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Newsletter

The Learningden Preschool

April, 2010

Learningden Art Show

All of your children have been working on preparations for the Art Show. They are very excited and the time has finally come. The Art Show will take place at The Learningden Friday, April 30th and it will be fun for all. Come and enjoy what your children have worked so hard to create. The Art show is open to families, friends, and the community. We will have an “Artist Reception” At the school from 5:30p-6:30p and refreshments will be provided. The children will be making goodies for all to enjoy as well as being your docents through our museum for the evening. We hope to see you there!! Come and support the children and the school. All proceeds will go to the Learningden Art and Outdoor Education Fund to buy new materials for our outdoor classroom.

Gardening and Green Care program update

Our Gardening and Green Care program is in full swing! We have hired a gardening teacher Ms. Liana and she will be in charge of all aspects of creating a magical and purposeful garden with the children. She will be here 2.5 hours a week and her sole responsibility will be to create and document what the childen are doing in the garden. She will also have a space in the newsletter every month as well as on the blog to talk about what is being done in the outdoor classroom. We warmly welcome Liana to The Learningden family!

The green care program is also going really well and we have promoted Ms.Cassidy to Green Care Manager. She will be making sure that we are doing the very best for the children at the school as well as helping to communicate aspects of the program to the families.

Earth Day Kids Zone

The Learningden is sponsoring an art and craft area at Earth Day this year. We will have great activities like, clay, painting, collage, face painting, and a beading station. We will also be offering a planting workshop where kids can plant their own plants. It will be a lot of fun and Ms. Shevon from Stretch and Grow will be there having an obstacle course for the kids. Other children's activities include, garden drawing, bio degradable soap felting, story time and puppet show, music performances, a t-pee, a touch tank, a mothers nursing and diaper changing area, and much more. We hope that you will stop by the art and craft Yurt and say Hi. It is a fun free event for all children and there are way too many highlights to list. It is Saturday and Sunday, April 17th thru 18th at Alameda park. Hours are from 11a-5p both days.

Documentation Walls

Look forward in the coming month to the hallways being transformed into a documentation gallery. We are working very hard at communicating to the families what the children do. The documentation walls will serve as a place for families as well as the children to see what is happening and what the children are working on.

This aspect of the program will allow the children to be able to go back and revisit their work because when it is taken off the wall it will then go into a collection of books about the children's work and projects. We have always done documentation but this will be a constant running journal of the children's day to day experiences, and by displaying it in the hallway we will have a more collaborative dialogue with the parents.

We hope that you will enjoy this and it will be easier to talk with the children at home about what they are doing in the classroom.

We have a parent volunteer who will be helping with changing out the documentation as well as creating beautiful displays to show the children's work. Please make sure that you stop and look at these walls when they are done.

One of the walls will be set aside for our outdoor classroom information. The first set of documentation for this will be about the Children’s bug city which has really been a month long outdoor creation which has taken many different forms and the children continue to want to revisit and expand on their ideas and knowledge. It has been a great experience and the children showed an extraordinary amount of teamwork and attention to details for their age.


Blue Dolphins

This month the children enjoyed finishing up their all about me unit, as well as continuing to work on art projects for the art show which is coming up this month.

We are looking forward to doing more planting with the children this month. We have just put in new planter boxes which two of the boxes will have vegetables which we will be taking care of and hoping to do some great cooking projects with very soon. Ms. Vivienne and Ms Liana have been discussing the most engaging and interactive way to really take our outdoor garden project to the next level. This month we are also planning to go on a field trip to Island Seed and Feed where the children will pick out some of the plants for our new garden boxes.

We are also looking forward to using our soil exploration area to play dig and have fun.

Graduation is fast approaching so in preparation we will also be talking to the children about what they would like to have and do at graduation. Music Molly will be working with your children over the next couple of weeks preparing for our graduation performance which will take place at Elings Park in May. We hope that all of the pre-K class had a wonderful spring break and we missed your children over the long week, but are happy that they can return with some new and exciting additions to the classroom and the school.


Purple Sharks

The purple sharks will be preparing for our art show and finishing up the alphabet unit that they started a couple of months ago. Since the unit has begun the children have been able to pick out more letters, identify peers names and they have had so much fun cooking, doing art and other projects that have to do with the letters in the alphabet.

The Classroom plants have also really taken off, they started as seeds and have done so well they are almost ready to go into our new planter beds.


Rainbow Fish

April will be full of excitement in the Rainbow Fish class, they will be continuing to work on their projects for the art show and will begin using clay as a daily station.

Clay is wonderful because there are so many things that can be done with it. We will experiment with using different materials with the clay. For example: clay tools, scissors, beads, making the clay wet, and even giving them materials to make sculptures from their clay.

The children will also be using the light room to do shadow play and learn more about lights and the variety of ways that you can use it.

Most of all this month we look forward to continuing our garden work; watering plants, planting seeds and watching for things to grow. We will be introducing new digging tools this month and look forward to using our digging station for some outdoor messy fun.

The children are really interested in art material right now so we have decided to continue with this for the whole month of April until they decide on doing something else. Ms. June hopes that all of you have had a great spring break and she looks forward to your return on Monday!! There is so much planned and the children are really looking forward to having you all come for the art show. We also want to welcome our new Rainbow Fish to the class this month.


Green Turtles

There are many fun things planned in the Green Turtle room this month. This month we are planning on doing cooking, clay, mixing water colors, and getting to know one another better. We can not wait to use our new soil exploration area, as well as continue to add beautiful work to our butterfly tree.

In the coming weeks you will see more and more of the children’s work going up in the classroom in preparation for our art show. The children will also be continuing to learn how to use art supplies and pick from stations in the classroom, Our clay table is sure to be a big hit this month and we are really looking forward to seeing where the children take it. We hope that you all had a great break and welcome to our newest green turtles.



Wish List

  1. Green Works Wipes
  2. Trader Joe's Hand Soap (not anti-bacterial)
  3. Recycled Art Materials
  4. Garden Tools - Kids
  5. Organic Soil
  6. Natural Materials for Projects - Sticks, Leaves, Rocks, etc.

Thanks to all Parents who contributed to our wish list last month! It is greatly appreciated.

Other News

• The Learningden Preschool is completely funded by your tuition and to make sure that the school is successful for years to come we ask that you pay tuition by the due date of every month. Because this is so important to the school we are going to start enforcing a $40.00 late payment fee for tuition received after the 5th. If you are having a hard time and need extra time we need to know before the 5th. We also accept credit card payments, as well as automatic payments for tuition, please ask Erika for more information. Non- payment may result in your family needing to find alternative care arrangements until past due is paid.


Past Newsletters:
October '09
November '09
December '09
January '10
February '10
March '10


NAEYC