Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all of our families. This new year brings us all kinds of exciting new experiences and new friends. This month we’ll welcome Ellis, Gunner, and Andrew. Our friend Reese has graduated mid year to Miss Regi’s Toddler 1 class, but you still get to see a few really cute pictures of her here in this update.

If you’re lucky enough to check in on our web camera around 10:30-10:45, it’s certainly fun to watch! This is our circle time. It’s a great transition just before we have community lunch. It’s so wonderful to see and hear the babies singing along and doing the hand movements. Katherine loves to “dance.” (Of course, the non walking version of dancing. She just really loves when Ms. Shauna sings.)

Here’s a suggestion for home, please sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” It’s developmentally appropriate and great fun! We are working on parts of the body with the children but unfortunately it’s not wise for us to practice the song in cold and flu season.

We also like to work on concepts like inside and outside of the tent, cup or bowl. It may seem silly to be introducing prepositions to infants and toddlers but it’s all part of our language lessons. Studies show children who have blocks in their homes develop language skills more readily. (I will search for this article if anyone would like to read it.) The article went on to point out, when we play with blocks with our children we talk about colors and placement. We help them develop concepts of what it means to place one on top of another or which block is underneath another, not to mention blocks are wonderful for developing fine motor skills.

Ok I know why everyone looks at our updates so here are some really cute pictures from the past few weeks.