Welcome parents, fellow educators and friends! This is the official blog for Haverhill Daycare Center. Here we will share some of the learning activities, events and fun things going on at our school. Hope you all enjoy!
Our students have been enjoying the benefits of bringing nature into the classroom. This gives children opportunities to value, wonder and ask questions to investigate natural materials further.
Here are a few of the nature based learning activities going on at HDC!
We are very lucky to have chestnut trees on our school property. The children love to collect the, "conkers" and use them for imaginative play.
Here the children are using chestnuts to make shapes.
The teachers and students then count how many they used to complete the shape.
Lots of fun hands on math!
Here the children were using the chestnuts to cover the game board. The children had to roll the dice and identify the numeral that corresponded with the dots on the dice.
Chestnuts can be lots of fun to paint with using paintbrushes or by adding paint on top of them and rolling them around inside a box. This helps to strengthen their hand eye coordination and visual tracking skills.
Chestnuts are also super fun to play with!
Here the children sorted leaves by size. Big, medium and small. This activity also set the stage for great conversations about the characteristics of each leaf and helped the children use descriptive language and vocabulary. They were also able to compare and contrast the various types of leaves and learn which tree they were from.
The children brought these leaf papers outside and tried to find which tree the leaves came off of. They had to use their visual discrimination skills to determine differences and similarities between the leaves and the tree.
Leaves are great for a cutting bin too (and totally waste free)! This is a great way for children to start working on cutting skills and fine motor development.
The younger children have been exploring apples! Marcie had cut ribbons of various lengths for the children to determine which one would fit around the different apples. This was a great hands on activity for our youngest learners to experiment with measurement and circumference.
Here the children were having fun weighing the apples and trying to balance them in the scale.
The children in our Kindergarten class went on a nature scavenger hunt!
Click here for a copy of the scavenger hunt that they used.
Here are some of the children making a nature collage with some of the materials they found on their nature walk! They are going to use this to make a collaborative mural for their classroom. Great teamwork guys!
Here the children and teachers labeled parts of the pumpkin to explore and hung them in their science center. Since we are not able to have them all touch the pumpkin and explore together the teachers made sure to have them in a spot where everyone can see, discuss and ask questions.
Leaf rubbings are always a fun activity and help the children to look for details. The process of looking for detail strengthens essential visual discrimination skills, the same skills children use to learn the differences between letters.
Stacking pumpkins is great for hand eye coordination and learning through trial and error!
Nature truly is a wonderful teacher! It engages all the senses! We are so blessed to live in New England and enjoy the best of all the seasons, especially Fall!
The benefits of reading aloud to children is astounding and cannot be overstated!
Click here to read a great article about the benefits of reading aloud to children and how to start reading to your own little one(s) if you haven't already.
Here are our favorite October books to read aloud with children!!!
Missy - There's a Nightmare In My Closet
by: Mercer Mayer
Aimee - There's Something In My Attic
by: Mercer Mayer
Joan -The Very Busy Spider
by: Eric Carle
Marcie - Spookly The Square Pumpkin
by: Joe Troiano
Destiny - Five Little Pumpkins
by: Scholastic
Sonia - Dem Bones
by: Bob Barner
Maria - The Biggest Leaf Pile
by:Steve Metzger
Jasmine - The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything
by: Linda Williams
Mariah - Let It Fall
by: Maryann Cocca-Leffler
Cheri - The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear
With all the new regulations in place due to Covid-19 we decided to create a virtual tour for you to see our Center.
Here is the entrance (below) from the parking lot where children in rooms 1 and 5 get dropped off and picked up.
Here is the entrance for room 2 for drop off and pick up.
Here is the entrance from rooms 3 and 4 for drop off and pick up.
We ask you to please scan your child in using the brightwheel app. Simply open the app, press check in, scan the qr code, complete all the screening questions, enter your 4 digit code, sign your name and hit submit. If you do not have the app please complete the paper each morning with the screening questions. For pick up, the teachers will sign out each child to keep everything touch less.
Room 1
Here is our Pre-K room!
Sonia and Maria are the teachers in this classroom.
Room 2
This is our Kindergarten room this year!
Typically this is a preschool room but many parents asked us to consider doing a Kindergarten program as they knew their child was going to have a very hard time with online learning. We were happy to offer this service for our families this year to meet their needs.
Joan and Celimar are the teachers in this room and Jasmine in the afternoon.
Room 3
This is one of our preschool rooms!
Destiny is the teacher in this classroom.
Room 4
This is another preschool room!
Marcie is the teacher in this classroom.
Room 5
This is our School Age Classroom where we are assisting with the children's virtual learning this year.
Cheri and Aimee are the teachers in this classroom.
Here is the preschool playground!
Here is the school age / kindergarten playground!
Here is our tour of the office!
With the new restrictions the children are only allowed to stay with their classroom group and teacher(s), so we understand many of you do not get to see the other teachers...so here is a quick look at their staff frames and what rooms they are working in.
Here is the downstairs bathrooms, the upstairs classroom has its own bathroom inside the room. The teachers make sure to sanitize the bathrooms after each use.
Here are the children's cubbies to store their belongings. We ask that you please send everything in a zippered back pack and be sure to label everything.
We are following all the safety protocols and procedures set forth by EEC, CDC and DPH.
Feel free to look over the requirements set forth by EEC here.
End of tour, please feel free to reach out to us for more information! We hope to hear from you soon!
