Toddle Towne

Beginners: Oh what fun to pretend to be a grownup!  All of our centers will be filled with activities relating to Valentine’s Day and occupations.  In the Music Center, we will sing “Johnny Works with One Hammer” while pounding rhythm instruments, in the Language Center we will sort valentines by color and match pictures of community helpers, in Dramatic Play Center we will wear worker hats and use pretend tools and practice wrapping and rocking the baby and folding the laundry.  In the Gross Motor Center, we will jump over the rungs of a ladder lying on the floor and we will be bricklayers constructing a wall we can hide behind in the Block Area.

• February 1 – 5 – We will celebrate Groundhog Day by practice being in and out of the ground hog’s hole. To commemorate the fact that our little ones will be the future working hands of America, they will create a large collage of their handprints in red, white, and blue.   Weather permitting, they will take the wagon for a walk and pick up trash on the playground and in the neighborhood
• February 8 – 12 – Valentine’s Day provides the inspiration for this week’s activities. Children will make valentine holders to exchange valentines and make a collage heart by cutting and pasting snips of red and pink paper. They will work on the math concept of one or many by picking just one heart from the basket.  Children will play cupid as they attempt to hit a heart target with a ball
• February 15 – 19 – Children will develop fine motor skills as they match lids to jars and screw on the tops.  Using real items and pictures, children will identify community helpers and their tools and pick ones that are alike and different. Children will have a wonderfully messy time making a beautiful design by hitting blobs or thick paint with a hammer and splashing blobs of thick paint all over the paper.
• February 22 – 26 – A major task for young children is learning to share! They will work together to ice cookies, one to share with a friend at school, and one to take home to share with a parent or sibling. Community helper tools will be put to new uses as we paint with toothbrush, keys, pliers, and potato mashers.

Work is a large part of every family’s life experience.  We will celebrate each of you as a “Community Helper” becoming more familiar with what you do and the rewards that are purchased with the paychecks of hard-working moms and dad.  The children will be setting up their own Post Office in the Dramatic Play area so they can pretend to go to work.  Be sure to fill in the “homework” sheet (ask if you didn’t get one) telling us if you are a maker or a doer, wear street clothes or uniform, and like or dislike your job.  Each week we will sort, graph, count, and compare the cut-outs in each category.  Don’t forget to send us a picture of you at work for class-made books and displays and something you use at work for our Community Helper Museum.

• February 1 – 5 – Do you make a product or provide a service?  That’s the question we will ask as we sort, graph, and count our parent cut-outs this week.  The children will make and send Valentines of appreciation to city officials and utility companies and police and fire departments as we recognize the services they provide to us.  Don’t forget to start signing valentines for next week’s exchange.
• February 8 – 12 – It’s a Valentine party all week long!  Parents may bring in nutritious Food Group Snacks (dairy on Monday, grain on Tuesday, fruit on Wednesday, Vegetables on Thursday, and Meat on Friday).  Children will make Valentine Bags, make and send valentines to their grandparents, and bring in valentines for their friends throughout this week.  We will sort, graph, count, and compare the colors in a handful of valentine hearts.
• February 15 – 19 – The children will bake Cherry Thumbprint Cookies and make a Lincoln penny necklace as they talk about past and present presidents.  Whether you like or dislike your job will be our criteria for sorting parent cut-outs this week.  Curling, cutting, and crimping paper strips will be lots of fun as pretend to be barbers and beauticians creating paper hairdos.
• February 22 – 26 – We will create a masterpiece of art with what we find in the trash can as we investigate the responsibilities of the sanitation workers and make potato prints as we talk about food service workers.  Sorting of parent cut-outs this week will be based on what you wear to work and throughout the week children will use the tools of their parents as Show and Tell.

Lots of relaxing but productive activities have been planned for school-age children this month.  On any days that we can get outside, we will make Sidewalk Shadows, an outline of the youngster which can be colored in with chalk to make them into the community helper of their choice.  Kids will have lots of opportunities to make and exchange valentines with friends, families, and community members.

• February 1 – 5 – The Groundhog will be looking for his shadow and we have lots of shadow related activities planned too.  We will make and cut out silhouettes and try to identify children by their shadows.  With Valentine’s Day coming soon, children will be encouraged to write and illustrate a list or book of people and things they love.
• February 8 – 12 – Magnets attract some metals and all children.  What fun to have tubs of magnets to explore and nuts, bolts, and other junk to test and sort.  We’ll have a contest to see who can attach the most paper clips to a magnet.  Children will experiment with different textures to make heart rubbings, and make and send valentines to city workers.  Children will discuss all the advantages of their lives including hard-working parents as they write and illustrate “Thank You Books”.
• February 15 – 19 –  Just in case we have any aspiring Furniture Movers, we will provide tape measures and yardsticks so children can measure furniture and possible placement spaces to see if we can fit the furniture in any nook or cranny.  Children will experiment with mixing white and colored paint to make gradations of color and then use potato prints to make a border of sequenced color patterns.  In honor of President’s Day, we will encourage to imagine and record what they would do if they were elected president.
• February 22 – 16 –  Here is a math challenge for you. . .how many times in your life has your heartbeat?  Well, we will count our pulse for 1 minute, multiply times 60 to get the number of beats in an hour, then multiply that times 24 to get the number of beats in a day, then multiply that times the number of days we have been alive.  WOW!  Okay – we may cheat a little and use calculators.  We will create our own shapes and shadows by cutting and pasting black and white paper and see how many words we can find on Valentine’s Day, or President’s Day, or Ground Hog’s Day.  Give it a try and let us know if you found words we didn’t

Each classroom will be staffed with two qualified staff member, one working the early shift and one working the late shift which would have two qualified staff members available for each room during the majority of the day and ensure that we have extra staff available to cover all of the new arrival and departure rules, vacations and absences.

The maximum group sizes are half to one-quarter of what they were before with twice as much staff so there will be plenty of time and staff available to ensure we are adhering to the strictest sanitation protocols and that we can spread out to keep a safe distance between the children.

Parents can take comfort knowing TTLC has always made sanitation a top priority in accordance with DCFS standards, but we have stepped up our efforts to meet the challenge of COVID 19. Every classroom will be sanitized thoroughly prior to opening every day and at least once each morning, during naptime, again each afternoon, and once more prior to closing each day. Playground equipment will be thoroughly sanitized after every use. 

Surfaces such as doorknobs, light switches, countertops toys, phones, keyboards, computer mouse, and other items identified as frequently handled will be thoroughly sanitized repeatedly throughout the day. Whenever possible sanitizing will be done when the children are not present.

In all of the planning and preparation required to meet the new State requirements, our directors and teachers kept our standard of “Kids learning while they play, and playing while they learn” as a top priority. This is an unsettled time for young children and we’ve made it our goal to ease that stress as much as possible.

Working closely with our state representatives, we are re-establishing routines where possible while staying flexible to meet ever-changing requirements as they are released. Your patience and cooperation are greatly appreciated as adjustments are made. Working together we will keep our children safe and happy.