October 2023
Honeybee
Autumn is finally here!
Cooler weather is dawning upon us, and we are loving every moment of it! The crisp mornings and the cool evenings are invitations for us to bring out our cozy sweaters and blankets. The seasons are changing and so are our honeybee babies!
Here at Creō, we have built up a strong sense of community. One of the core values that allows us to celebrate our community is the language that we share among ourselves. Luckily, our prepared environments give us the ability to develop our language skills! With this comes their confidence in self-expression and communication.
One way that we can encourage language development is by introducing a secondary language in the classroom. We communicate with the students in both Spanish and English. Some common phrases/words we hear in the classroom include:
Water – agua
Diaper – pañal
Milk – leche
It ‘s time to sleep. – Es hora de dormir.
Are you hungry?/Do you want to eat? - ¿Tienes hambre?/¿Quieres comer?
Do you want to go outside? - ¿Quieres ir afuera?
The teachers in the classroom engage with the students through developmentally appropriate language. We carefully approach every interaction with intentional language to ensure that these skills are being nurtured. For example, narrating your actions or labeling commonly used items are simple ways to include your child in whichever activity you’re doing together, while also expanding their vocabulary.
Here are some events that we are looking forward to!
November 8 – Nido/Toddler Social @ 5:30 PM
November 10 – Half day @ 11:45 AM, All/All in session
November 22-25 – School closed, Thanksgiving Break
December 15 – Half day @ 11:45 AM for all students
As always, Honeybee familia, please never hesitate to contact our team at Susan@creoschool.org or Nido@creoschool.org. Thank you for being a part of our wonderful community!
With love,
Ms. Susan, Ms. Maria, & Ms. Roseanna
Butterfly
Feliz Octubre!
I’m so happy to be back in the classroom full of familiar but also new faces this semester. Thank you for your patience in receiving Transparent classroom or email updates. I will get to you as soon as I can, If I haven’t already.
Getting back into routine is difficult as an adult and I think as adults we only feel an ounce of what a toddler must experience when getting back into an old routine; It’s like starting over! It must be so exhausting for them. Now that I am back in the class, some children had some trouble remembering me or missed having Ms. Bri around. Slowly they have come to rekindle their trust with me and I cherish it, wholeheartedly. Others are still taking the time to remember me and that is okay. We can’t rush or force feelings.
This month we have been working on sense of order by putting materials back on shelves as well as taking dirty/wet cloths to the laundry basket after they are finished being used. Often times, after using a towel, a child will want to take the wet towel back with to the shelf where the dry towels are and we recognize the wet towel, “Oh, you dried the table and now the towel is wet. Let’s take it to the laundry basket.” This falls under their sense of order and quickly remember the distinction between the wet and dry towels. They will realize that everything has a designated space in the classroom. This order helps build self-esteem, care of the environment, and care of self.
Along with following their sense of order, we are helping some children to keep their hands to their self. We’ve noticed when children get excited, they want to run around and push others out of the way. We are very understanding that at this stage, toddlers are still learning to control their body and emotions and we talk through these emotions but we do have to set a firm limit on pushing and hitting. We address the situation immediately and practice walking with them around the classroom or talk about the excitement they may be feeling and tell them to walk around others or say “excuse me” if they find someone in their way. If you se this at home, even pushing around the family dog, remind them to pet them with love or to walk around them if they are in the way of their running path.
Our conferences got pushed back a couple of weeks so I had some time to get more observations on children’s progress but the link has been sent out. If you did not receive a link it may be because your child recently started up in our class so they are continuing to explore their new environment and it takes, on average, 6 weeks for a child to acclimate. If you’d like to schedule a conference some time after that, please contact the office to get that scheduled.
Thank you for all your support and patience in aiding your child’s development.
Hummingbird
Dear Hummingbird Family,
This month, we welcomed another new friend into our class! Since we’ve had so many new friends join us in the last few months, we have been focusing on grace and courtesy. For toddlers grace and courtesy is more about how to belong to the community. They practice this by imitating the behavior they observe. Our older children have the opportunity to practice using their “words” while our younger friends learn about our culture in the classroom.
The adults in the classroom help the children by providing examples of how to communicate their needs to their friends and teachers. We model and use positive language. Some phrases may include the following:
The child waves their hand in front of another friend's face. We say, “he/she is saying hi”. “You can wave like this” the adult shows how we wave.
A friend may take another friend’s work. The adult shows the child how to watch a friend working with an activity. We say, “it seems like your friend is using that right now, but we can watch with our hands by our sides”. We model how to watch someone working and stay with the child.
We model how to walk around the classroom carefully and around our friend's work rugs. When the children walk on their friend's work, we simply say, “Let’s walk around our friend's work please.”
When the children get loud, we use soft voices to remind them that our friends are working so they may please use their soft voices. We tell them that they can use a loud voice when we go outside to play.
The child may grunt and point at the water cups. We say, “Would you like some water?” We pause and wait for the child to respond. Then we say, “Yes, water please.”
Depending on the language development of the child we may add more words or simplify the phrases.
We hope these tips can help you and your child communicate more at home or while going out. The children are constantly listening to everything that is around them. It is important to involve them in our community in any way possible, which can provide opportunities for them to feel that they belong. We will be having a “Gratitude Potluck” for our Toddler social on November 8th at 5:30 PM. Please feel free to bring a dish that your family would like to share with the toddler community. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Warmly,
Ms. Kat and Ms. Claudia
Squirrel
Hola Squirrel Familias!
We have had a wonderful October in the Squirrel environment! We welcome new friends and Ms. Bri who the children have known, is now officially part of our community! The children have had lots of fun doing Spanish language cards with Ms. Bri.
One of our favorite Spanish songs we have been singing all month is:
Mi carita redondita, (My round face)
tiene ojos y nariz, (has eyes and a nose)
también tiene una boquita (and it also has a mouth)
para llorar y reir. (to cry and laugh)
Con mis ojos veo todo (With my eyes I see everything)
y con mi nariz hago ¡achoo! (and with my nose I go achoo)
y con mi boca como ricos heladitos de maní (and with my mouth I eat delicious peanut ice cream).
We have focused this month on feelings, we have read books about feelings and ask how they are feeling today. When a child gets hurt or is sad, we emphasize with the other children to ask why they are crying and/or what they think will make them feel better. We model empathy so the children can begin to understand others have feelings too. At this age they are egocentric and do believe the world revolves around them, so part of our day is to show them others have feelings and thoughts too. It is so cute to see them initiate caring for one another and comfort each other. 💗
Thank you all for being available to meet with me during our conferences. It was so lovely to talk about your child’s growth in the classroom! We have a Toddler social coming up in November hope to see you then!
🖤Ms. Nadia & Ms. Bri
