Announcing Summer Camptastic 2011

By A Child's Academy

Summer Camp is now enrolling. Click here for more information about Camptastic. The theme for this years Summer Camp is "Around the World in 80 Days". It will be for AGES 5-12 and will be an action packed and adventure filled ride! (Currently enrolled students will already participate in Camptastic)

If you have friends or family that would like to participate you can earn up to 30% off of new enrollments for Summer Camp. Please see Jackie for details.

Fundraiser Success! Pennies for Patients

By A Child's Academy

Everyone turn around and pat yourself on the your back and give your classmates a big high five! A Child's Academy supported Leukemia patients by holding a fundraiser for Pennies for Patients during the month of February and our families and teachers raised $1,229.65! Whoo Hoo! We are so proud.

Every class participated in raising money for Leukemia patients. It became a full blown contest to see which class could raise the most money. What an incredible success!

Ms Vickie's Spectacular Spiders, led the way with $264.53 to win the "I scream, You scream, We all scream for ICE CREAM" Sundae party. Go Spiders!

With every class making such great contributions during this fundraiser, Ms Pat and Ms Jackie decided that every class should get ice cream cups! That was a big hit!

Roli Polies (Infants)

By Ms June, Ms Nell, Ms Diana & Ms Karen

Spring has finally arrived and with it, the opportunity to explore our outdoor environment.

Offering children a variety of textures, tastes and temperatures through natural materials helps them to gain a better understanding of the world around them.

Our constant communication with children: singing songs and finger plays, using simple sign language, and peer interactions help to develop your child's understanding of communication. (See the sidebar for our recommended at home learning tool for this)

Young children have the ability to communicate and understand language long before they speak their first words.

Infants use their voices, eyes, facial expressions, and bodies to express themselves and engage others.

Young children grow and develop so fast and we, parents and teachers, help provide them with the tools necessary to do so.

Busy Bees (Toddlers)

By Ms Monica, Ms Gail, Ms Samantha & Ms Jeanette

Welcome Spring! The children are very excited about the beautiful weather we have been having lately. With the new sights and smells, a whole new range of learning has developed.

The first week of April we will be introducing Spring. We will explore our outdoor environment and all things natural. In Art, one of our activities will be collecting natural items and making a collage (Remember to save some Refrigerator space for the artwork!).

The second week, we will continue learning about Spring with an emphasis on Spring colors. We will experiment with mixing the primary colors to see what will happen.

Next, we will get ready for our Easter party on the 22nd. Please send in a clean, empty milk jug for our Easter baskets. We will also be coloring Easter Eggs and participating in an Easter Egg Hunt. In addition, we will discuss the true meaning of Easter.

Finally, we will finish up April with a unit on farm and farm animals. Some of the activities we have planned are learning the animal sounds and matching animal babies with their mamas. We will also have a dress-up day, so get out your overalls and join in the fun!

Itsy Bitsy Spiders (Twos)

By Ms Ana & Ms Jenna

We have a fun filled month planned for our class. We will be learning about Spring and all it has to offer including planting flowers. Each child we care for their flower each day. We look forward to watching them grow and bloom. (Don't forget to ask to see their flower, they love to brag about them and show them off!)

Also during April, we will learn about creep crawly friends --insects. All children love bugs and are fascinated by them. We will go on bug hunts on our playgrounds and learn about each insect we find.

Easter is approaching fast and with it comes egg hunts, decorating eggs and baskets, and learning about Jesus and why we celebrate Easter.

Please send in one clean, empty milk jug for our Easter baskets.

To wrap up the month, we will learn about life on the farm. We will be milking cows (rubber gloves), making butter and milkshakes. Yum, Yum!

Please take time to smell the roses and watch the butterflies.

Have a great month!

Lovable Ladybugs (Older Twos)

By Ms Heather

This month we will be learning so much!

The first week, we will learn about the four seasons with an emphasis on Spring. Also, we discover our five senses. An activity I have planned for this week is tasting sweet and sour items, then we will graph which foods each child likes better. You can help your child with these concepts by pointing out smells, how things feel and taste, and special sounds and sights.

The following week will be a unit on transportation. Children love things that go vroom! We will discuss the different modes of transportation such as air, land and by sea. Parents can reinforce what we are learning by pointing out different modes of transportation as you drive around.

Happy Easter! The children are already getting excited about the Easter Bunny visiting and they won't be disappointed. We will be having an Easter Party on April 22nd. Leading up to this date, we will be coloring eggs and decorating our Easter Baskets. Also, the children will be taught the real reason for celebrating Easter.

Lastly, we will be exploring the ocean theme. I will have a play center with beach items and we will create sand castles in the sand on the playground. Also, we will discuss the many sea creature that live in the ocean. Parents can be involved by pointing out these types of animals on trips, reading books, or anytime you encounter such things.

I'm looking forward to a fabulous month of learning!

Creative Caterpillars (Threes)

By Ms Destiny

Spring has sprung! And April showers have begun!

This month we will learn about the seasons, with the main focus on Spring. We have lots of fun activities planned. Towards the end of the month we will also incorporate Easter into our learning. We will learn about the religious aspects of Easter while we eagerly await the arrival of the Easter Bunny! We will have our party on April 22nd. All our welcome!

During science , we will be taking class field trips around the school to care for the plants. We will water them and make sure they are receiving the right amount of sunlight. We will also be learning how plants grow and the different parts of a plant. Then we will grow our own!

The letters of the month are Ss. Tt, Uu and Vv. Please practice recognizing each letter, their sounds and also tracing. I will send home practice dot-to-dot worksheets to help Parents stay involved.

We will be reviewing the number 13 and introducing the number 14. We will continue to practice counting to 30. You can help with this concept by counting everything, such as the stairs as you climb them, the bites he eats at breakfast, how many toys he picks up, etc.(It is fun to see them learning this too!)

If you haven't already done so, please send in your family photos for our class book.

It should be an exciting month!

Brilliant Butterflies (Older Threes)

By Ms Liz

YEAH, Spring has arrived!

This month we have four new letters to learn: S-V. Some topics that we'll be discussing each week are the seasons, table manners, underground animals, and veterinarians. Have your child practice writing each letter the week we're learning it.

We're going to review #1-20 and introduce the concepts of 14 and 15.

You can help your child by counting everywhere you go. How many cars, trees, toys, etc. do you see?

Character is very important to instill at a young age and throughout this month we'll be discussing trustworthiness and responsibility. Let your child know how much you trust them. Also, give them a little job that only they are responsible for.

Science is done once a week. Our topics this month are: seasons, trees, water and volcanoes. Ask your child to show you or talk about these topics.

All month we will talk about and do projects for Spring and Easter. They will learn the religious side of Easter and prepare for the Easter Bunny to come. Our party and Easter Egg Hunt will be on Friday, April 22nd. I will send out more information soon.

We're very excited about April!

Spectacular Spiders (Fours)

By Ms Vickie & Ms Virginia

During the month of April, we will continue writing poems, counting to 70, and working with one- vowel words.

During writing, some of the poems we will learn about are: "Whole Duty of Children," "Made to Praise Him," "Clouds" and "A Kite."

In Language Development, we will learn about the sea , Arctic animals, Eskimos, Veterinarians and the Zoo.

During phonics, we will introduce the long vowel sounds and the two vowel rule.

We have many exciting things planned for our Easter celebration. Our party and Easter egg hunt will be held on April 22nd.

Of course, we will discuss the reason we celebrate Easter . Easter is not just about eggs and chocolate bunnies; it is about Jesus.

The children have had a great time learning the songs we will sing for our Graduation program coming up in June. I know that everyone will be extremely proud of their children.

I also wanted to say how pleased I am with the progress each child has made during the VPK Assessments. I know that each and every one of my children will be successful in Kindergarten.

Have a great April!

Dynamic Dragonflies (Fours)

By Ms Jackie & Ms Ana

Welcome Back! I hope everyone had an eventful spring break and is ready to come back to school.

We have a lot planned for the month of April. The themes we will learn about this month will be Spring, Creepy Crawlies, Easter, and Circus.

During the first week, we will discuss the aspects of Spring and we will make a beautiful window hanging from "stained glass," press flowers, and make our own stationary, create a Spring Word Book, a Spring Color's Book and the Sprouting Bean book.

For our Creepy Crawlies theme, we will learn about the life cycles of the ant, the butterfly, and the ladybug.

Easter will be on the agenda next with our Easter party and Easter egg hunt on April 22nd. We also will be decorating eggs and our baskets, making candy bird nests (cooking project), graphing jelly beans and, matching and sorting speckled eggs

The final week of the month we will explore the excitement of camping. You will find our dramatic play area set up with a tent, where the children will be able to pretend they are camping. We will make smores, sing campfire songs, and tell "scary" stories.

Of course, during this month, we will also continue practicing blending and working with our word families, doing addition and subtraction word problems, and improving our writing skills.

In addition, we will continue with our Graduation practice. The children are really grasping their speaking parts and becoming excited about performing. Please make sure that you help them learn their lines.

Thanks for all your help!

Parent Feedback & Involvement

By A Child's Academy

We would love to profile any successes our parents have had or to profile any businesses that families have that our other parents should know about. Please contact Jackie with this information please.

We also would enjoy getting any feedback about any and all items about our school. What are we doing great? What can we improve? What else should be in our Monthly Giggle Newsletter? There is a feedback box in the front office if you prefer it to be anonymous or you can let Jackie know.

Thank you for being a part of your lives and allowing us to help prepare your children for the future! We take our jobs very seriously and love doing it at the same time!

Recommended Learning Tools

The Signing Time series has proven to be an effective way for early communication for parents and kids (newborn to three years old). We highly recommend you to borrow or purchase this and it reinforces what we are teaching at A Child's Academy.

Reminder #1: Easter Egg Baskets

Remember to bring in your Clean, Empty Milk Cartons since we will be making Easter Egg Baskets out of them!

Reminder #2: Easter Egg Hunt and Party

Parents are encouraged to come and participate in our Easter activities on April 22nd.

Reminder #3: Tuition

A friendly reminder that all tuition is due on Mondays even if your child is out.