This month's newsletter topics

March – Themes This Month – The week of St. Patrick’s Day is color week! –  Tax Time – Fall Preschool and Summer Camps – Visitors and Afterschool Classes –

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It is starting to feel like spring and we are enjoying more time outside!
*The photos on the top of this page were pre-COVID, the photos in the newsletter are current.  All children and adults wear masks at school.

March

• Art and stories by Eric Carle
• Weather
• Colors
• Bugs and Plants
• Spring Vacation is March 22-26—No School, enjoy your week off.

Our class is learning about primary and secondary colors and had fun creating our own!  We created art inspired by Eric Carle stories. Our students enjoyed making their own Hungry Caterpillars, Grouchy Ladybugs and Butterflies.  We are singing some silly songs about bugs, like “The ants go marching 1 by 1”, “I am bringing home a baby bumble bee” and “Itsy bitsy spider.”  I bet your kids can sing them to you! We investigated some insects and noticed some had wings, some could fly and others did not.  Some had 8 legs and other 6 legs. We used the bugs for our number pal job last month.  Counting bees in a hive, or seeing how many insects in the group had wings? How many insects did we have all together?  We will continue to learn more about insects and plants in April.  We also look forward to our classroom caterpillars arriving!

Talk About Trees

We are so lucky to have Teacher Joan join us a few times a month and continue with our interactive science class!  This month we are learning about habitats and how trees are homes to so many living creatures.  We talked as a group about all the different way animals make their homes in trees, from small insects to larger animals and birds.  Then we walked around our garden and spotted squirrel nests, birds, and bugs in the trees.  Ask your child what they remember from this months visit.

Bat Pig

Bat Pig is the stuffed animal that lives in our circle time, and helps the kids learn.  Often students enjoy taking a turn with Bat Pig to answer questions, introduce themselves and playing pop the pig on the parachute!  The kids will be surprised to see that Bat Pig has welcomed some piglets over spring vacation.  Now there are more pigs and the children will be excited to meet and name them. Then one child will be picked to bring home a pig for a sleepover. We will do this every few days, so the pig can quarantine for 24 hours, and each cohort will have it’s own pig.  As you can imagine, this is very exciting and causes many emotions.  Everyone will have a turn but not everyone can bring the pig on the same day.  It is a great lesson in sharing, patience and taking care of something.  The kids are always so excited and proud to look after the little pigs.  The pigs will be sent to the sleepover with their sleeping bag, teddy bear, toothbrush and a little book for you to write down your adventures of the evening.  You can even include photos.  And they are stuffed animals….not real pigs, so it isn’t too hard to look after them!

April

• Caterpillars & Butterflies
• Earth Day
• Spring & Plants
• Week of the Young Child
• National Poetry Month

Garden

We are so excited to get our caterpillars in the mail!  They will be coming soon and we will set up a habitat for them in the classroom to watch them grow bigger and change into butterflies!  During April we will work on cleaning up our garden beds and do some planting.  We will plant a pizza garden, with tomatoes, basil and other herbs and a strawberry patch.  We will also plant some sunflowers and pumpkins along the parking lot garden area.  We will be talking about Earth Day and how we can help our planet.

The Week of the Young Child™

The Week of the Young Child™ is an annual celebration hosted by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) celebrating early learning, young children, their teachers, and families. This year’s event is April 10-16,2021!  We will be celebrating and following along with these fun activities.  Music Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Work Together Wednesday, Artsy Thursday and Family Friday.  Stay tuned to see how you can help and be part of our celebration.

National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month each April is the largest literary celebration in the world.  We will learn about poems, hear some new ones, and work on creating our own.  Each child will work on writing their own poem called “I Am From” to help us learn that poems have an important  place in our culture and our lives.

Tax Time

To help you with your taxes here is our official name and tax ID number:

Hands On Art & Play Inc.
EIN # is 20-5503578

Fall Preschool and Summer Camps

Thank you Hands On families for choosing our school! Your children are a joy to see each day! Thank you to everyone that has turned in their summer camp registration forms.  You will get a confirmation email and more information on the summer soon!
Thanks for reading, wishing you all a happy spring!