January 2023
Honeybee
Hello Honeybee Families!
We are so happy to have rung in the new year with all these happy and healthy babies! How is everyone’s 2023 starting? As we welcome this new year, we’d also like to welcome Ms. Susan and Ms. Maria back into our classroom! Ms. Susan, along with her children Benjamin and Hannah, have been long-standing members of our Creō community for over 5 years. We are so lucky to have her join our Honeybee family as our new Lead Teacher! Additionally, Ms. Maria has returned from her maternity leave with her baby boy, Esteban!
In this new month, our classroom has shown lots of interest in music! Currently, our two most popular instruments are a ukulele and a tambourine. As we sing and dance throughout the day, the babies love to dance. Dance is a great way for babies to explore different movements and ways of communicating. Have you noticed any extra singing and dancing at home? This could be your child’s way of showing interest in music! The babies are able to strum the strings of the ukulele and shake the tambourine, a great way for them to develop fine motor skills.
As always, we’re anticipating all the growth that will come to our Honeybee family in February. We look forward to the warmer weather for us to explore! We have a Community Meeting in February so be on the look out for the informational email! If you have any questions or comments, please contact Susan@creoschool.org or Nido@creoschool.org
With all our love,
Honeybee Team 🫶
Butterfly
“The more the capacity of concentration is developed, the more often the profound tranquility in work is achieved, then the clearer will be the manifestation of discipline within the child”- Dr. Maria Montessori
The development of concentration in a toddler or infant can, often, be overlooked. Though their attention span is small, they are retaining information from everything they see and are making neuronal connections from that small window of concentration. For those who joined us in our Montessori Journey this past weekend, they saw the diverse levels of concentration required through each material and each level. Every material has several steps, from beginning to end, that the children learn to master as their concentration grows as they grow. The development of concentration is sacred, and we avoid interruption to a child that is focused on what he/she are working on. The children can explore the classroom of the available activities. Everything within the environment is at their disposal to explore and in those materials are where they will gain interests and develop concentration for those interests. Without interest, there is no concentration. I hope that in our Community meeting next month, February 8th, you can join us and share experiences of observing your child gain concentration in the interests they show at home and how you help expand that concentration by trying to make the material more challenging for them!
Our most popular activity of the month continues to be baking, Here is an easy recipe for baking cheese biscuits.
3/4 cup of flour
1/2 tablespoon of baking powder
Pinch of salt
2/3 cup heavy cream
¼ c finely grated cheddar cheese
Stir in whipping cream and cheddar cheese and mix until dough forms
- Create drops of dough onto baking sheet
- Bake 14 minutes at 400º degrees
Warmly,
Ms. Rebeca & Ms. Yohanna
Hummingbird
Welcome back Hummingbird families!
We hope you had a wonderful holiday. The children came to school ready to work. We are excited to welcome two new friends into the Hummingbird family, welcome Audrey and Waylon!
The classroom has been having a humming sound as the children are busy at work, going from activity to activity. The language activity the children seemed to enjoy working with was the pet replicas, which included replicas of a pet dog, cat, hamster, turtle, goldfish, and rabbit.
This month, the children seemed to enjoy singing the classic Spanish songs “Los pollitos dicen” and “Pin Pon”. We have been reading “De la cabeza a los pies” and “El artista que pinto un caballo azul” by Eric Carle. Some of our older toddlers have seemed to pick up the words and they sing/read along with us! Below you can find the Spanish song cards.
Warmly,
Ms. Kat and Ms. Shelby
Squirrel
Hola familias de Squirrels!
It was such a wonderful experience to be able to open our doors to the parents who came to The Silent Journey! Thank you for making it possible and getting a glimpse of your child’s work cycle. For those who missed it, there is always next year!!
This month we were busy making cheddar cream biscuits and egg salad! Peeling eggs is such challenging work for toddlers, especially with that fragile shell that if you pick it too much, a chunk of egg comes off too. It was so peaceful seeing the children delicately peel the eggs and then using the slicer to cut them, as they got so immersed in the task. Some were fans of egg salad with toast, others just wanted plain toast but still wanted to have a chance at peeling eggs.
Another new material the children loved this month was the language basket. This was inspired by you, what you have in your pockets/purse that we all know the children want to have a look at. This basket contained a set of keys, a card, a wallet, a laminated dollar bill, and a phone with a taped copy of the screen display. They enjoyed feeling they had a phone to talk with, just as they see everyone around them. I wish I could have shared the times a child pretended to call someone! Too cute!!
Just a friendly reminder to please label all belongings as we have been seeing multiple similar items of clothing that multiple friends have! Thank you for all your trust and support, keep an eye out for our next community meeting, and if you have suggestions on the topics you would love more information on, please reach out!
💜Ms. Nadia and Ms. Alexis
