March 1-5

 

We began our week with a meditation break.  Children of all ages, adults too, really need an opportunity to take a few minutes to "unplug", relax and focus.  Meditation offers this break!  Ms. Webb led the class in some guided breathing to start our day.  As you can see, the children really enjoy this.  A good way that you can practice meditation is during your child's bedtime routine.  A few minutes of deep breathing in a child's bedtime routine can help them to wind down after a long day.  This practice will make taking a break easier to do when other situations arise.  

Lunch/Snack Reminders:

-Please make sure your child has 2 napkins every day.  One is used as a place mat and the other is used to wipe their face and hands.

-Please include the necessary utensils for your child's lunch.  We do not have access to plastic utensils.

-NO PEANUT OR TREE NUT PRODUCTS.  The entire Early Childhood division is nut free.

-Please fill your child's water bottle prior to coming to school.  We will re-fill if necessary.

Manners are a way of showing kindness to other people. We have been working on table manners this week.  

Good manners begin before we sit at the table!

HAND WASHING

The children know that it is important to wash their hands before every snack or meal. To reinforce this behavior at home, make sure your child sees you washing your own hands. Or, have them join you in hand washing prior to sitting at the table. 

PRAYERS

At school. we say prayers before we eat lunch and snack.  The children know that this is a time of quiet and we will be able to eat and talk as soon as the prayer is done.  To reinforce this behavior at home, ask your child to lead the meal time prayer.  

The prayer we say at school is:

God is great

God is good

Let us thank him

for our food and friends

Amen

AT THE TABLE

There are lots of teachable moments at the dinner/lunch table!  By three, children should be eating with utensils. Sometimes they get confused which foods can be picked up (chicken nugget) and which food requires a spoon/fork (rice), don't assume he/she should know better, gently correct the mistake.  

Three is a good age to teach the use of a napkin instead of a sleeve or shirt as by now, she/he should not be wearing a bib and be able to wipe her/his hands and face.  

At school, children must sit in their chair until everyone is done eating.  At home, this can be reinforced by having your child sit at the dinner table for a few minutes after they have completed their meal.  Show your child how to bring his/her plate to the sink or counter.  

POOR TABLE BEHAVIOR

Some behaviors just should not happen at the table.  If your child should burp or pass gas at the table, remind them that it is important to say "excuse me".  Remind your child to chew with their mouth closed.  This is a learned behavior that can be corrected with a few reminders.  

Teaching your child to use a fork and spoon correctly may prevent them from playing with their food; or playing around all together.  If your child is misbehaving at the table, give them one opportunity to stop the behavior with a warning, if it happens again, remove them.  

Family dinner times or lunch time gathering with friends is a perfect time to practice manners beyond "please" and "thank you".  It is also a great time for adults to model the behavior they would like to see in their child.

The most important thing in teaching children manners is that it is OK if mistakes are made.  Learning and showing manners is something we all do over our lifetime. 

 

PLEASE WEAR SNEAKERS EVERYDAY! Children will not be permitted to play in PE or on the playground equipment without sneakers.

Reminders:

• Summer camp registration is open! You can find more information on our website https://www.holychildacademy.com/page.cfm?p=533.

• March 17 will be a St. Patrick’s Day dress down day - be sure to wear your green!

• Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held on March 25-26. More information will follow next week.

• Spring/Easter break is from March 26 through April 5. Classes will resume on Tuesday, April 6.

• Spirit Week will kick off on March 19 and will continue into the next week. Stay tuned for more information!

• March is Women’s History Month when we will be celebrating women in history.  If you or someone you know would be willing to share with a class, a division, or multiple groups to enhance our celebration in any way, please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com, and we will make it as easy as possible. 

• Looking forward, April is Arab American Heritage Month and May is Asian and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. If you have ideas or suggestions for our celebrations for those months, please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com. 

February 22- 26

We began the Lenten season by receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday.  We talked about how the ashes let others know that we love God and he loves us.

I was so happy to  have been the one to place the ashes on the children's foreheads.

We have been practicing tracing and writing our names.

We have also been practicing our pencil control and grip.  Holding a writing utensil correctly requires strong finger and hand muscles and dexterity.  The correct grip helps to allow the child control with efficient finger movements. 

Correct pencil grip

Activities that strengthen pincer muscles.

• play dough
• transferring beans or rice from bowl to bowl using fingers or spoon
• Knobbed puzzles
• lacing cards
• button sorting 
• pushing pom poms into a water bottle
• transferring with tongs
• coloring
• painting
• using scissors

Reminders:

• Summer camp registration is open! You can find more information on our website https://www.holychildacademy.com/page.cfm?p=533.

• March is Women’s History Month when we will be celebrating women in history.  If you or someone you know would be willing to share with a class, a division, or multiple groups to enhance our celebration in any way, please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com, and we will make it as easy as possible. 

• Looking forward, April is Arab American Heritage Month and May is Asian and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. If you have ideas or suggestions for our celebrations for those months, please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com. 

Have a great weekend!

February 8-12

Valentine Pattern Match

Matching is an important pre- reading skill.  Matching activities improve language, concentration and memory. Children use matching skills to tell whether two words or letters are the same or different.  Learning and mastering the ability to match shapes and patterns helps children as they learn to recognize letters and words.

Valentine Math - One to One Correspondence

One-to-one correspondence is an early learning math skill that involves the act of counting each object in a set once, and only once with one touch per object/picture. Three years old children are often able to rote count.  Rote counting is just reciting the numeral names in order, "one, two, three, four...." and very different from counting with one-to-one.  Counting with one-to-one involves touching each object/picture and saying the numeral; name aloud, which is a much more complex skill for young children.  In the photos below, we are matching dots to the numeral to make a complete heart.

Reminders:

- There is no school on Friday, February 12th and Monday, February 15th.

-Pre-K and Kindergarten are hosting a sock drive to benefit The Joy of Sox.  Please send in NEW socks for men, women and children and The Joy of Sox will donate them to families experiencing homelessness.  The drive will run until February 19th.

-Enrollment contracts for the 2021-2022 academic year are due on Friday, February 26th. 

Enjoy the long weekend!

February 1-5

Since St. Valentine's Day falls on a Sunday this year, and is part of a long holiday weekend, we'll observe the day on THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2021.  Your children are welcome to celebrate by: Wearing red or pink clothing and sharing Valentines cards with friends.  Please refrain from sending in food products or candy.  We look forward to celebrating a day of friendship!💖💖

Dmitri

Derek

AJ

Gavin

Max

Amelia

Otis

Vienna

Teigen

Mahalia

Connor

Johnny 

What kids need more of......

unstructured play

sunlight

nature

hugs

freedom to explore

play time with parents 

laughter 

simplicity

belief in their goodness

daily routine

a calm environment

compassion

a shoulder to cry on

expressed gratitude for who they are  

We began our celebration of Black History Month with a dance party!

We danced to "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing" by Ella Fitzgerald, "Ain't no mountain high enough' by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, "ABC" by the Jackson Five, "Motown Philly" by Boys II Men, and "Rappers Delight" by the Sugarhill gang (clean version).  We had such a great time!  You can enjoy some of our dance moves in the videos below.💃💃💃💃💃💃💃💃

Have a great weekend!

REMINDERS 

• Student Council is selling Candy Grams - $1.00 per candy gram; deadline to purchase is Wednesday, February 10th.  Delivery date is Thursday February 11th.

• Thursday, February 11th will be a dress down day and students may wear red/pink for Valentine’s Day. Students may bring in valentines for their classmates, but please refrain from sending in any food treats per the email from Mrs. Fox-Tully’s email.

• There is no school on Friday, February 12th and Monday, February 15th.

• Enrollment contracts for the 2021-2022 academic year are due on Friday, February 26th.

• February is Black History Month when we will be celebrating Black history and culture. If you or someone you know would be willing to share with a class, a division , or multiple groups to enhance our celebration in any way, please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com and we will make it as easy as possible. 

• Looking forward, March is Women’s Month, April is Arab American Heritage Month, and May is Asian and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. 

• Pre-K and Kindergarten are hosting a sock drive to benefit The Joy of Sox. Please send in NEW socks for men, women, and children and place them in the boxes in your hallway. The drive will run until February 19. 

January 25 - 29

 

This week we have been talking about kindness and things that make us feel good. 

Things the class said:

Mrs. Devenney & Ms. Webb - the bulletin board pictured above! 

Amelia - sleeping in my bed with my kitties

Otis - playing with my friends

Johnny - playing with my dolls

Gavin - playing with my toys

Hali - playing with my puppy

Vienna - playing games with Gianna and Michael

AJ- playing outside

Dmitri- playing with my Mom & Dad

Connor - playing with Mommy, Daddy, my sister and my doggy

Max - reading books with my Mommy

Derek - going to Aunt Jamie's

Teigen - playing with my Mommy & Daddy

  Our picture day was a huge success!!!

Otis is working with the Insta Learn Board matching the letters of the alphabet.

Amelia is working on identifying initial sounds.

Hali is using snowmen and counters to identify quantities for 0-5.

Dmitri is working on identifying quantities up to 10.

               Connor is using snowmen and counters to identify quantities for 0-5.

Connor is also working with the knobless cylinders.

Johnny is working on identifying words with the beginning sounds S, M, A and T.

Derek is working on identifying the beginning sounds B, F, O and G.

Otis has mastered this Insta Learn Board!!!

 are due by February 5th!

REMINDERS:

• EC report cards will be emailed home next week. There are no mandatory conferences at this time, but please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

• Student Council is selling Candy Grams! The cost is $1.00 per candy gram and the deadline to purchase is Wednesday, February 10th.  Delivery date is Thursday February 11th. Please see the email from Mrs. Richards for more information.

• There is no school on Friday, February 12th (faculty inservice) and Monday, February 15th (Presidents’ Day).

• Enrollment contracts for the 2021-2022 academic year are due on Friday, February 26th.

• February is Black History Month when we will be celebrating Black history and culture. If you or someone you know would be willing to share with a class, a division, or multiple groups to enhance our celebration in any way, please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com and we will make it as easy as possible. Looking ahead: March is Women’s Month, April is Arab American Heritage Month, and May is Asian and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

January 19 - 22

 Our community celebrated the birthday of Corneila Connelly.  We had a birthday party where we sang and received a special gift.  We continue to remember Corneila's words, "actions not words".

We loved using our special Corneila legos!

We celebrated another very special birthday on Tuesday - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

It was the Lower School's turn to be in the MPR so we celebrated from our classroom on ZOOM.

We learned and talked about how we can make the world a better place like Dr. King. 

Some thoughts:

Wear our masks to protect others.

Hug someone when they are sad.

Love each other.

Try new things - like food.

Play with everyone!

Thank you to Dmitri and family for giving our classroom this very special book!  All Are Welcome reminds us that HCA is a school where children have a space, a place, and are loved and appreciated just like the school in the book.

As a school community, we worked on a project to honor Dr. King, each class colored a section and picked meaningful words to write onto it.

Here is the finished project.

Our letter of the week is Bb.

In science we made our own Bubbles!!!

We used baking soda, food coloring and vinegar to make our bubbles.

The children were quite excited to see the bubbles created by the chemical reaction.

Play dough is an open ended toy that provides endless opportunity of play.  Play dough provides many benefits and I wanted to share one, fine motor.  Fine motor skills refer to the ability of using our hands and fingers skillfully.  These skills are used while writing, eating, playing with toys, and dressing to name a few.  Our hand muscles are strengthened through the resistance provided when your child manipulates play dough. A child strengthens their hand muscles when they squeeze, roll, poke, squish, flatten, pull apart, or use cookie cutters when using play dough. 

We used play dough to make the letter Bb!

A great way to practice letters and their sounds is having your child find things that begin with a certain letter in their environment.  We had a Bb seek and find where we identified pictures of objects that begin with the letter Bb and circled them.  

Have a great weekend!

• Save the date: January 27th - School Picture day (Individual photos only) -Please refer to Mrs. Richards' email for more information.

• February is Black history Month, and March is Women’s Month. Please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com if you have any ideas. 

• EC report cards will be sent home the week of February 1, 2021. 

• Look forward, There is no school on Friday, February 12 and Monday, February 16.

Happy New Year!

Welcome back!  I hope that everyone enjoyed their holidays:-)  

💚 I want to thank everyone again for your kindness and generosity.  💚

 

As we begin the second half of the school year, we will continue to practice skills that we have learned as well as develop new skills that will enable the children to be successful in Pre-K. Some of the skills we will focus on include:

• Following group directions

• Understanding and following more than one step directions

• Asking and answering questions and sharing in conversations with adults and peers 

• Using pronouns correctly (i.e.: I, we, his/hers, he/she, etc.)

• Sustaining attention to a task

• Caring for physical needs

• Working/playing independently

Fostering the children’s independence will be a key focus. They are growing and developing daily and are preparing to enter the world of Pre-K where they will be expected to complete routine tasks completely on their own. We will continue to work on mastering these skills every day. Below are some ways that you can foster independence at home.

• Set Predictable Routines
• Routine helps children to know what comes nest. Do not confuse routine with a schedule.
• A routine is any series of events that occur throughout a child's day. (ie brushing teeth. It a routine with multiple steps)
• Allowing your child to help prep these routines will encourage and allow them to take ownership over time.
• example: let them put the toothpaste on the toothbrush or have them back their own snack
• Let Your Child Choose
• allow them to choose what to wear, what to eat, who to call, what to play
• this DOES NOT mean they have full reign. Give three choices and allow them to pick.
• Praise the choice.
• Let Your Child Help
• Kids love to help! Giving a child an opportunity to help you fosters their confidence.
• example: let your child help you cook. Allow them to mix, pour or help throw away the garbage.
• These opportunities also allow for a back and forth conversation while achieving a goal.
• Chores
• Yes, they can have chores! These will look different than chores given to older children.
• Giving chores is a way to build a sense of responsibility and self- reliance, develops executive function and teaches teamwork.
• example: putting clothes in the laundry basket, cleaning up toys, unpacking a schoolbag at the end of the day, clearing plate after dinner.
• Let Your Child Problem Solve
• Allow your child to try things that are hard and solve (small) problems.
• Present challenges that are difficult but within the realm of their ability.
• Offer helpful hints along the way.
• Encourage an attempt before asking for help
• Nurture Free Play
• Independent and unstructured play is important for creativity, problem solving and autonomy.
• Allow them a variety of toys for building and creativity.

As a parent, I know that sometimes it is just easier to do it yourself however, I encourage you to allow your child the opportunities to try and be successful.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Reminders:

-There is no school on Monday, January 18th for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  

-Save the date: January 27th - School Picture day (Individual photos only)

-January in Native Month where we celebrate Native People’s history and culture.  If you or someone you know would be willing to share with a class, a division, or multiple groups either in person, via zoom, or through a pre recorded clip, please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com , and we will make it as easy as possible. 

-Looking forward, February is Black history Month, and March is Women’s Month. Please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com if you have any ideas.

-EC report cards will be sent home the week of February 1, 2021.