Cademy for Children

cademy for Children Red Hawk Reading Program A Montessori School The Red Hawks have once again offered their fun reading program to the Academy and Child Care students. All children who have started to read or who are already readers can participate in this reading March 2017 program. Prizes will be sent home for the students who have successfully Newsletter completed their challenge.

Take Note: March is Music in our March Special Theme School Month! The school and child care activities for the preschool It is a great time to show Ms. Sue, our children for March will center on the theme of “Plants.” The toddlers will focus on “Spring Time.” music teacher, what a wonderful job she Families are always welcome to share items with the does. class related to the theme. Parent Teacher Conferences Parent Teacher Conferences will be held on Thursday 2017-2018 Registration evening, March 2, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., and during Enrollment forms for the 2017-2018 school year and the day on Friday, March 3, from 7:30 a.m. to 12 this year’s summer program forms were mailed out p.m. There are sign-up sheets posted; please sign up February 15 to our current parents. Please return the for a time that works best with your schedule. forms as soon as possible to ensure your program choices. We will open registration to the public on March 15, 2017. Celebration of Spring We celebrate the first day of spring each year with a parade of homemade spring bonnets. Each child will Need to contact us? be given a paper plate upon which the child may Due to the increase of telephone calls, the Academy create a bonnet. The plates will be handed out March staff encourages you to leave a voicemail if you 2 & 3 (at parent teacher conferences). We ask that cannot reach us. We will get back to you as soon as they be decorated at home and returned to possible. You can also e-mail us at [email protected]. school in time for our parade, which will take Thank you! place on Monday, March 20, at 10:45 a.m. and at 2:45 p.m. Past bonnet decorations have ranged from ribbons and bows to favorite Food Preparation foods and/or toys. Taking time to create the The children have enjoyed preparing pickles and bonnet with your child is half the fun! Sample bananas throughout this past month. Food preparation bonnets will be on display during Parent will continue through March and April. The Teacher Conferences. Academy will provide the food item on the introductory day. If your child would like to prepare additional food items, we ask that they bring the item Carnival 2017 to school, labeled with your child’s name. This year’s Academy Carnival will take place on February 27 – March 10 Celery Thursday, April 20, 2017, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 March 13 – March 17 Hardboiled Egg p.m., at Olivet Lutheran Church in Fargo. The theme March 20 – April 7 Orange Juice for the Carnival is “The Colorful World of Leo April 10 – April 28 Wheat Lionni.” We are excited to celebrate his stories and (The Academy will provide all the wheat) characters with our Academy families. If you would like to help out with this fun event, please contact the July 10 – August 4 sessions. We will get the Academy staff. registration forms out as soon as possible. Valentine’s Party Kindergarten 2017 The Valentine’s party was an exciting event at the With great regret, the Academy will not be offering Academy. The children enjoyed preparing their Kindergarten for the 2017-2018 school year, heart-decorated bags and distributing Valentines to due to lack of enrollment. their friends. The Academy staff would like to thank the parents for the snack supplies and for helping at the party. Classroom News Kindergarten– Ms. Maria Parent Child Open House Our theme this month was “Five Senses.” We Thanks to all the families who were able to join us on learned a little more about each sense in a mini – February 23 for the Child Work Night. The children unit. For the sense of sight, we learned how our eyes really enjoyed sharing their classroom work. We also see images and light. Then, we made our own want to thank all of the great young singers! The rainbow books and learned the colors of the rainbow families loved hearing you! We also celebrated the th in order. For the sense of taste, we studied the Academy’s 30 Anniversary with a special treat. We different tasting areas of our tongue and tested are so glad you could share the evening with us. various foods! For the sense of touch, we discovered where our receptors are located in our body. Then, Tax Information we used them to feel rough and smooth objects and If you need a yearly printout for your taxes, be sure put them together in a wheel book. For the sense of to let the office know. We can certainly have one smell, we sprinkled scented powders onto a picture ready for you to pick up. You can email your request and smelled them! Finally, we learned about sound to the Academy at [email protected] at any time. by predicting the objects in various sound boxes; this unit of senses was one of our favorites so far! With only a few months left in school, we are excited to Summer Event hone our skills and learn new ones! If your child will be attending the Academy during the summer months and would like to participate in Preprimary II- Ms. Maria swimming lessons, please register early. The Fargo We had so much fun with our theme in February, Park offers swimming lessons for children who are “Five Senses.” We practiced hearing and feeling four years of age or older. An Academy staff different things on our sensorial shelf – sound member will be walking the children to the 10:40 – cylinders, rough/smooth tiles, fabrics, baric weights, 11:10 a.m. swimming lesson. The dates for these and thermic tablets. It was challenging to try to match lessons will be Monday – Friday, June 12 – June 23; the exact sound or weights! We also tested our senses July 6 – July 19; and July 24 – August 4. Safety of taste and smell with our tasting exercises. We Town will also be running this summer. The tasted four foods that matched the different areas of Academy will drive 5 children to the first 10:30- our tongues – bitter (orange peel), salty (chip), sour 12:30 p.m. session of safety town on June 5 – June (lemon), and sweet (marshmallow). 16. Please let the office know if you would like your Another fun area we focused on this month was child to join the group that we will be transporting. the parts of our bodies – we learned all about bones Fargo Parks is also offering a tennis program. An and muscles as well as our organs. We were really Academy staff member will be walking the children fascinated to see how our sense receptors send to the tennis courts for the 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. lessons messages to the brain and back all the time! It was on Monday and Wednesday for K-2 grade during the also amazing to think about how our brain and heart June 5 – June 29 and July 10 – August 4 sessions. work all the time – even when we are asleep! Students in third through fifth grade will go on We started food cutting this month: it was a huge Tuesday and Thursday for the June 5 – June 29 and hit! Our first food we cut was one of the kids’ favorites – pickles. The steps involved cutting each pickle into small pieces with a knife, putting a We also spent some time learning about our new toothpick into each piece, eating/ sharing the pieces, president. We learned his name and where he lives. and cleaning up the cutting tray and dish. The other We also have been working hard on potty training. foods we will prep this year are bananas, celery, The toddlers are all doing very well with it! We eggs, orange juicing, and wheat grinding. ended the month with a Valentine’s Day party. Toddler I News – Ms. Aly Preprimary I – Ms. Karen February has flown by! We have enjoyed the Focusing on our five senses and how our brains weather and have been loving the longer days! It has receive messages is a fun theme. We experimented been a month of celebration. First, we had a farewell with hearing and learning about sound waves, send off for one of our friends who is moving to a examined our taste buds and ate a variety of foods, new home and school. We also celebrated found matching scents in our two sets of smelling Valentine’s Day this month. Our Valentine’s Day pots and worked on numerous color works for our celebration was a huge hit! Thank you to all our visual sense. parents for the help with celebrating this holiday. Some of our most interesting work was using our Our theme this month was “Hearts.” We read sterognostic sense – that is, we felt things that we books with hearts, books with the color red, and we couldn’t see and identified them or fit them together even read a book about how “Pete the Cat” celebrated (as in 3-D puzzle work). In art, we made a couple of Valentine’s Day. Some of our heart shaped art works that show symmetry, so we learned about that included “handing” hearts out, fingerprinting on your concept. We also had fun learning about the Universe heart, and even heart-shaped sun catchers. and our Solar System. We have a great song for We have so many new adventures awaiting us in learning the names of the planets, and have models March. Longer and warmer days mean extended and pictures of them to work with. outside time. We are also excited to be welcoming a We are fortunate this month to have an MSUM new friend to our room. The new season means Early Childhood student as an intern in our class on exciting new changes and we can’t wait. Tuesdays and Thursdays. The children enjoy working with Amber! Infant News- Ms. Connie This month has gone by so fast I can hardly Toddler II – Ms. Brittany believe it! There is a lot of talking in the infant room. We would like to start off by welcoming Ms. We are also mastering our signing; we can sign Jessica to our room! Our theme for the month was “more,” “milk,” “all done,” “water,” and “please.” “Hearts.” We did lots of fun crafts to go with our We are also working on “eat.” The children are February theme: we made handprint hearts with practicing asking for things that they want by signing sprinkles, corn syrup, and markers. Our favorite book to us. Watch for this at home. It seems like it happens was “Pete the Cat: Valentine’s Day is Cool.” overnight. The new favorite word in the room right February was also dental month. We spent a lot of now is “oh, oh.” There is also a lot of love in the time learning about “sugar bugs.” We also learned room this month. The children are blowing lots of how to categorize foods in terms of healthy and kisses to all the teachers as well as to Ms. Sue and unhealthy. We learned how to use a toothbrush and Mr. Jon. The children continue to love Music and how much toothpaste belongs on the brush. We had a French time. They are even getting some of the special guest come from the dentist office. She motions down to the songs! They also really enjoy showed us what a sugar bug looks like, how to get rid playing the instruments that they bring in! of it, and even explained that teeth are for chewing We have done a lot of art this month. Some of the food, not for biting our friends. memorable ones include a flower with handprints and We also celebrated the 100th day of school this footprints that also included a poem for Valentine’s month! It is hard to believe that 100 days have Day. We also made a heart out of our footprints and already gone by! On the 100th day of school, we did printed a dolie with our feet. We also made a tree that lots of fun activities that revolved around this theme. has hearts on it. Some of our favorite books this month include: “Because I Love You,” “Everyone Needs Love,” “Everyone Needs a Kiss,” “In My Our next full day of child care will be Friday, Heart,” “Missy says I Love You,” and “My Heart March 3 for Parent Teacher Conferences. The theme fills with Happiness.” will be Green/Clovers. The older children in the room have mastered the table and big friend chairs and are feeding themselves with a spoon. They are working on drinking out of Keep on the lookout toddler glasses and sippy cups; independence is big in our room right now. There is also a lot of walking for April! around the room right now, and we expect even more to come soon! Ms. Connie looks forward to visiting with all the parents during conference time. Parent Appreciation French News- Mr. Jon Thursday, April 6 In January, we have reviewed the important verbs 7:00 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. we had studied so far this schoolyear: etre (to be), avoir (to have), donner and prendre (to give and to take), vouloir (to want). To these we added the verb aller (to go) in several forms: je vais (I go or I am Skate City going), va (the command to go), nous allons (we go). Then we attached some new prepositions to our go Thursday, April 13 words: sur (on), sous (under), dans (in), devant (in 5:00 p.m. -7:00 p.m. front of), derriere (behind), entre (between). Once February rolled around, we started to learn the verb aimer (to like or to love). J'aime (I like or No School love) and je n'aime pas (I don't like or love) let us tell Child Care Open about things, food, animals, and people and our appreciation for them. Friday, April 14 and We have of course been continuing to review our Monday, April 17 colors, numbers, shapes, body parts, animals, food If your child will need care on either day, please be names, and even some furniture. sure to sign up in the front entry by April 5. Some new songs we added were Sur le Pont The theme will be “Spring Time.” d'Avignon (On the Avignon Bridge) and Le Fermier dans son Pre (The Farmer in the Dell). Books and skits reinforce the ideas we are learning by giving images to our vocabulary. Early Intervention Screening: We will continue with our student developmental screening. If you have not returned the release form but would like your child to be screened, please let Child Care News the Academy office know immediately. If you have We had only one full child care day in February, questions about the screening results, please feel free and it was a great one! It was fun to see all the to contact Jacey at 701-364-3965. children in their red, white, and blue! We have had more and more outside time as the weather has gotten nicer and nicer out. It was hard to remember that it was February with how nice the weather has gotten! We no longer have snow on the playground. For a Donations while, the snow was replaced with puddles of water, Thank you to which the children really enjoyed playing in. The Estevadeordal Family ~ Coats & Boots The Lindholm Family ~ Perler Beads The Anstette Family ~ Circle Table