LA-MVCC

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Los Altos -
Mountain View
Children's Corner

< > C h i l d r e n ' s   C o r n e r < >

JUNE NEWSLETTER

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Director's Corner

CALENDAR

JUNE

Saturday, 6/4 WorkDay, 9:00am-2:00pm

Tuesday, 6/7 Annual Meeting at Children’s Corner, 7:30-9:30pm

Wednesday, 6/8 Summer Picnic, 11:30am-12:30pm. Families Invited!

Monday, 6/13 - Friday, 6/24 Summer Session I, Circus/Carnival

Monday, 6/27 - Friday, 7/8 Summer Session II, Outdoor Adventure

Tuesday, 6/28 Board Meeting, 7:30-9:30pm

JULY

Monday, 7/4 Independence Day Holiday-School Closed

Monday, 7/11 - Friday, 7/22 Summer Session III, Outerspace Adventure

Saturday, 7/16 WorkDay, 9:00am-2:00pm

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WISH LIST

Children’s Corner would like some 12x12 pop-up canopies to use for shade in the playyards and at the Fall Festival.

Room 5 would like small dixie cups, fruits and crackers for snacks, and unusual household items for art activities.

Big 5’s would like 35mm film and fruit for snack. Room C would like white computer paper for drawing, fruits and vegetables for snack, all colors of construction paper, and 35mm film.

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Room 5 (Terrific 2s &3s) Update

The children have been busy, busy, busy continuing to develop new skills as they play. We teachers along with your children have experienced many joys and satisfactions to see each of them growing in different areas of development.

Some children have been busy balancing on the edge of the sand box while others are throwing and catching a ball with a friend or teacher. Some children are climbing for the first time to the top of our green climber and others are swinging on the monkey bars. All of these skills build their self-esteem.

During circle time, we have been reading books in Spanish and it's very rewarding to hear some of them during lunch time saying, "Teacher, I have a platano." (Spanish word for banana).

Summer is almost here which means lots of waterplay. Be sure your child has a labeled change of clothes in their cubbie each day. You are also welcome to bring sunscreen to school for a teacher to reapply if necessary.
A sincere thank you to all our parents who contributed to our wishlist.

Teachers Jan, Maria, Liz, Pauline & Hillary

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ROOM 6 (Thrilling 3s and 4s) Update

This is the time of year when we begin to see the skills the children have acquired. They are now able to come up with good ideas when problem solving with peers. Their language is becoming an even more important part of their development. Language supports peer interaction and helps sharing of ideas.

We have been working on strengthening speech and language in many ways. The teachers have been engaging children in conversations where we ask open ended questions. We do a lot of listening and sometimes we repeat what they have said to help them extend their conversations and express their thoughts and ideas.

Our room now has the wonderful aroma of sunscreen . Thank you for applying sunscreen before you come to school. If you would like the teachers to reapply sunscreen as needed, please bring in a labeled bottle and the teachers will be happy to reapply.

Please let the teachers know when your child will be out of school or on vacation so we can share your information with the children. Friends are missed when they aren’t here and this way we can talk about vacations and when friends will be back.

~Laura, Jeff, and Pauline

Room C (Fabulous 4s & 5s) Update

Welcome Spring! Warm weather equals lighter clothing and sunscreen. Please provide extra pants, shirts, and hats to ensure your child may participate in our outdoor curriculum. Our introduction to Spring themes help your children understand the seasonal changes we experience. We bring to their attention the outdoor environment, while enhancing vocabulary skills, visual awareness, and the wonderful new scents of Spring! Included in this theme are discussions about bugs, butterflies, and insects.

In addition, Room C has taken a walk to the mailbox! The children wrote letters, sealed the envelopes, and sent home a note from school. So much fun! The PM program plans a similar experience in the next few weeks.

Children continue to learn skills to support their kindergarten readiness. Following directions is an important task due to the structure required in kindergarten. We use that term to help all children understand and follow directions inside and outside of Room C. Another skills that is essential to learning is listening skills. We practice every day at school and suggest parent make time for these skills on a daily basis too. Not all children need additional support in these areas, however, those that do will strongly benefit from your consistency.

Art experiences continue to delight your children. They have learned about color blending and many different facts about primary colors and pastel colors. We also offer many opportunities for music and musical expression.

Days of the week, counting, the alphabet, cutting, and use of a pencil are also part of our daily curriculum. Children in Room C are progressing in language, articulation, communication, problem solving skills, and peer to peer cooperation.

Now for some thank yous. Thank you to Jonathan’s family for fruits, popcorn, watermelon, celery, crackers, and carrots, Brandon’s family for oranges, Kira’s family for bread and cookies, Cameron’s family for a Polaroid camera, film developing, cantaloupe, strawberries, and paper, Callums family for sand shovels, Roxanne’s family for art and craft materials, Alejandro’s family for raisins and paper, Karenna’s family for film developing, Sydney’s family for donut holes at the Maypole Celebration, Sarah S’s family for paper, Robert’s family for grapes, carrots, and envelopes, William’s family for muffins and corks, Amanda O’s family for containers of activity beads, Tristen’s family for envelopes, Blake’s family for film developing, Chad’s family for cookies, and Clarissa’s family for strawberries and crackers. WOW!

For those of you who haven’t seen her note in the classroom, after almost 7 years at Children’s Corner, Teacher Ada’s last day as a regular teacher in Room C will be Friday, June 10th. We will miss her.

Have a happy Spring!

Ada, Iris, Chris, and Lynn

P.S. Don’t forget to send in your family photo for our Family bulletin board.

Young Fives Update

Happy June! We would like to thank Collin and his family for the snickerdoodle cookies, Ainsley and her family for the banana bread, crispy peas, and baby goldfish, Theo and his family for the frog cookies, and Teacher Missy for the yogurt muffins and zucchini muffins.

May was a busy month for the Big 5s. The MayDay Picnic was a lot of fun-we especially enjoyed watching Ainsley and her mom dance! We celebrated Cinco de Mayo with a special snack of nachos, chips and salsa, and quesadillas. At circletime we danced the “Mexican Hat Dance” around a sombrero and ended our day with a pinata. We honored our moms with a Mother’s Day Tea Party. The children helped prepare the food, sang songs, and made special gifts for their moms.

Our themes for May included Earth Day/recycling, animals and pets, and artists Pierre Renoir and Marc Chagall. We leaned about the letters Yy-yancy yak, and Zz-zeke the zebra.

In June we will review our letters and numbers. We will also learn about artist Frank Lloyd Wright and begin our summer themes. We are looking forward to a “sun” filled June.

~Teachers Gini, Josette, and Sharon

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Director's Corner

T. Berry Brazelton, M.D. said, “Every parent and every child should read this book to each other.” He was speaking about Marion Wright Edelman’s book, The Measure of Our Success - A Letter to My Children and Yours. Edelman wrote part of this book as a letter to her three sons when her oldest son turned 21 and she wanted to give them something as they entered adulthood. She felt that there are “some enduring spiritual, family, community, and national values and lessons that we need to rediscover”. The book includes the chapter entitled “Letter to my Sons” which includes twenty-five lessons life taught Edelman. She wanted her children to know her values. Although she wrote the book for her sons, she also wrote it out of concern for America’s future, stating, “The greatest threat to our national security and future comes from no external enemy but from the enemy within-in our loss of strong, moral, family, and community values and support.”

The twenty-five lessons for life she included are:

1. There is no free lunch. Don’t feel entitled to anything you don’t sweat and struggle for. We need to teach our children by example-not to be lazy, to pay attention to detail, to take care and pride in their work, and to be reliable.

2. Set goals and work quietly and systematically toward them.

3. Assign yourself. Don’t wait around for someone to tell you what to do. Don’t do just as little as you can to get by. Hard work, initiative, and persistence are still the “non- magic carpets to success”.

4. Never work just for the money or for the power. They won’t save your soul or build a decent family or help you sleep at night. Don’t condone moral corruption. Don’t confuse legality with morality or fairness.

5. Don’t be afraid of failing. It’s the way you learn to do things right.

6. Take parenting and family life seriously and insist that those you work for and who represent you do. Edelman agreed with Barbara Bush when she said, “I would rather be remembered well by my children for shared times together than for any thousand awards or career success.” I agree whole heartedly!! As my children get older, I wonder where the time went and realize how short a period of time we really have to be with them and train them to be the kind of adults we’d like to have more of in our society.

7. Remember your wife is not your mother or your maid, but your partner and friend. For daughters, consider substituting the words husband, father, and boss. Hopefully parents do not have different expectations for girls and boys but rather encourage each to reach the limits of their capacities and put them to useful service.

8. Forming families is serious business. Parenting is not only a large economic commitment (the cost of raising a child to age 18 is $114,000 not including inflation or saving for college) but also an emotional and personal commitment. The consequences of thousands of children being cared for away from their families in addition to children who have been emotionally abandoned for work, money, or personal pleasure, and those whose parents are stressed by joblessness, homelessness, or other family tragedies are just being realized. How many children are turning to drugs, gangs, cults, sex too early, or their peers to find what they cannot find at home?

9. Be honest. Remember you are models to your children.

10. Remember, and help America remember, that the fellowship of human beings is more important than the fellowship of race and class and gender in a democratic society. Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, “We are not all equally guilty but we are all equally responsible.”

11. Don’t sell the shadow for the substance. We all need to keep our personal priorities straight.

12. Never give up.

13. Be confident that you can make a difference.

14. Don’t ever stop learning and improving your mind.

15. Don’t be afraid of hard work or of teaching your children to work. Too many children are growing up without a strong work ethic. Previous generations of children stayed out of trouble because they had to help out at home and in the community and had less time to get into trouble.

16. Slow down and live.

17. Choose your friends carefully.

18. Be a can-do, will-try person.

19. Try to live in the present. Don’t carry around unnecessary burdens from a yesterday you will not live again, or a tomorrow that is not guaranteed.

20. Use your political and economic power for the community and others less fortunate. Vote and hold those for whom you vote accountable.

21. Listen for “the sound of the genuine” within yourself and others. Meditate and learn to be alone without being lonely. There are so many competing demands in our lives that many never discover who they are.

22. You are in charge of your own attitude. Gandhi said, “As human being our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world-that is the myth of ‘Atomic Age’-as in being able to remake ourselves.”

23. Remember your roots, your history, and your forebears’ shoulders on which you stand. Pass these roots on to your children.

24. Be reliable. Be faithful. Finish what you start.

25. Always remember that you are never alone. In a 1951 sermon, Edelman’s father preached, “Parents for today’s children must at all costs maintain a home, a center of love for their nurturing and security. The pressure of our high-powered civilization is too much for a homeless and loveless child. The growing tragedy of our time is the increasing broken homes. The home that should be the strongest link in education is rapidly becoming the weakest. Nothing must separate parents from their duty to their children.” This is true today.

I hope that this article has peaked your interest and that you will read the book. It truly is inspiring. It gets one thinking about the parenting role, the type of adult we want our children to become, and how we as parents and teachers are going to help them get there.

~Gini

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LA-MVCC
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