment and we watched and observed the different changes in it during the week.  Children got to see the magic happening right in front of their eyes: We made a rainbow!

This reminded me of the importance of community! We for sure can shine by ourselves but the beauty and the brightness is stronger when we can rely on each other. A very strong sense of purpose and belonging is critical for all of us as humans.

In our toddler environment, it is evident how children already feel like a family. It’s common to hear parents to tell us each morning how excited their child is to come to school and we couldn’t be happier to know this! Your children are more than students to us! We belong together and we like it so much!

In the next couple of days and weeks there will be a couple of events that serve to strengthen our FWM community, and the toddlers, of course, are so excited to be part of it. We hope you can join us too!

This coming Sunday, May 1st,  is our FWM Auction and the toddlers worked on creating an artistic piece to participate in it. A couple of months ago I found this little cute bench and I brought it into our environment and since that day, children LOVE  rocking and reading their books on it. So, we decided to donate it for the auction and children worked this week on painting it in a very fun way! We can’t wait for you to see it this Sunday! We hope one family can really enjoy this little bench that comes with a lot of love from our toddler class!

We want to thank Kate and Patricia, who volunteered their time to come and work with the children for this project! We appreciate you SO much!

The children also worked this week with Mrs. Reid, our school art teacher for our upcoming School Art show. From May 9th through May 20th, Parents can come inside the building and view the art work from every child in the school, between the hours of 9am-2:30pm.

There are more events on the horizon for all of us to get connected, but for now we are going to leave you here with these two. We hope you also can participate and help us create a beautiful “rainbow”.

Enjoy the weekend,

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria

P.S. Your children love kumquats and we love to see their faces testing them! Yum! 🙂