Today is the day…

…the Teddy Bears have their picnic!

This week at The House we introduce, Teddy Bear Picnic!

Here’s what it looked like…

Bear inspired art:

“The simple bear necessities…forget about your worries and your strife…”

We even had a very special visitor come to The House to join in on the fun…

And when the dance party was over and the bears returned to hibernation, we enjoyed a visit from Safari Science, where we saw Bill Nye inspired experiments come to life.

Now, let’s move like that dancing Teddy Bear into the weekend!

Enjoy 🙂

The Chartwell House.

“We’re going on a LION hunt!”

It may have been a short week at the House, but it was a ROARing good time! All classrooms, were all about all things SAFARI!

Let’s take a closer look…starting with the youngest of the House.

Where they explored the safari animals, took their art outdoors, found a pig? and got their free-hand colouring on…

The Senior Toddler’s took advantage of the summer breeze, bringing the safari outdoors…story time with Ms. Kaur, art under the trees, and tee time with a bunch of animals…

Uh oh! A gate? We can’t go under it, we can’t go through it! Oh no! We have to go over it!  Over the gate and into Preschool we go, where they too were all about LIONS and TIGERS and…pandas?

Out in the yard, the Preschoolers dipped the Safari Animal’s feet into paint to then stomp them across paper leaving their tracks behind.

The Small World table was set up inviting the Preschool children to play and explore the jungle. Small World play is when a scene is set up allowing the children to play, explore and discover. The idea is for the children to act out real-life stories, and adventures while at play.

Not only did the Preschool class go on a lion hunt, they took a trip on their rocket ships too! Where the children’s interests go, the teachers follow. And so, they went from going on safari to walking on the moon.

Zoom Zoom Zoom we’re going to the Kinder classroom!

Where the safari took place in the sensory bin…

Tigers, and Hippos, and Macaws…were made by the hand’s of the Kinders.

What do you call an elephant in a safari truck?…..Stuck.

Here is another joke for you all and this one is brought to you by one of the Kinders themselves:

“Knock knock!”
“Who’s there?”
“Lion!”
“Lion who?”
“Li-ON your bed it’s time to sleep!”

HA!

When it’s an inferno outside and we are indoors….this is what the older of the House got up to…

The week has come to an end…and do you know what we see?

The weekend.

Enjoy it 🙂

The Chartwell House.

The livin’ is easy!

They say a photo says a thousand words…This week I am going to let the photos do the work!

We will start upstairs with the youngest of the House:

Moving into the Senior Toddler Classroom:

Both toddler classrooms took to the front yard during their Monkeynastix visit:

To Preschool we go:

And last but not least here is Senior Preschool indoors:

And when you bring the indoor programming outdoors:

Speaking of outdoors…it’s the first day of summer and the sun is shining so I am signing off and getting outside!

Enjoy the sunshine!

The Chartwell House.

Seven days till SUMMER!

Suns out. It’s Friday. And the Toronto Raptors are the CHAMPS!

It’s a good day to be a good day!

Now let’s see what our little sports fans got up to this week…

1st Quarter: Toddler One

A lot of Movin’&Groovin’ was happening when Ms. J brought the young’ins to the front yard. When the parachute comes out, it’s all smiles! They did not want to work, they just wanted to bang on the drums all day!

When back indoors, the Toddler One classroom got their dino stomp on! The sound of the pop, and the feel of the bubbles on their feet made this experience all sensory.

When they weren’t busy with their feet, they put their hands to work…

From using the bingo dabbers, to playing in the sand.

2nd Quarter: Toddler Two

When you’re two, you’re constantly on the go….and so, Toddler Two explored all things that go, go and go!

From boats to school buses, to seeing what items roll down the ramp, the Senior Toddler’s liked to move it, move it this week. They got creative with creative, zooming the cars through the paint to create colourful tracks behind.

Half time:

With a break from the books, the House enjoyed Suzie and Meditating Munchkins visiting this week.

And with another school year coming to an end, Madame S wrapped up her French Fridays with each child receiving their French Certificate! Merci Madame S!

And back to the game!

3rd Quarter: Preschool

Inspired by the Champs, Preschool made their very own Jurassic Park…

With the loose parts, the Preschoolers worked on their shape recognition.

And they had a closer look at the seashells Ms. Bowyer brought back from Florida too!

Go fish! In bird seed! The Preschoolers used fishing sticks with a magnet at the end of the line to very carefully pick up the items they could catch! Hand-eye coordination and patience were big in this quarter!

One minute it’s a basket full of cups, the next…it’s a masterpiece! The focus, the time, the gentle touch of placing one cup on top of another, and the placement was all done in a room of 24 children…when you’re game focused, anything can happen!

4th quarter: Senior Preschool

The Senior Preschoolers are just months away from heading into JK, and to prep them…they’ve been working on:

Their writing and drawing, letter recognition and scissor skills:

Their fine-motor and hand-eye:

And their outdoor skills too…of course:

Well…that’s a RAP!

We would like to wish all the Father’s out there a very Happy Father’s Day for this Sunday! From us to you, CHEERS!

Until next week…

The Chartwell House.

 

 

Sun + the Raptors 👌

Nothing like taking advantage of the sunshine…

It was a busy house this week, we had Ms. Heather doing Monkeynastix on the front yard with the Toddlers, Mr. McCoy put the Preschool children to work during Karate, Ms. Sara stretched us out for a very relaxing Yoga session, and to end the week Madame S took to the outdoors for French Friday!

First up: Toddler One. The youngest of the House focused on all things under the sea…darling it’s better, down where it’s wetter, take it from me!

Next up: The Senior Toddlers.

Fine motor skill (or dexterity) is the coordination of small muscles, in movements—usually involving the synchronization of hands and fingers—with the eyes.

It may just look like play, but there is more to putting a puzzle together, pushing and pulling and popping using their little fingers to manipulate the materials. Working on fine motor skills help children build and strengthen their small muscles in their hands that will help them perform tasks such as, feeding themselves, grasping toys, buttoning and zipping clothes, writing, drawing, and more.

They continued to work on and strengthen those skills when grasping a pinecone to paint and create…

When the temperatures finally rise, the focus on ice-cream rises too! The Preschool classroom has shown an interest in scooping their favourite flavoured ice-cream for their friends and teachers too. Two scoops of chocolate mint please!

Ice-cream, and….dinosaurs? That’s right the Preschool class has also been interested in the ones who roamed Earth many, many, many years ago.

Those fine motor skills I mentioned earlier…the Senior’s of the House have definitely been working on theirs…

Go RAPS Go!

The Senior’s were very careful when using the scissors to practice, and work on their cutting skills…when the tongue comes out, you know they are focused!

Something else the Senior’s were attracted to this week? Magnets.

And something we are all attracted to? The weekend. And it’s here!!

The Chartwell House.

Go RAPS Go

It was short, but the week at The House was sweet!

Both Toddler classrooms enjoyed Monkeynastix on the front yard under the sunshine.

While the older classes had karate indoors with Mr. McCoy where they stretched it out and gave it a go!

The stretching continued with Ms. Sara during Yay Yoga!

And Madame S brought it back outdoors for French, where they were learning all things Beach related!

Now let’s see what happened in the classrooms….

The Toddler One classroom worked their fine motor skills this week – while colouring using their pincer grasps, when putting Mr. Potato Head back together, and when working together to create a bridge for their cars.

They also were challenged when it came to finding and matching the right block to the shape on the paper, at the same time working on their colour recognition and patterning skills.

Along with the fine-motor, and patterning skills, the youngest of the House worked on a few self-help skills too. A big interest in putting on their own shoes has swept over the Toddler One class. The results….they are getting very close!

Across the way in Toddler Two, the Senior Todd’s got their creativity on….where they painted recycled paper towel rolls that later transformed into snakes, and used plates and tissue paper to create turtles.

When they weren’t getting their creativity on, they were working their letter recognition using the letter blocks to do so.

Down in the Preschool room, a new Tuff tray arrived and all it took was a few water beads to soak up the Preschooler’s attention.

The best way for a child to express themselves, is to let them choose their own experience and when it comes to art, it’s to provide enough open-ended materials that the children are able to choose from to create their very own master piece. When the children have the choice, it builds character, confidence, and creativity!

The same goes for Loose Parts, providing children with open-ended materials allows them to explore and ignite their imaginations. Using cubes to create patterns, and wood cookies to stack to build a tower….let them explore!

The Seniors also worked with magnets, learning the positive and negatives of it all.

And they dipped and dabbed with sponge painting.

 Now it’s time we dip into the weekend! Happy Friday 🙂

The Chartwell House.

 

Now that Spring is in the air…

We took to the outdoors…

Some of us even took advantage of the weather during “M is for Music,” and French too. Along with Ms. Rachelle, and Madame S, we we had Suzie and Ms. J visit the House too!

When we weren’t banging on the drums, we were at work!

The Toddler One classroom worked on and focused on colours this week…mixing, matching and sorting the colours together. As they mixed, matched, and sorted they are learning their colours, and get to see what happens when two colours mix together!

They worked on their fine motor skills when peeling, placing, and sticking the stickers on to the paper, and worked them a little bit harder when they realized they wanted to remove the stickers from the paper to take them home with them instead.

The Toddler Two kept their fine motor skills tuned too while painting, and colouring caterpillars, and using that pincer grasp when free drawing.

From the Toddler district to the Preschool classroom we shell go.

Where there has been a lot of things GROWING on…way back in March the Preschoolers took on the Avocado challenge and with a lot of patience, and wonder…growth has begun!

With Spring in the air, and worms in the soil, the Preschool classroom continues to have interest in gardening and all things related.

And after spotting a frog in the Preschool yard, they dove in a little bit further and explored pond life…

With fresh playdough in the room, they kneaded to work with it….and so they rolled the dough, and then with a little help from a friend, they worked on their name recognition and turned the pieces of dough into something a little bit more familiar.

We’ll exit the main house, and move into the Coach House, where the Senior’s of the House have been working on their patterning skills.

Their writing skills…

And some self-help skills too!

The Senior’s art came from inspiration from the outdoors….see below as they do a little painting with “worms!”

Speaking of worms….we had quite a few book worms in the House when the Toddlers and Senior’s got together for their Reading Buddy meet up. How cute is this?

La Fin.

The week has come to an end, and the weekend is here! And it’s a long one! We hope you all enjoy yours.

The Chartwell House.