Toddle Bot Blog - March update

Well... March started out like any other month in the world of daycare! We were

finishing up I Love To Read Month and getting excited about St Patrick Day! The

Toddle Bots we offered a variety of experiences to gage their interests and set a

focus for the month, we painted using pom poms and also did some color sorting

by sticking pom poms onto colored papers on our window. We did some big

muscle activities like jumping on big sheets of bubble wrap, climbing in and out of

a giant box, and using hammers and golf tees to hold pieces of styrofoam

together. We glued different sized circles together and then folded it in half to

create unique rainbows. We carefully threaded fruit loops onto pipe cleaners to

make bracelets.... But then we ate off all the fruit loops! 'cause we toddlers!!

We glued pots of gold, and made rainbows with clouds at the end. And then....

then the Toddle Bots got to spend time with the other groups in the centre as the

number dropped off quickly and drastically. On March 17th the government

announced that all daycares would close in 3 days and recommended parents not

bring their children in until further notice, for the few Toddles Bots left in the

centre we spent our time climbing snow hills with our older friends, and enjoyed

time on the baby room climber! We baked cookies for snack and got to use the

gym in the school. March ended early, and the Toddle Bots were sent home to be

safe with their families with an exciting game full of activities called Toddle Bot

BINGO! We at JA Cuddy are all hoping for a quick end to this scary time and an

exciting April!

February - Infants Update

We said good-bye to a few children and welcomed twins Halo and Luxor and also Logan! So excited, to have some new faces in our room. 

This month was "I Love to Read Month"!  We did lots of literacy based activities.  Such as felt and magnet stories, bring in our own stories from home to read and share, and we also had a special visitor read to us. One of our parents, Mrs. Thiessen came and shared some of her stories from home with us.  The children love reading so it was a super fun month!

There have been some really cold days when we have had to stay inside.  This has been the perfect opportunity to pull out the water table and splash around all together.  We do love our sled rides and walks when we can get outside and play in the snow! It is finally starting to warm up a little and we are going to have so much fun splashing around in all the water puddles once the snow melts! Prepare to get wet and dirty!!

February - Littles Update

I Love to Read Month is our favorite winter past time.  We got to do a lot more with our favorite stories.  Every Friday the Littles' teachers and Toddle Bot teacher would turn our favorite stories into a play! We watched "Goldie Locks and the Three Bears", " Mortimer", and "Mmm Cookies"!

This month we also did a lot of sensory activities including cooking and tasting to go with the stories.  One of our favorite story was "Green Eggs and Ham".  Most of us did not like the taste of the ham.  The best tasting activity was making doughnuts for " If you give a dog a doughnut ".  The Littles also worked with the Toddle Bots to make stone soup.  Each child brought in a veggie to add to the pot.  We cooked it in a crock pot so we could smell and see it all day.  We got to eat it for our afternoon snack, but everyone preferred to eat the buns instead of the soup!

The teachers have already been planning on how to keep all the fun of reading and cooking going in the future months.  Keep an eye on our Instagram page to see what  we have been up to! 

February - Honey Bees Update

This February has been very busy! We had a fantastic I Love to Read month! We read lots of books every day and every Friday we put on a Robert Munsch play! Shawna was such a great actor the kids had lots of laughs!

 We also had a parent volunteer come read us her favorite stories. Many of the stories that we read went along with fun activities and crafts! This February they have been very interested in sensory activities, role playing and rough and tumble play. We have been exploring their senses by offering water table and different science activities that allows them to play and explore with their hands!

There were lots of walks this month! We explored the town and went to the ‘mountains’ again and again! The slopes were amazing to climb, slide down and hide in! The RM kindly turned part of the ‘mountain’ into slides so we can toboggan down! Thanks to them we can slide super fast and far!

 We are very excited for the next couple months with this new group!

Februrary - School Age Update

This month was a blast in the SA room! Many of the children attended Festival Du Voyageur with their school and were excited to talk about it here, too.  We made some bead work and weaving projects inspired by the traditional art they saw at the festival.  These were fun activities that required concentration, patience, and attention to detail. 

Hockey is extremely popular in the room right now.  The children are keeping active by playing "mini" games whenever they get the chance!

We are looking forward to our first March, of the decade!

* Reminder we will be skating the morning of March 6th for the in-service !*

February - Kinder/Kinderstart Update

February flew by! We read lots of stories for I Love To Read Month and did many activities inspired by the books we chose. 

One of the favorite stories was" Jack and the Beanstalk".  The children wanted to know if beans could really grow up to the sky, so we planted some and measured them as they grew!  They grew quickly, but haven't reached the sky yet! 

We were super excited to have some guest readers, and the younger floor staff performed stories, including "Goldie Locks and the Three Bears" and "Mortimer" and invited us to watch!

The kindergartens also practiced reading their library books from school, to their younger friends and did a great job!

Toddlebots - February Update

I love to read!  You love to read!  We all LOVE to read!  The Toddle Bots have always been interested in looking at books and love listening to stories. We often use a story as a transition before lunch and we always have a story to calm their bodies before nap, but with February being Manitoba's I Love To Read Month I decided to challenge myself into incorporating as many books as possible into the program!

I'm happy to say that every activity we did this month had a book as part of it, or as an introduction to it.  Some of the Toddle Bot favorites included "Roaring Rockets" (Tony Mitton) where we used cut up shapes to make our own rocket ships.  "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom"( Bill Martin and John Archambault) where we made our own palm tree and added the letters to it. When the tree got heavy and the letters fell, we dusted them off and helped them up again! We made our own "Very Hungry Caterpillar(s)" (Eric Carle).  We mixed paint colors to form new colors just like the chameleon in "A Color of His Own" (Leo Lionni) and we read all about feeling in "I have Feeling" (Jana Novotny Hunter) and played an emoji matching game. 

We teamed up with our friends on the Littles side to make cookies just like the one the mouse eats in "If you give a mouse a cookie" (Laura Numeroff) as well as each child on younger floor brought in a vegetable and together we made "Stone Soup" (William Rubel) for everyone to share at snack!

I worked hard to incorporate literature into our traditional Valentines activities as well; we made stain glass windows in our window after reading "Rain Rain Go Away" (Caroline Jayne Church), we read "Llama Llama I love You" (Anne Dewdney) and made valentines.  We read "I love you forever" (Robert Munsch) and made a special Valentines canvas for our families.

 

Once a week the Toddle Bots were asked to bring in a book from home for show and share.  They did such a great job with this!  They were excited to show their book to all their friends and sat so well while we read each childs' book. This was such a great way to hear new stories. (and for Shawna to get new ideas for our classroom library!)

The staff also took story time to a fun level by acting out stories such as; Goldylocks (Robert Southey), Mortimer (Robert Munsch), and MMM Cookies (Robert Munsch).  I used puppets and magnets to tell stories with my own twist on them like Red Riding Hood, The Three Billy Goats, The Three Little Pigs, Humpty Dumpty and Five Little Monkeys.

At circle I found out that the Toddle Bots LOVED interactive books so we read a lot of them, some of their favorites included "Don't Push The Button" (Bill Cotter), "Mix it up" and "Press Here" (Herve Tullet), "There is a Monster at the End of This Book" (Jon Stone), "Tap the Brightest Star" and "Touch The Magic Tree" (Christie Matheson) and "Construction Site" (Sally Sutton).  The Toddle Bots loved to use their fingers and hands to make things happen in the books, and I loved watching as they would touch a color or button and then look back at their finger when something happened on the next page!  I highly recommend "Don't Push The Button" and "Mix it Up" for all children!

We kept track of books we had read by placing small photos of them on the wall and the Toddle Bots were frequently found looking at the pictures, they knew which books had come from home and who brought them, they also pointed out their favorites from activity, circles, and nap!

By the end of the month we had 85 books on our wall!  What a successful show of literature! 

February was a busy but fun month! 

Can't wait to see what March will bring us!