A Reminder About MCA's Health/Illness Policy:
The season for colds and flu is upon us. Please take a moment to review our Health/Illness policies below!
Ill children need to stay at home to prevent exposure to other children and adults at school and to let children rest. Micah Children’s Academy illness policy is based on the Model Health Care Policies developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. If the symptoms below are noted, we will call you to come and get your child. Children will be excluded from attending preschool for the following reasons (this list covers the most common illnesses, but is not inclusive of all reasons for exclusion):
- Illness that prevents the child from participating comfortably in preschool activities, including lethargy, behavioral changes, irritability and/or difficulty breathing.
- Illness that results in a greater need for care than our staff can provide.
- Respiratory Illnesses & Colds: If mucus is profuse and cannot be controlled by normal wiping, the child will be excluded at MCA’s discretion. A child will also be excluded if the runny nose is associated with a fever, an infected throat, persistent cough or general irritability.
- Fever of 100.4 (axillary)
- Persistent Cough, with or without fever.
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea (more than two loose stools).
- Mouth Sores not associated with drooling.
- Rash, unless a physician has determined it is not a communicable disease.
- Purulent Conjunctivitis (defined as pink or red conjunctiva with white or yellow eye discharge) until the child has been on antibiotics for 24 hours.
- Impetigo until 24 hours after treatment.
- Strep Throat until 24 hours after treatment.
- Head Lice until after treatment and all nits are removed. Must have receipt of treatment in order to return.
- Chickenpox, until all lesions have dried and crusted (usually 6 days).
- Pertussis (whooping cough) until 5 days of appropriate antibiotics.
- Hepatitis A virus until one week after onset of illness, after immune globulin has been administered.
In order to assure your child’s comfort and reduce risk of contagion, we ask that sick children be picked up as soon as possible. Children must remain home for 24 hours without the above symptoms before returning to school. In the case of a suspected or confirmed contagious disease, rash or continuing symptoms, a doctor’s note is required before your child is permitted to return to school. We will ALWAYS err on the side of children and call you when anything unusual is detected.
Excluded children may return when:
- They are free of fever, vomiting and diarrhea for a full 24 hours.
- They have been treated with an antibiotic for a full 24 hours.
- They are able to participate comfortably in all usual preschool activities, including outdoor time.
- The child is free of open, oozing skin conditions and drooling unless:
- A health-care provider signs a note stating that the child’s condition is not contagious,
- The involved areas can be covered by a bandage without seepage or drainage through the bandage.
The final decision about whether a child must stay home or whether he/she can return to school is made by the Director.
MCA Spring Festival
Join us for our 7th Annual MCA Spring Festival, Sunday, April 23rd at 3:30pm!
Stop by the MCA office to purchase your tickets in advance.
MCA Scholastic Book Fair
We are excited to be hosting our first Scholastic Book Fair this week at MCA! Please stop by to check out the seriously impressive array of books to choose from, just in time for Chanukah! Eight nights of books, anyone?
You can also purchase online (hint, hint, grandparents)! Your purchase will be added to our total sales and shipped directly to the school at no charge. To shop online click here!
The book fair will be open each morning from 7:30-9:30am and each afternoon from 2:30-5:30pm.
You are also invited for BLT (Books & Lunch, Together) tomorrow, Tuesday 12/6. Come and have lunch with your child and then shop the book fair afterward! Plus, don't miss Dress Like A Pirate Day, this Friday 12/9. Send your child to school dressed as a pirate and then come see them dance a jig at Tot Shabbat. Stay and shop after the festivities.
You can also sign up to help by visiting our volunteer page. Just an hour of your time would be a huge help to us.
Thanks and see you at the fair!
Micah UNCORKED
Spanish News
This Summer in Spanish:
Hace calor!
We talked about how hot it is getting this summer (almost one hundred degrees!) and reviewed our weather terms, seasons, months, and the days of the week as well as numbers and colors.
Animales
We read “¿El canguro tiene mamá?” (“Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?”) by Eric Carle. We learned that the following animals have mothers who love them as much as our mothers love us: león, jirafa, pingüino, cisne, zorro, delfín, oveja, oso, elefante, mono (Lion, giraffe, penguin, swan, fox, dolphin, sheep, bear, elephant, monkey).
We sang “Cinco Patitos” about the five little ducks which went out for a swim and didn’t come back.
Cinco Patitos
Cinco patitos salieron a nadar
por la colina y más allá
La mamá pata dijo: “Cua, cua, cua”
y solo a cuatro vio regresar
La pobre mamá pata salió a nadar
por la colina y más allá
La pobre mamá pata dijo: “Cua, cua, cua”
¡Y a sus patitos vio regresar!
Our araña, spider, has eight eyes and eight legs, each of which is a different color. We sang “La Itzi Bitzi Araña” (The Itsy Bitsy Spider), and Minis and Pre-K all got turns, if they wanted one, to make the spider climb up, weave, and get washed out…as long as they said or sang the lyrics.
We read, “La Araña Muy Ocupada” which has a lot of animals which are in the other books we have been reading: “¿Tu mamá es una llama?” and “¿El canguro tiene mamá?” (“Is Your Mama a Llama?” and “Does the Kangaroo Have a Mom?”)
Animal vocabulary:
Perro, cerdo, gato, foca, caballo, murciélago, oveja, cabra, pato, gallina, and cisne which are- dog, pig, cat, seal, horse, bat, sheep, goat, duck, hen and swan
La Itzi Bitzi Araña (The Itsy Bitsy Spider)
La itzi bitzi araña
Tejió su telaraña.
Bajó la lluvia
Y se la llevó.
Salió el sol
Y secó la lluvia.
Y itzi bitzi araña
Otra vez subió.
Nature News
Weeding our gardens before we can plant vegetables and herbs.
As former UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld said, “He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds.” And so weed and water we must, as Nature teaches us a lot: plants are as thirsty as we are and weeds grow even faster than we do. While tugging on some strong, thick weeds, we talked about why we need to remove them. First, we thought about what would happen if two friends tried to drink out of a very small cup with two straws. Then we huddled together and tried to spread out our arms (roots) which we agreed was hard to do.
We also talked about the first commandment mentioned in the Bible which was God’s direction to Adam (whose name in Hebrew means man of the earth) to take care of the earth. The Bible also forbids us from destroying the fields or fruit trees of an enemy.
We are working diligently this summer to maintain our crops planted over the last two months, each tending our own tiny plots and helping out with others. As we work to keep our herbs and vegetables healthy in the summer heat, we learn about what plants need to grow, the changes they go through, and the challenges they face. We also learn about commitment and teamwork! A worthy effort indeed.
A More In Depth Look at WotYC at MCA
This post will provide a more in-depth look at the Week of the YOUNG CHILD at MCA as well as provide parent resource articles with information, tips, and ideas.
As you know, the Week of the YOUNG CHILD at MCA is April 11-15 and each day will celebrate our early learners and demonstrate our project based learning curriculum.
These are our themes:
Matzah Monday
Tinkering Tuesday
Whimsical Wednesday
Theatrical Thursday
Family Friday
HOW DOES PROJECT BASED LEARNING WORK?
Let's use Matzah Monday as an example of how our teachers break down our monthly themes and build a project from it:
MATZAH MONDAY
Project: Making Matzah
Early Literacy Objectives:
- Read books about matzah
- Understand connection between books & personal experiences
- Engage in word play
- Predict Endings
- Engage in dialogue
- Beginning sounds
List of Books:
- Matzah Ball: A Passover Story - Pre-K
- The Matzo Ball Boy - 3 & up
- The Little Red Hen and the Passover Matzah - 3 & up
- This is the Matzah - 3 & up
- Matzo Ball Moon - Infant/Toddler & up
- No Matzah for Me - Infant/Toddler & up
- Lotsa Matzah - Infant/Toddler
Social Studies objectives:
- Discuss why we eat matzah during Passover
- Talk about Passover and its significance
Science objectives: Cooking
- Predictions of what will happen to the matzah once baked
- Will it be hard or soft?
- How will it taste?
- Discuss cause and effect
- Discuss chemical reactions
- Conduct experiments with fermentation, oil and water, etc.
- Make homemade play dough using flour
Math objectives:
- Measure the matzah ingredients
- Compare and contrast measurement tools and increments
- Discuss size, geometric shape, and attributes of matzah
- Compare dry ingredients and wet ingredients
- Talk about the significance of the number 18
- Count to 18 (Pre-K count by 2s)
- Graph
- Who does and doesn’t like matzah
- Who knows matzah’s shape
- Sorting pieces by size
- Guess / estimate the number of holes in a piece of matzah
Art Objectives: Make a matzah cover
Use a white handkerchief and decorate:
- Paint with watercolors
- Paint stripes for handwriting practice
- Cut small pieces of tissue paper, spray with water and let dry on handkerchief, then scrape away the tissue
- Decorate with markers and spray with alcohol and watch the colors bleed
- Glue fabric scraps to create a design
Resource for families:
Article: Children Learn So Much From Cooking!
Here’s a glimpse of the rest of the week and how you can incorporate activities at home...
Tinkering Tuesday: Build together, work together
When children build together they explore math and science concepts and develop their social and early literacy skills. Children can use any building material--from a fort of branches on the playground to a block city in the classroom, or a hideaway made from couch pillows at home.
Try this: Practice organizing blocks by size! Try building a block tower with large blocks on the bottom and little blocks on top! OR build a fort in the living room!
Resource for families:
Article: 10 Things Every Parent Should Know about Play
Whimsical Wednesday: Let’s be silly together!
Young children have a special preference for silliness! Experts believe that silliness has important developmental benefits for building social skills, cognitive thinking and creativity. Laughter creates a bond between people. Stretching the imagination, thinking outside the box, and learning to look at a situation from different angles are other long-term benefits of developing a sense of humor. Dr. Seuss is the best example of taking silly words and creating meaning with his message!
Try this: Reading Dr. Seuss books, Singing silly songs while in the car, play rhyming game using names
Resource for families:
Article: Encouraging Your Child's Sense of Humor
Book: Pre-School Parenting Secrets: Talking with the Sky by Brian Caswell
Theatrical Thursday: Think, problem solve, create
Children develop creativity, social skills and fine motor skills with open-ended art projects where they can make choices, use their imaginations, and create with their hands. On Theatrical Thursday celebrate the joy and learning children experience when engaged in creative thinking and art making. Use any materials - from your imaginations to crayons to paint, clay to crafts!
Try this: Take art projects outside! Offer light and dark paper! Act out scenarios. Create fantastical tales with words randomly chosen by the children and then make a picture book of the story!
Resource for families:
Article: How Dramatic Play Can Enhance Learning
Article: Meaningful Art Projects Parents Can Fit Into a Busy Day
Family Friday:
Engaging and celebrating families is at the heart of supporting our youngest learners. We would like to invite parents to come celebrate a special Tot Shabbat dedicated to family! Stay after Tot Shabbat and have lunch with your child.
We would love to end the week with a special Kabbalat K’tan with Ms. Lisa Silver at 6:00 in the sanctuary. Afterwards, meet us on the playscape for a night at the movies under the stars!
Try this: Over the weekend, head to the library and check out some books! Make a Cozy Corner at home! Have an indoor picnic!
Resource for families:
Article: Books Plus Time Equals Happiness
Week of the YOUNG CHILD at MCA
Each year NAEYC, National Association for the Education of Young Children, sponsors a weeklong celebration of early learning, young children, their teachers and families called the Week of the YOUNG CHILD.
We love this idea, so we are going to celebrate the
Week of the YOUNG CHILD but with an MCA twist!
(What's an MCA twist? Well, for instance,
instead of 'Taco Tuesday' we are doing 'Matzah Monday'!)
So, for the week of April 11-15, we have planned 5 days full of creative ways to celebrate our early learners and demonstrate our project based learning curriculum*.
Matzah Monday
Tinkering Tuesday
Whimsical Wednesday
Theatrical Thursday
Family Friday
Did you catch that last one? Yes! It's Family Friday and we have something very exciting planned...
We would love to end our fun week with a special Kabbalat K'tan with Ms. Lisa Silver at 6:00pm in the sanctuary. Afterwards, join us on the playscape for a night at the movies under the stars!
*HOW DOES PROJECT BASED LEARNING WORK?
Here's a great example of how our teachers break down our monthly themes and build a project from it:
MATZAH MONDAY
We are going to make Matzah together!
In this one collaborative project we will tackle multiple objectives such as:
- Science (cooking, predictions, ingredient combinations)
- Math (measuring, counting, graphing)
- Social Studies (why do we eat matzah during Passover)
- Literacy (books about matzah, word play, interactive dialogue)
- Art (decorating matzah covers in creative ways)
For a more detailed description of how these objectives are met, click here to visit the MCA blog. You can also click here for an article on how children can learn so much from cooking!
Please mark April 15th on your calendar because we would love for everyone to attend. We will send out more details on our Family Friday movie night as it gets closer on the calendar.
Want to be involved more than movie night? There will be plenty of opportunities to help out throughout the week, so please check with your teachers to see what they need! Also, check out the more detailed description of our week here, and see if one of these topics are up your alley! Perhaps you love to cook and want to help bake Matzah or maybe you're an artist, a builder, a storyteller, etc. We would love to have some parent-led projects, so if something speaks to you, please let us know!
Also, the NASHVILLE ZOO is kicking off the Week of the YOUNG CHILD with free admission after 2PM on Tuesday, April 12th. Local organizations geared toward children will have booths set up throughout Entry Village with activities and information from 2pm-5pm. Hopefully, we can all take advantage of this great deal and community opportunity to converge en masse on the Zoo!
Theresa and the MCA Staff
Please join us for an Open House on Wednesday, February 3rd, from 9:30am to 11:00am.
Come LEARN about Micah Children's Academy, see where your children will PLAY, and find out how they can GROW with us.
Email Theresa LePore at tlepore@micahchildrensacademy.org to RSVP or schedule a private tour
LEARN...
- Curriculum promoting cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and creative development
- Highly trained educators encouraging children to explore and share
- Hands on learning methods
PLAY...
- Thoughtfully designed indoor spaces
- Eco-friendly outdoor playscape
- Gardens outside every classroom
GROW...
- Preparation for a lifetime of learning
- Emphasis on communication and parental involvement