Huckleberry Cheesecake Newsletter, 8/10/07

The real reason for this blog -- to have an easy way of posting these Huck newsletters -- and I'm tragically behind in getting them live. Apologies. Rest assured that Lily is learning up a storm in school, each week something new and totally adorable.

Last week was for the birds. This week camping. Yea gads. I hope she's not actually inspired enough to, gasp, want to GO camping; this city slicker doesn't "do" camping!

Dear Strawberry Parents,

The weather this week was for the birds, but our ornithologists kept busy indoors learning about our fine feathered friends. We were keen on doing literature based activites with five fabulous books, Five Little Ducks, Little Red Hen, Lift the Flap Chick, The Little Duck and What is a Bird? For fun, the gaggle of Strawberries pretended to be ducks as they waddled and quacked during dramatic play and splashed in the water table with rubber ducks and penguins. Ask your Strawberry about the the bird that took flight in our classroom!

All the Strawberries flocked around the art table to make crafty creations. It wouldn't be arts and crafts without making the classic birdfeeder. Our craft sticks were smothered with honey and sprinkled with seeds for your backyard birds to enjoy. Feather painting was a unique and fun art medium that we experienced. Some other fun art created were decorating ducks with yellow feathers and yellow chicks hatched from toilet paper rolls.

Our brain development activities were nothing to squawk at this week. The Strawberries were showing off their feathers as they practiced color/number duck match, learning the concept of half and whole by matching one half of an egg with it's mate, and learning the words male and female and distinguishing the differences between them. The class also played a memory game by matching different colored feathers and even worked on sequencing with the ever popular question- which came first, the chicken or the egg? The Strawberries were very helpful in making a list of bird characteristics and were very interested in the stages of an egg hatching.

Next week's theme will have us learning all about CAMPING! We'd love to hear what your family does when you go camping, and we'd love to see any camping photos you might have from previous vacations. Thanks!

Have a great weekend-
All the best,
The Strawberry Teachers