Math Pies!

What could be more fun than combing Thanksgiving pie to math? Learning about a whole pie. Two halves of a pie. Four quarters of a pie. We also added a life skill element to this activity...sharing!  

Special Visitor Alert!

This week we had a real life Service Dog visit us in Pre-K!  He took a day off of his busy schedule at the Children's Hospital to spend some time with us.  We discussed all the things that Pepper does to help children and how he was once a homeless pup!  He enjoyed the endless belly rubs while we read the book "Love me Gently" by Lisa Wiehebrink.

Science is FUN!

Science perfectly complements a child’s natural curiosity!  Our Pre-K class set up an experiment on Friday afternoon and they all predicted what would happen over the next few days.  A mixture of salt and hot water created beautiful crystals in the jar over the weekend!  The children were delighted to see such an amazing thing happen in just a few days.  As young children discover the world around them, the more they will learn about and develop a thirst for science.  They named their experiment, "The Unicorn Horn"!  We love their creative minds!

2019 Holly Tree Class Photos

We all love our Spoiled Rotten fall photos, but there is always one thing missing!  Class photos!  Take a peek at our 2019 HTB class photos!

If you would like a copy of your child's class, we would be happy to print one out for you!

Hat's Off

Today we had special guests come to visit Holly Tree Preschool. The Brentwood Fire Department came to visit and brought their Firetruck. It was so sweet to see each of the classes and how differently they all reacted to the Firefighters. A good portion of the children couldn't wait to climb into the firetruck and others were much more apprehensive. 

I thought this might be a good time to be sure to Thank our men and women who serve. Be it Firefighters, police officers, paramedics, members of the military or anyone else that has the potential to put their lives on the line when they head to work each day. 

While I believe that each parent should decide for their own families how you explain what service men and women do for us each day, I do think that it's important that they understand early in life that they are important pillars of our society. 

Having them come and visit today and let the children see all of the equipment on the truck that they work with every day had each of them in awe. I loved watching their eyes filled with so much curiosity as they got to touch an actual firetruck. 

This time of year I try to think about it as much as I possibly can, I feel like sometimes it's easy to forget but it's not something that I ever want to take for granted. Each year on September 11th I try to ask the 'where were you?' to everyone that I can, and recount all that I can from that day. It makes it much more difficult to forget about the men and women who do what they do. 

We take our Hats off to all of the men and women who make so many sacrifices so that we can live in such a free and beautiful place. 

True courage is being afraid, and going ahead and doing your job anyhow. That’s what courage is. –General Norman Schwarzkopf

I hope you guys have a wonderful weekend! Please let me know if you need anything at all! 

-Mallory 

Transitions

Every year, at the end of summer and before the new year begins, Caroline and I sit and look through our list of classrooms. We go and observe the children interacting, we determine if someone is ready for the next class- we look at development, social skills. Are they bored? Are they ready for a new challenge? 

It's very easy to go through the motions with this and we can determine pretty quickly if a child is ready to move into the next phase or not. However, when we take a step back and think about where these kids have come from, it gets quite a bit harder not to get emotional. 

We are so proud of all of our little adventurers for how they have grown over this past year! So proud of the leaps and bounds that these kids have taken to get where they are! 

One of the sadder things for Caroline and myself is seeing our Toddler Two class age out and head to the back building. We always miss seeing the kids all day and hearing 'Mal Mal! Car-rine" as we pass by their doors. It is such an honor to be part of your lives and to take such an active role in your children's lives as well. 

When we walk into a room and are immediately met with the children running towards us, talking a million miles a minute, or simply trying to leave with us to 'go help' it is a great refresher of why we do what we do- and why we love what we do. 

Thank you for the privilege of loving and being loved by your kids. 

Please let us know if there is ever any ways that we can improve, we want you to be as happy with things as we are! 

Have a great weekend!

-Mallory 

Movement Week

Psalms 30:11-

You have turned my mourning into dancing, 

You have turned my sorrow into joy! 

We are so grateful that we get to spend so much time with these beautiful kids who love moving and dancing and that they have been given the ability to do so! Let us always remember what a huge blessing it is! 

This week is all about moving! We are so excited to explore all of the different things that we can do when we move! We are fully embracing learning through play and celebrating the fact that our bodies can move so freely! 

Let us take this week to really pay attention to how much our kids move and to try and embrace all of the times they are trying to explore, because... that's learning! 

Our Nursery one and two friends did some tummy time today! We also made sure that we played lots of music and danced around with them! These little ones LOVE to move and are always so anxious for the next thing, they crave their independence and it is very evident in how quickly they are trying to sit up, crawl, and then walk! 

Our transition friends made sure to get out early this morning and move around on the playground as much as they could before it got too warm! They tried out different sized slides and talked about how your legs move you to get up the stairs and then you sit and the slide moves you down! We are working hard with them on cleaning up after yourself and also other friends! They are truly making strides in this, I'm so proud of them!

Toddler one & two set up four different sensory bins today and explored what each one felt like with your hand moving through it! Then Ms. Chericka & Ms. Kristin brought in different sized cups and bowls to see how easy it was to move each different substance! They loved playing with the sand and water (of course) and didn't really understand what they were supposed to do with rocks. 😄

Preschool One had a very busy day today! Ms. Laura was determined to have them move in as many different ways as possible! She set up the sensory water table and gave them objects to explore with the water, then she gave each child a canvas and paints and allowed them to use their hands as paint brushes and see the results of moving your hands in different directions across the paper. 

Preschool two had an amazing movement day today! Ms. Adrian kicked off the morning with a discussion on what it meant to move! Then she did a demonstration on listen and move (I think maybe it was Simon says.... never can be sure!) 

They then took off to the track and had a class wide race! Ms. Adrian even agreed and joined in on the racing. I'll let your kids tell you the results of that one, she's still a little bit sore over it! 😂

Pre K did a wonderful job and the kids can not stop talking about it! They had three legged races and all worked so well together!! They are so quick to respond to Ms. Shanice and I love watching them reap the reward of having their listening ears turned on! It always results in something very fun and they're already asking when we can do another three legged race! 

Tomorrow is our Dress up like a cow day which was adopted from Chic Fil A because if you are dressed like a cow you get free chic fil a! (pass that on!)

Later this week we have a balancing demonstration from Ms. Bea which we are so excited about. 

Next week is our math week and we have a lot of fun things coming up for that!!

I hope you guys have an amazing week and please let me know if you need anything!

-Mallory