Who are John, Paul, George and Ben?

Happy Friday! Another short week has come and gone! Let's hope this is our last short week until April break! 

We bagan the week with our belated valentine's celebrations.  The children have been painting hearts with pink, red and purple paint, using valentine stampers to make valentine's for their friends and teachers and finished up their valentine's cards for their classroom friends.  The card exchange and celebrations took place on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week with an extra special red-themed snack.  The children enjoyed strawberries and red grapes along with yogurt on Tuesday and valentine shaped pretzels on Wednesday.  

Before the cards were exchanged, I got a quick chance to read some of the messages the children wrote to their friends.  Each child was prompted to finish the sentence, "______ is a good friend because..." and some of the responses were priceless! One of our pre-k girls wrote to a little boy, "because he is so cute and I love coming to school to play with him." Adorable! And a few others included, "because you're the best" and "because he plays in the block area with me!"  At school, valentine's day was all about friendship and learning how we can all be a good friend to everyone.

As Chinese New Year continues, we thought it would be fun to learn more about the monkey as it is also the year of the monkey.  We began our monkey studies with the question, "How is a monkey similar to a human?" and believe it or not, the children's answers were very accurate.  Some of the children answered, "because they stand up and walk like a person (this is true for gorillas)," "they have thumbs like us" and "their brains are smart."  Way to go preschoolers! 

The children were also introduced to the new vocabulary words primate, backbone and a word we are all familiar with, adapt.  The teachers love to incorporate words from previous lesson plans to show children how the same word can be generalized to other topics.  Monkeys also adapt to their surrounds!  Do you know about the Japanese monkeys called macaques (pronounced muh-KAKS)?  They are also called snow monkeys and they live in the mountains of Japan.  In the mountains, it is very cold and the ground is often covered in snow.  The macaques find warmth in hot mountain springs that are almost jacuzzi-like from the heat inside of the earth  bubbling up to the ponds, heating the water. 

Lastly, school was closed on Monday in observance of President's Day.  Ms. Heather read a story about the founders of America.  Before she read the book, she asked the children, "Does anyone know who John (Adams), Paul (Revere), George (Washington) and Ben (Franklin) are?"  And one of our pre-kers proudly shouted, "THE BEETLES!"  We can't make this stuff up!

Important Dates and Reminders:

February 27: Monthly Gathering at Celebration Kingdom - check your Evite for more info!
March 1: March Tuiton Due
April 1: April Tuition Due
April 18-22: SEE closed for Spring Break
May 11-12: Picture Day! More info to come in a few weeks

Some pictures from this week:

Practicing sewing skills!

Painting with feathers

Everyone loves finger painting!

Have a great weekend!
Joanna