The Explorers Group

Greeting Parents,

We hope you had a good and fun week, we sure did!

We said goodbye to November and welcomed December! We are very excited to start Winter Camp; we hope to see you all please help us welcome a new friend that joined our group and the bigger LE community; we would like to say welcome Leul Tesfaye.

This week for small group

Music and Movement

Movement: our movement activity was inside the classroom; we put out colorful matters on the mat and let the children to run, roll, crawl, jump and climb up and down the mattress. They all got busy with the movement and they never get tired of exercising until the time was done!

Music: we have been singing the children’s favorite songs by letting them choose. The songs they chose were ‘Baa baa black sheep’, ‘The wheels on the bus’, ‘Miss Polly had a dolly’, ‘I like to move it’, ‘ freeze’ and ‘Ali Baba farm’. We are so happy to witness how the children are really interested in the music, they were following the music direction and moving everywhere with to the song!

Math; this week we had fun making patterns, the activity started with basic AB patters by using two colors Yellow and Red. Last week we talked about the concept of pattern. We explore what pattern is, and how we can create a pattern and also the different colors we can use.

Last week after introducing them to what pattern is, the children tried to create their own patterns like, AABBAABBAABBAA.

We began our second week activity about pattern by asking the children what their favorite colors are, we finally choose yellow and Red to make our AB pattern. This week the material we chose to make the pattern with was paper (Yellow and Red). Pattern helps children to develop there solving problem skills, to be critical thinkers and to make random prediction.

Language; last week we introduced our groups sound of letters using Zoo-Phonics. Zoo-Phonics is our way of teaching our LE students about sounds of letters and also identification of letters. It has different animals that have their own body actions, which helps the children to understand and recognize the sounds easily. It is a very fun way of introducing children to phonics.

We started our Zoo-Phonics journey using flashcards and song. We showed them each letter and the sound they make with the body movement. The first week went well as the children enjoyed the movement the animal makes and the new song.

The second week activity on Zoo-Phonics was super fun as the children recognized two of our famous letters, ‘Timothy Tiger’ and ‘Kyle kangaroo’ along with the action. The phonics information gets locked in the children brain quickly; we hope with in very short weeks, the youngest can easily master our Zoo-Phonics!

Science; Our science activity was exploring with Goop (Cornstarch powder), we put the powder in each tub and let them touch and explore with it for few minutes, after that we asked the children what would happen if we put water and food color inside.

The product was sort of like long rope. When they put the mixed cornstarch, it gets hard and when they pick them up it becomes very slimy. They squeeze it, stir it, roll it in their hand to see the cause and effect of the Goop!

For work time

Movement, Games and Building, Hospital, Sand box and Library

Next weeks plan

Monday – Yoga Poses

Tuesday – Math (Making Patterns with counting Bears)

Wednesday – Story Telling

Thursday – Language (Zoo phonics)

Friday – Science (Collage with leaf, grass and flowers)

Our specials

Thursday – Library

Friday - Art

Reminders

· Every Friday we have art so please send your children with art appropriate clothing.

· We would recommend you to send a hat and sunscreen for your child, as it gets sunny after snack.

· Every Thursday is our library day, so we will be sending the children with books from our library, which will be changed every week on Thursday.

Have a nice weekend!

Infants and Toddlers team