Teacher Appreciation Week 2024

 Teacher Appreciation Week 2024!

This year our students and their families pulled out all the stops to make this such an amazing week for all of our teachers here at HDC!

Monday - You RED our minds. That you are the best!

The teachers enjoyed an apple bar with all the fixings!

Tuesday - ORANGE you glad your work here. We sure are! 

The teachers enjoyed fresh fruit and breakfast treats!

Wednesday - Mellow YELLOW! 

Today the teachers did not need to stress as lunch was provided! Thank you so much to all the families who donated towards our staff lunch! 

Thursday - We all A-GREEN that you are the best! Thanks for helping our students grow!

Students and their families brought in flowers / plants for all the teachers. We also had money left over to buy pizza and salads for the staff today too! 

Thank you so much to our parents who sent it desserts and other goodies for the teachers too!!!

Thank you to one of our moms who owns Sullivan Sweets Home Bakery for the beautifully decorated and delicious cookies!!! (Check her out on Instagram)

Friday - We'd be so BLUE without you!

Thanks for being part of the HDC team!

Missy and I bought all the teacher's shirts that said...tiny human tamer! 

We are so grateful for all that our teacher's do day in and day out!

Thank you to the lovely family who bought Chinese food for the entire staff today!

Thank you to all the other families for the outpouring of gratitude, goodies and gifts you gave to the teachers and staff this week! You are all appreciated!

Thank you all for showing the teacher's such love this week!!! We are so happy to have such a great school community!

Shout out to the families that are keeping the love going even the week after too with treats and gift cards for coffee runs!!! Thank you! : )

Spirit Week 2024!

 The children of HDC have been enjoying a literacy themed spirit week!!!

Monday - Hats off to reading!

Crazy hat or hair day.

Tuesday - Books bring out our wild side!

Wear something with animal print or an animal on it.

Wednesday - Books bring us together!

Each classroom was assigned a color to wear. 

Thursday - Books boost our imaginations!

Story book character costume parade and book swap.

Friday - Reading is better with a buddy!

Bring a stuffed animal and your coziest pajamas!

Such a fun spirit week!

Our hope is to instill a lifelong love of reading and learning in all of our students. 

Fall in the Mud Kitchen

 Fall in the mud kitchen!!!

The children have been loving the mud kitchen!!!

We decided to incorporate in some natural materials to let the children explore. Today we added mini pumpkins, acorns and brightly colored leaves. 

We also added in some nature wands to let their creativity run wild! 

Thank you to Learning and Exploring through Play for the inspiration.

There has been so much learning happening in here!

The benefits of a mud kitchen are amazing!

• It is great for mental health, freedom to be children, exploring the outdoors and PLAYING freely!
• It's good for physical health- recent studies have shown we absolutely NEED to have dirt in our systems in order to develop a healthy immune system. Indeed, the lack of interaction with mud is causing deficiencies and weaker immune systems in kids worldwide.
• It allows curiosity, exploration and experimentation in an open-ended way.
• Mathematical opportunities for measuring, filling and emptying and exploring capacity.
• Endless imaginative and role play possibilities starting with a blank play space structure which isn’t too prescribed in its usage and allows kids to create in any way that suits their play.
• Language development through descriptive words, scientific questioning and exploration, and storytelling through imaginative role play.
• Rich and genuine messy, sensory experiences through combination of natural materials.
• Scientific investigation as materials are combined, mixed, transferred and changed.
• Fine motor skills development through use of real tools in play situations.

Thank you to The Imagination Tree for this great list of learning outcomes for the mud kitchen. 

Thank you to Steve and Patrice Davis & Stu and Julie Davis for their donation of this lovely mud kitchen for HDC! We appreciate it so much!

Art Show Homework

Summer Art Homework 2023!

 We asked our students to pick a bag, each one is filled with various art materials to create a masterpiece!!!

We will display them at the art show on the last day of Summer Program!

Here are the masterpieces!

So creative!!! Great job!!!