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Click the Gourmet Gorilla logo above to be directed to their website.
Did you know they cater for children special occasions and birthday parties and to elementary schools! |
 Quick Reminders
The center will be closed on the following days during the month of November:
Thursday, November 26th (Thanksgiving) &
Friday, November 27th (day after) |
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if you have not already! | |
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Greetings!
We have a new look for our newsletter! We hope you enjoy the ease of receiving this newsletter and other communications from the Little Green Tree House!
Please, feel free to safely forward this to all of your friends and family by using the link at the bottom of this email.
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Friday, October 30 was a rainy and mysterious day at the Little Green Tree House when all first arrived. Gizmo, the school's mascot, had a witch riding his back and welcomed the children as they came in the morning. Hmm... what was coming next the little ones thought? As the day progressed small changes throughout the day appeared and the clock clicked closer to 3:00pm!
Halloween arrived a bit early for our Little Green Tree House troops, and boy were they in for a big surprise! The clock struck 3:30pm and all of a sudden we had pre- historic dinosaurs, pirates, princesses, pumpkins, and a cowboy, just to name a few. All of the children paraded throughout the school to either receive a trick-or-treat. The parents snapped photos to their delight and teachers showcased their room of cuteness for all.
As the parading concluded, all of the children returned to their rooms to enjoy the yummy organic candy and the company of their friends and family. This Halloween was sure to be a treat!
It was truly a fun day for all. LGTH's first Halloween party was nothing short of a success. All of the staff from LGTH would like to give a special thanks to all the parents for participating in this fun event. We had an abundance of delicious snacks for all to enjoy and a lot of cute kids in costumes thanks to our families. Thanks for making our first party a blast! It is just the first of many celebrations we look forward to having here at the Little Green Tree House.
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Developmental Milestones Six Weeks to Three Months
Sarah Stiltner, Interim Assistant Director of Education
Even when your child is as young as a newborn, they are learning so much and adapting to their new world. While your child is in our care, the teachers are continuously working to reach developmental milestones by stimulating them with age appropriate activities. Here, at Little Green Tree House, we focus on five areas of development including physical, language/communication, cognitive, social, and emotional development. Below are examples of developmental milestones for children six weeks to three months.
Physical Development:
· Acts reflexively, sucking, stepping when held upright on solid surface, grasps (holds finger)
· Holds head erect and steady at almost a 45 degree angle when lying on their stomach on the floor
· Lifts head and shoulder
· Is able to follow a moving object with their eyes
Language and Communication Development
· Communicates with cries, grunts and facial expressions
· Laughs
· Coos
· Smiles
· Vocal response and facial expressions to familiar voices
Cognitive Development
· Is starting to recognize people from a distance
· Searches for sources of sounds with their eyes
· Exhibits crying when in need of something
· Enjoys looking at patterned objects like stripes, bulls-eyes, and the faces of others
· Imitates adult's facial expressions
· Discovered and repeats bodily actions such as sucking, swiping, and grasping
· Discovered hands and feet as an extension of self
Social Development
· Begins to develop a social smile
· Is able to turn head towards the sound of a speaking voice
· Recognizes their caregiver
· Bonds with their caregiver
· Finds comfort in the human face
· Is calmed/quieted by a human's voice
· Enjoys playing with others and may cry when playing stops
Emotional Development
· Expresses three emotions: interest, distress and disgust
· Cries to signal a need
· Quiets in response to being held (most of the time)
· Exhibits a social smile, expresses enjoyment/happiness
· Begins to self-regulate emotional expressions
· Laughs
· Calms/Quiets themselves by sucking a thumb or pacifier
If you have any concerns regarding your child reaching age appropriate milestones, please talk to your child's teacher. Also, communicate with your child's teacher on different ways to stimulate their developmental growth.
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Ms. Annie, Lead Teacher, Infant Bonsai Room
Goals: To expose our students to all of the wonderful aspects of autumn while engaging in activities that advance physical, cognitive and social development.
Classroom Modifications/Activity Plans: We will be exchanging some of our "Rhyme Time" toys and books for some fall themed books, arts-and-crafts and sensory stations. We hope to build and paint a huge (not Bonsai) classroom tree made with our student painted tree trunk and student collected leaves. We will be painting pumpkins, which will be displayed throughout our room. We will also be introducing two bins full of leaves (collected by your children) to our classroom--one bin with water and leaves and one with just leaves.
*When we go out to collect leaves, we will bring wipes to clean off our students hands right after we are finished collecting. When we let them crunch the leaves in the bin, we will not let them put their hands in their mouths, and we will wash their hands right after. :)*
Songs: We will be continuing band practice as always, but with an autumn theme. Here are some songs that we will be singing in our classroom. As a home extension, please feel free to sing these songs at home! By singing the songs at home and in the classroom, we are supporting basic recognition abilities and the maturity of short-term and long-term memory.
"Falling Leaves"
Little leaves are falling down. (wiggle fingers downward)
Red, yellow, orange and brown.
Whirling, twirling round and round (while doing the sign for "wind/blowing")
Falling softly to the ground (wiggle fingers to the ground)
"Little Red Apple"
A little red apple grew high in a tree. (point up-to a tree if one is around)
I looked at it. (shade eyes and look up)
It looked down at me (look down)
"Come down, please," I said. (use hand to motion downward)
And that little apple fell right on my head! (tap top of head)
"The Pumpkins are Here"
(sung to: "The Farmer in the Dell")
The pumpkins are here, the pumpkins are there. The pumpkins, the pumpkins are everywhere.
The pumpkins are up; the pumpkins are down. The pumpkins, the pumpkins are all around.
The pumpkins are in; the pumpkins are out. The pumpkins, the pumpkins are all about.
The pumpkins are low; the pumpkins are high. The pumpkins, the pumpkins all say, "Good-bye".
We will cut out pumpkin shapes and glue to popsicle sticks. As you sing that the pumpkin is up and down, make the popsicle stick pumpkin move up and down.
Developmental Profile: Our activities for the next two weeks include: painting, collecting leaves in the park, crunching leaves in a bin (dry and with water), learning new signs and singing fall-themed songs with movements incorporated.
Through painting and experiencing our "bins with leaves", the children will be advancing their sensory systems. By feeling cool smooth paint and the crunch and crumble of the dry/wet leaves, we will continue to encourage communication between our brains and our bodies. This will aide the development of our somatosensory system: A part of the central nervous system responsible for touch. As mentioned in a prior lesson plan, touching is incredibly important and determines the development of our somatosensory system. It helps mold later tactile sensitivity, motor skills and aides in the understanding of their physical world and gives them a basic bodily map (proprioception). Through electrical signals called "action potentials" we are encouraging our brains to communicate with our bodies. The somatosensory cortex, or the "touch center" is the landing zone for sensations such as "crumbly" and "dry"--this enables us to have a conscious perception of what is felt. In a highly enriched environment full of tactile stimulation, our somatosensory cortex will grow thicker. If we take away this stimulation, our cortex can shrink-so the physical evidence is clearly promoting the importance of tactile stimulation.
Our physical development will be constantly challenged through learning new signs, singing songs with choreography, with the act of collecting the leaves and by reaching out to crunch and crumble them in our bins (exciting our auditory and sensory systems).
For example, the signs we will be focusing on this week are "wind/blowing", "squirrel", "apple" and "tree" (which will be pictured on the lesson plan posted in the classroom). Each sign promotes either gross or fine motor skills, with "wind" and "tree" focusing on larger muscles or "gross motor skills", and "squirrel/chipmunk" and "apple" focusing on coordinating our smaller muscles or "fine motor skills".
Learning new songs and signs, along with naming and labeling new objects will also ignite our students' cognitive development. By encouraging gestures and preverbal communication, we can help foster the development of higher cognitive levels. We learn to think by talking to ourselves using words (auditory) and building pictures in our minds (visual). Because thinking occurs in the form of pictures and words, it is most beneficial to teach names and labels by pointing things out in our environment. Naming objects as you point them out is called, "auditory-visual association", and helps children focus their attention, as well as aiding further development of vocabulary and language. Remember, even before children can articulate words themselves, they can accurately identify objects in their environment.
Annie Streitmarter credentials include: is working on a Masters Degree from Erickson Institute with a concentration of Child Development, has completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the Univeristy of Arizona with a major in Psychology and minor in Thematic as well as, an internship in Play Therapy Practice. |
 Eco-Friendly TipElizabeth Geldhof, Director of Business Opertions
Q: Are Micro Fibers clothes truly eco-friendly and do they work?
A: Microfiber cloths are eco-friendly because they reduce water usage (both while cleaning and in avoided laundry loads), the use of cleaning products and the use of paper towels or other disposables, and they thoroughly remove dust, allergens, and bacteria. All you need is a little water to dampen for great results! No harsh chemicals needed. They also have a very long life span if you buy a high quality microfiber. The microfibers I use are durable (2,000 wear cycles), have a high "scrub" factor (#36 abrasiveness), can last for 1,000 wash cycles, and have a 14,000 ml/m absorbency. A thousand wash cycles is a lot of cleaning, over a lot of years! They certainly last a lot longer than traditional rags and mops; one study found a microfiber mop to have a lifespan 10 times that of a traditional mop!
I have them all over, in my car, at school, in my home and garage. Use them, rinse and wash - I don't suggest drying them in the dryer, just lay flat or hang over a chair back.
Microfiber clothes are available at many stores. just look near the paper towels and you may just find some. Give them a try, you may be hooked as I am. | |
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In closing:
We give thanks to all of our outstanding parents and children during this holiday.
We hope you have a joyful holiday with friends and family!
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Geldhof and all of the
Little Green Tree House staff!
312-492-9876
Center normal business hours are Monday - Friday
7:00am - 6:00pm
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