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December 2019 Early Learning Center Where Families Connect to Learn, Grow and Play! Contact us at: www.bellevuecollege.edu/childcare 425-564-2240
Bellevue College does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, language, ethnicity, religion, veteran status, sex, sexual orienta-
tion, including gender identity or expression, disability, or age in its programs and activities. Please see policy 4150 at www.bellevuecollege.edu/
policies/. The following people have been designated to handle inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies: Title IX Coordinator,
425-564-2641, Office C227, and EEOC/504 Compliance Officer, 425-564-2178, Office R130.
December 2019
Dear ELC Families, As we wrap up Fall Quarter I look back on all the wonderful things that we have shared with the children and families: Parent Conferences— Sharing memorable
milestones and learning more about your child.
Hay Ride— BC grounds crew set up a tractor pulled trailer and treated the preschoolers to a fun morning with a hayride and then some hot cocoa to warm our bodies up.
ELC Fall Family Night— Sharing and visiting with families and teachers and eating some yummy spaghetti.
Japanese Teachers— Visiting and learning about the American way of preschool and sharing their culture with us.
I am happy to announce that we have New Teachers joining our team! Dee Sales has been working with Lisa-Ann in T2. Mackenzie Swenson will be teaching in the T-5 classroom with Delaney starting Dec. 9th. Our Assistant Teacher Wendy Wright has been promoted to a Lead Teacher in the infant room. Read more about their talents as well as the exciting activities that are going on in your child’s classroom. As we move into winter quarter, a reminder that in case of inclement weather the ELC will follow the closure status of Bellevue College. If the ELC closes due to the weather you can find out by calling the center, a recording will be on the ELC voicemail, you can check the BC website and watch the local news. Sign up for RAVE Alerts. (more info on pg. 3) We all have “break” calendars that are slightly different. However you spend the break you have, I hope you are safe, healthy and enjoying whatever time you have to share together.
Warmly, Lisa Director, ELC
Dates to Remember:
12/6/19 Early closure at
4:15pm Please be in the
building by 4:00 to pick up your child.
11/12—12/18/19 Preschool
Conferences Sign-up in the front
office
12/9/19 -1/1/20 Winter Break No BC Classes
12/24/19- 1/1/20 ELC CLOSED
1/2/2020 First Day of Winter Quarter ELC OPEN
December 2019
Introducing New Toddler Teachers: Dee Sales Hello ELC Families, I have had the privilege of teaching in the T2 classroom. I have been teaching in Montessori and Immersion class-rooms for the past 30 years and have a specialty in music for children ages infants – 6 yrs old. My music certifica-tions and sources are Musikgarten and Feierabend, which introduce simple folk songs and folk tales to encourage sharing in the early joys of singing and playing instru-ments. I also have a music studio in Bothell, WA. My Bachelor Degree is from the University of North Texas, with past residences in Texas, Arkansas, California (Monterrey and LA) and finally here in beautiful Seattle, Washington, where we have lived for the past 18 years. We are also a previous Air Force family. Our extended family resides from Montreal to Costa Rica, so we enjoy travelling to visit all of them. I am enjoying getting to know your children and the fami-lies of the ELC and the great teachers I get to work with daily. I’m looking forward to getting to know all of you!
Mackenzie Swenson
Dear Bellevue College, ELC Families, I am going to be teaching in the toddler room and I am de-lighted to be joining this amazing community. I’m originally from Spokane, Washington but lived in Indiana for 13 years where I earned my Bachelor degree in Early Childhood Education from Ball State University. I am so excited to be moving back to Washington where I can continue working with children and developing young minds! I look forward to meeting you all and creating lasting relationships with you and your children. A few of my favorite things: Favorite Color: Yellow Favorite Animal: Moose and English Bulldog Favorite Children’s Book: If You Give a Moose a Muffin and Chrysanthemum Favorite Hobbies: Hiking and reading Favorite Sport: Football (Go Seahawks!) Favorite Treat: Black Raspberry Chip Ice cream
December 2019
For the last three years I served as a teacher of infants and young toddlers at an Army Child Development Center where I earned a Child Development Associate credential. I recently moved back to my hometown of Issaquah to be near friends and family. I have been an assistant teacher at the ELC in the infant room for the past 3 months and have enjoyed every minute of it. I realize that everything infants and toddlers do is a learning experience, so it is my heartfelt desire to make a lasting contribution towards each child’s future learning success. My intention is to be here for a long time, so I look forward to getting to know all of you.
Introducing New Infant Teacher: Wendy Wright
If you do not have a Bellevue College e-mail address, you are not able to complete this process independently. There is a sign up at the ELC front desk so that we can submit this list to the College’s Public Safety office and they can add your information manually into the RAVE system.
December 2019
Infant 1 & 2 Teachers: Mahboobeh, Brian, Tiffany & Wendy
What's New in the Infant Room?
Mahboobeh - [email protected] *Brian - [email protected] Tiffany - [email protected]
Specialist for Infants and T1 : Linda Boyd
There is constant exploration and discovery going on in the infant rooms. We setup the environment so that the infants can safely investigate with new materials rotated in and out. This keeps up the discovery and interest of finding something new and different things in the classroom.
Sound discovery happens all the time as the children test different objects with slaps and claps to create different noises. The drum and xylophone are very popular instruments. For the fall season, we brought some gourds and a pumpkin into the classroom. This brings in some nature and science discovery (they are cleaned everyday). The children are constantly discovering their increased mobility and are always practicing, whether it be crawling through a tunnel, pulling themselves up into a standing position, or exploring around the playground. Come discover with us!
December 2019
What's New in the T-1 Classroom?
T-1 Teachers: Liliana, Marina & Wendy
Marina - [email protected] *Liliana - [email protected]
Specialist for Infant and T1 : Linda Boyd
We have been bringing more sensory activities in the classroom this month. We
set up the sensory table in the classroom and put in some fun objects for the
children to explore.
Recently, we put pinecones and leaves in the sensory table . The children used
shovels to scoop them up and drop them in the box. Some children stirred
leaves and others scooped them up and put them in a bowl. They grabbed
dried leaves with their hands and squished them to feel the crispness of the
leaves.
We noticed that the children enjoy pulling tape
and papers off the wall so we started an activity of peeling paper off the
wall. For this activity we attached contact paper to the wall, sticky side
facing out. The children stuck pieces of tissue paper to the contact
paper and then peeled it off of the sticky paper. It is amazing to see the
amount of concentration that sticking and peeling paper requires.
Well we provided the children with an opportunity to explore the stickiness of contact paper and the
texture of tissue paper it also encouraged the children to practice their hand-eye coordination and fine
motor skills.
December 2019
What have the T2 Toddlers been learning?
Teachers: Lisa-Ann, Dee & Joshua
Lisa-Ann - [email protected] & Dee - [email protected]
Specialist for Toddler Rooms: Vanessa Von Papp
We are enjoying the excitement of the Fall season! We have been exploring leaves: coloring them, crunching them, and observing the differences between leaves. We made a big leaf picture that we hung on the wall between our classroom wall trees. We even danced, “Dance of the Leaves” using scarves. The song musically depicts the wind blowing leaves off trees and onto the ground. We are very good at flowing with the music and lying still on the ground during the slow music. That’s pretty amazing since we do not move slowly or stay still very often!
We have been exploring rhythm scale and beat using: the glockenspiel, egg shakers and drums. We enjoy playing egg shakers with the beat of, “In the Docks” and the drum with mallets, to the “Drum Song” and “Rum, Tum, Tum”. Some of our favorite songs include: ”Five Little Pumpkins,” “Gobble, Gobble, Gobble” and “Monkey Hug”.
Our projects included a wonderful cooking/soup project (yum it was good), a leaf collage, and creating artwork with lines and circles and a place for our cars and trains to travel. Some students have noticed the shapes of the toy traffic signs and the circles and squares in our afternoon snack cereal.
Books we currently enjoy are about: bears habitats, teddy bears, blowing leaves, seeds and dinosaurs. We also enjoy: “Hands are
Not for Hitting”, and “Hooray for Hats” (books about making friends and social skills). We look forward to reading, talking and singing about cooking, families, shapes, monkeys and colorful spiders during December.
December 2019
Welcome friends and families! The children have been working on their social skills and language skills and showing progress as they learn how to interact with their friends and express their emotions. Some important phrases they have been using a lot are: “Are you done?” and “Can I have a turn?”
The children that have been in T3 have been showing their new friends how to pick up toys and where they go by matching the toy with the picture on the shelf. With this kind of mentorship it’s only taken two weeks for our new friends to learn how to clean up.
This month we cut open the pumpkin from our natural learning center. We let the children discover what was inside the pumpkin. We used words to describe the texture of the pumpkin and what they were feeling such as sticky and slimy.
For the month of December we plan to continue to use pumpkins for our cooking projects. We will be making pumpkin soup and pumpkin waffles. We will also continue to practice our language skills to ask for what we need, what we want and when we need help.
What have the T3 Toddlers been learning?
Teachers: Rita, Yen-Chiu & Joshua
Specialist for Toddler Rooms: Vanessa Von Papp
Rita - [email protected] *Yen-Chiu - [email protected]
December 2019
What have the T5 Toddlers Been Learning?
Specialist for Toddler Rooms: Vanessa Von Papp
Teachers: Delaney & Khazal
Delaney - [email protected]
We have been saying goodbye to friends moving on and hello to new friends joining our classroom. This transition has encouraged the children to practice their social skills by being gentle and kind with their friends. We have been working together on group projects, looking at pictures of friends and families, and building positive relationships with teachers and peers.
One of our favorite activities this month was investigating inside of our pumpkins. All of the children really enjoyed looking and feeling the contents of the pumpkin.
This month we also got a special visit from teachers who came all the way from Japan. They taught us some special songs, and brought us a new book to look at together. It was very interesting learning from these teachers, and sharing some of our own practices that we use here. In the coming month we will continue to practice our social emotional skills together as we welcome more new friends into our classroom. We are excited to see what the new month brings!
December 2019
What have the T6 Toddlers been learning?
Teachers: Diane & Zaira
Diane - [email protected] *Zaira - [email protected]
Specialist for Toddler Rooms: Vanessa Von Papp
This month the children showed interest in reading and listening to books during our daily story time. To extend this learning experience we decided to go and visit the ELC children’s library. All the children were ready to start a new adventure! In the library the children had the opportunity to explore in an environment created for them. They were able to chose and hold the different types of books. Some children decided to read their own books from the shelves while others listened to a story from the teacher. This experience gave us the opportunity to practice our literacy skills. These types of skills help children to prepare not only for success in reading and writing but also in social-emotional areas such as sharing stories with other classmates, choosing books they like and helping them to interpret the world around them. During our “creative experience” time we have in the classroom we manipulated different textures and used a variety of tools for painting and drawing. In this experience the children learn to identify colors and how to combine them to make other colors. They also learn how to stay in their space and respect the space of other classmates.
December 2019
What have the P4 Preschoolers been learning?
Teachers: Annie, Page & Naghmeh
Specialist 3 for Preschool Rooms: BreAna Garcia
The children enjoy listening to stories. They often applaud and giggle at happy stories, sniffle at sad ones, and shout “Read it, again!” whenever they have been delighted, intrigued, or charmed by a story. As a teacher, it’s important to extend that enthusiasm and to better connect children’s books with other areas of the curriculum. In November, we did story stretchers, using one of our favorite books “The Very Busy Spider”. We set
up a story table with the book, animal props, flannel board pieces, and puppets for the children to retell the story. After the teacher read the book a couple times, the children were encouraged to use the props, flannel pieces, or the puppets to retell the story. Also, a spider game was created for the children. In the game, the children the roll dice, count the number on it, move the spiders on the board, and recite the story at the same time. It was amazing to watch how the children engaged in these exciting learning activities. In December, we will start a new study unit, clothing. We will be exploring different kinds of clothing and where and how clothing is made. Also, we will continue working on one of our important self-help skills –zipping up our coat before going outside. At the same time, we will also be learning about animals that live in cold climates as winter is approaching.
Annie - [email protected] *Page - [email protected]
Family night was on November 1st. We had a great turn out. Six families showed up for the spaghetti
dinner and participated in the awesome art project.
November 13th &14
th, a group of Japanese
teachers came to visit our school. The teachers were so impressed that the children were singing
welcoming songs in different languages.
December 2019
What have the P3 Preschoolers been learning?
Teachers: Parisa, Wendy & Naghmeh
Parisa - [email protected] *Wendy - [email protected]
Specialist 3 for Preschool Rooms: BreAna Garcia
In November we were busy being scientist! Preschoolers truly enjoy investigating and discovering the world around them. As a class we made several hypothesis about our pumpkins and class garden. The children also had the opportunity to participate in our tree study, where we made applesauce and made predictions regarding what might happen to the apples when they were heated up.
For the month of December we will be focusing on our self-help skills. These skills will include, feeding, dressing, grooming, hygiene, and completing daily responsibilities. At this stage in development children have the motivation to be independent and do various tasks all by themselves.
Although these skills are already being implemented during our daily school schedule, as a class we will continue to practice our self-help skills. For instance, giving children the opportunity to serve themselves during mealtimes, utilize utensils appropriately, and work on being able to dress themselves.
One of our new goals/challenge for this month is for the children to practice zipping up their own coats. Self-help skills not only help children build their confidence but allow the children to experience a sense of accomplishment. We highly encourage parents to practice self-help skills with your children during the break. Start by creating daily responsibilities and routines that your child can do to help around the house.
December 2019
What has Pre-K 2 been learning?
Teachers: Mala, Donna & Margarita
Mala - [email protected] * Donna - [email protected]
Specialist 3 for Pre-k Rooms: BreAna Garcia
We began our month of November with parent involvement during our spaghetti night. It was wonderful to see so many parents exploring the classroom with their children. There was a lot of listening, talking, sharing and of course eating. The children in the classroom are emphasizing ‘being kind’ to everyone. We have been doing skits from our “Second Step” curriculum. One way of being
kind was to help each other and using kind words when talking to others.
We had visiting teachers from Japan who spent two whole days in our classroom. It was very interesting to have them visit and learn the art of origami paper creations from them. There is lot of literacy going on in the classroom right now. The children are practicing generating rhyming words and identifying beginning letter sounds.
The Pre-K classrooms walked to campus last Friday to participate in the “Hands Around the World” diversity parade. The children marched over to the cafeteria while making music with the instruments that we brought along with us for the parade. They participated in painting hand prints and got to see some ethnic artifacts from the “Americas”.
December 2019
What has Pre-K 1 been learning?
Teachers: Karen, Nadir & Margarita
Specialist 3 for Pre-k Rooms: BreAna Garcia
Karen - [email protected] * Nadir - [email protected]
This month we took full advantage of the Fall season. We went on nature walks to collect leaves, we created leaf creatures, and painted fall watercolor pictures. These activities helped us to practice our fine motor skills and demonstrated a positive approach to learning with our creative art work. We sang songs that gave us the opportunity to practice our letter sound recognition. We also used our scientific skills to explore a pumpkin with our 5 senses.
We would like to say thank you to all the families that joined us for the Hayride and the Fall Family Night Spaghetti Dinner. All P1 families play a valuable role in the success of our students so parental involvement is encouraged. It’s a team effort and we could not do this without you.
As winter approaches children are establishing and sustaining positive relationships by working, creating, and playing with one another. We will continue to provide opportunities for the children to express their thoughts and needs by having great discussions in our large group circle.
For social- emotional growth we will continue to work with the children using our “Second Step” curriculum to help them learn to regulate their own emotions and behaviors as well as recognize others feelings.
Please continue to practice these skills during the holiday break at home. In the January we will begin our focus on Kindergarten readiness and the first skill that we will be focusing on is following directions.
