Welcome Miss Casey!

Welcome Miss Casey Musser!
Casey teaches our Thursday morning music enrichment class. The children have the wonderful opportunity of being exposed to a wide variety of real musical instruments, learning about music theory, and the science of making sound.
Casey currently lives in Springfield with her husband and four children. She is completing her Elementary Education Degree with a minor in music at MSU. She started playing the piano at age 5 and still plays almost every day.
In her spare time, Casey also enjoys costume design. She is active in community productions and runs a small sewing business online.
We are excited to have Miss Casey join us and know your children will benefit from her weekly teaching!

More books

More books we are sharing together for the next two weeks:

Hopper by Marcus Pfister
Don't Wake Up the Bear! by Marjorie Murray (a class favorite)
The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader
It's Winter by Linda Glaser
Here Comes Jack Frost by Kazuno Kohara
The Life of Vincent van Gogh
The Art Book for Children
Footprints in the Snow by Cynthia Benjamin

Thanks also to Amy for bringing in a handout on language targets to go along with the book,
The Snowy Day. It is always wonderful to have input and ideas for studies and stories to introduce to the children!

We are learning a sweet winter circle time, and incorporating many ideas from the books:
Earthways and Everything for Winter.

Weekly plan sheets for this week and copies of some of our learning activities will be sent home on Friday!

Tomorrow will be cold and snowy!
Please dress warmly in layers, bring snow boots, pants, and waterproof gloves, and sturdy slippers for the classroom. We are a no-shoe zone now!

Animals in Winter, Deep Rest

Here is a Cave

Here is a cave
Inside is a bear
Now he comes out
To get some fresh air
He stays out all summer
In sunshine and heat
He hunts in the forest for berries to eat
When snow starts to fall,
He hurries inside
His warm little cave
And there he will hide
Snow covers the cave
Like a fluffy white rug
Inside the bear sleeps
All cozy and snug

Monday: Hibernation discussion
Tuesday: Animals that adapt to the winter by growing more fur to keep warm
Wednesday: Animal tracks in the snow. Hunting for tracks outside
Thursday: Some animals leave and go someplace warmer for the winter. Migration. How can we take care of the animals that stay?
Friday: Making winter homes out of clay

Planned activities for the next two weeks:
Bear Paw prints, animal tracks with paint, making bear tracks, making herbal lavender pillows, wildlife tracking, teddy bear pajama party on Friday, January 28th, Bury the Bear game, clay caves, and more!

This week's reflection: Deep Rest

"Perhaps I am a bear, or some hibernating animal underneath, for the instinct to be half asleep all winter is so strong in me"
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Winter is a time of sleep, of hibernation.....a time when many living creatures withdraw from the outside world and go deep within to rest. How can we discover Deep Rest in our busy lives? The Rest that I speak of is not the kind of sleep we do in the evenings when our day is done. It is the deep peace that comes when we resist our urge to keep moving, to keep thinking, to keep going. When we take the time to slow down, to go inside and tend to ourselves, we become the caregiver of our own body and soul. This is not only a gift to us, but to everyone else in our lives."
-Little Acorn Learning

Happenings

We had a very sweet Tuesday morning. Banon decided to have a "party" and invite all her friends over for dinner. She set the table and prepared a delicious cake. Charlie drove around to pick up all the guests in his car he made out of stumps and blocks and also go by the store to pick up punch for the occasion. All the children lined up by the door and knocked, were greeted by Banon, and shown the way to the table where the meal was waiting for them. This play scenario was acted out for over 30 minutes!
Today we were very engrossed in playing Scrabble Junior. The children enjoyed finding colored letters and matching them to the letters on the board to form a variety of words.
When we sing the alphabet song, we sing the letter sounds as opposed to the names of the letters. In this way, the children are becoming familiar with the skills they will actually need to sound out the letters in the reading process. Just knowing the names of letters does not help with later reading ability. You could reinforce this at home as well by sometimes singing the letter sounds instead of the letter names.
One of our learning centers this week is Library Play. The children will take turns being a Librarian, checking out books to each other, and playing with the story props.
While playing library, the children will learn:
1) To develop their interest in a variety of books, magazines, and other printed materials
2) That stories can be in many forms including books, magazines, storytelling, flannel board stories, and puppet shows.
3) To enjoy reading books and retelling stories

Elias told us all about the exciting play he attended last night, called "Strega Nona". Thanks for sharing the book today! We all enjoyed this story about Strega Nona's magic pot that made pasta. But what happened when her assistant tried to use it to show off to the town while Strega Nona was away? This was a fun tale to imagine and act out what it must be like to have your whole house and town fill up with endless amounts of pasta!!

I highly encourage you to take your children to as many live performing arts events as possible. They are captivated and so enriched by the experience that brings to life so many of the stories they hear. Surrounding them with beautiful music and the best in theater is an important foundation for their lifelong love of learning and appreciation for one of the best ways to spend their time!

Snow, Hibernation, Rest, and A Starry Night

We have had a wonderful week despite the freezing temperatures!
Please dress your little one warmly and in plenty of layers. Wool undergarments and onesies are best to keep all areas of skin covered. The children all need good waterproof mittens, gloves, snow pants, and boots. We are also transitioning the classroom into a "no shoe" zone, so your help with this is greatly appreciated as well. Everyone needs sturdy slippers with good soles such as lined crocs or slipper socks that can be worn in the classroom. These should be immediately put on upon entering the room.
Our music time with Miss Casey was a lively experience again. She worked on teaching us the folk song titled "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" and tapping out the rhythm with our hands on the table. She included props for each of the items like a fly hanging from a string, a spider, bird, cat, cow, horse, etc. Then all the children were allowed to pick instruments from her box to try out and this was probably everyone's favorite part. Each child was also given a small jingle bell to take home!
The books we have shared together this week:

Sleep, Black Bear, Sleep by Jane Yolen
Brave Bitsy and the Bear by Angela McAllister
A Perfect Snowman by Preston McDaniels
Fireside Stories by Caitlin Matthews
First Snow by Emily McCully

New Parent Handbook

The new and revised parent handbook has been completed!
Please send me an email to threeredleaves@yahoo.com so that I have your current email address and I will attach a copy for you. If you would like a paper version, just let me know and I will print those out as well.
Thanks for your patience and have a wonderful weekend!

An especially fun day!!

I just had to write about our morning that was EXTRA fun and a little bit noisy...
Miss Casey came and shared her big snare drum with us. She showed all the parts of the drum and let each child have a turn with different drum sticks to experiment with the sounds they made. Ask your little one what they have in their ears.....they learned about eardrums too! Everyone had a fabulous time drumming and then we made our own drums out of recycled materials. Oatmeal boxes, milk jugs, coffee cans, and lots of other containers became drums. Then we opened them up and poured in all kinds of things like rice, beans, and pasta to see what kinds of sounds they made when we turned them into shakers. We practiced clapping and counting to different beats and we all took turns making up a beat for our friends to try to copy. Miss Casey was very impressed with the form and coordination of our group! It is apparent these little ones are no strangers to music, beats, and drumming! We are really looking forward to our time with Miss Casey now every Thursday morning. There will be an alternating theme of a music focus for two weeks and then an art and handwork focus for two weeks.
We also made some tasty treats for the backyard birds with peanut butter, pinecones, and cranberries. Thanks to Charlie and Finn's mom for sending the cranberries in for us!