Building, Reading, and Writing

We love to put the markers on the paper, we think it is much better than putting them in our mouths now! ;0)

Building is also one of our specialties!

But most of all we love to sit down with a good book, and listen to stories at story time!

operation guatemala update

A village near the drill site

 Some of you may know we have focused some of our past projects on the on-going water crisis in the world, the children were so inspired by everything they learned they raised  $850 to send Paul Lopez (Ella & Livia's daddy) to Guatemala to help build a well with Living Water International. Here are the links to some of the previous posts to refresh your memory...

http://littlewondersschool-pre-k.blogspot.com/2010/04/water-in-africa.html
http://littlewondersschool-pre-k.blogspot.com/2010/05/our-african-village.html
http://littlewondersschool-pre-k.blogspot.com/2010/06/making-difference.html
http://littlewondersschool-pre-k.blogspot.com/2010/07/operation-guatemala-bracelets.html

 Mr. Lopez flew out bright & early this last Saturday morning & had a smooth flight to Guatemala City. On Sunday they set out for Champerico which is about a 4 hour drive to the coast, due to the extensive rain it took them over 6 hours to get there. Yesterday was their first day in the village they're actually building the well in, it's about 45 mins away from Champerico, so it's kinda of like driving from Sugar Land to Galveston everyday. When they got to the village they were greeted by the mayor, water committee, teachers & all the people of the village who told them how grateful they are that they are building a well for their people. Yesterday was the first day that it hadn't rained in a long time & the team took advantage of it & drilled down 145 feet...that is AWESOME for the first day!!! So if it rains today, they'll be ahead of schedule & there wont be to much pressure. For lunch yesterday they ate scrambled eggs with black beans & corn tortillas, everyone was in awe watching the women of the village making these corn tortillas right in front of them. One thing Mr. Lopez can't get over is watching these families bathe & wash their clothes in their filthy river, you watch these things on tv, but to see them in person is really difficult to see. Whole families (up to 5 people) riding on scooters with the baby riding on the gas tank, it is an eye opener of how fortunate we are. So far he has taken about 500 pictures but with all the rain & flooding the internet is down, so we have only gotten a few pictures, we'll be sharing more as soon as we can. We're so happy to be able to help with the water crisis & we want to say thank you to all who helped make this possible!!



Paul & 3 school boys

Paul, Ella & Livia

chalk

"Hey look what I found!!""make some room guys, I need to make LONG lines"

"I like the way this sounds when I pound it on the table"

"I think the chalk looks better on white paper!"

Espanol!

We are excited to announce that Little Wonders has now teamed up with the Language Factory to incorporate Spanish into our curriculum! We are coordinating with a Spanish teacher at the Language Factory to create a Spanish lesson once a week for our children! She will teach them vocabulary, songs, and hold conversations with the children to help them learn Spanish.



Classes will begin tomorrow September 10th at 10:30 a.m., they will be held at Little Wonders. This will be the only week that classes will be on Friday. Beginning next week classes will be every Monday.



Handouts will be provided after the classes start. If you have any questions feel free to ask Maryam.

Paint anyone????

"What color do you want?"

Doodle Doodle Doodle

"Yes??? May we help you?" 

We love to draw all day long!!We always have so much to say about our drawings.....what we are making, what color we are using, and how many we made!!!!

take a quick peek!

We love doing so many different things in class.  Our play is lasting longer now, and our imagination is really developing! 

mmmmm...... our "snack time" was extra tasty today!

"Here, you try....."

"ooooo play dough feels so funny!"

Extra Curricular Activities

The new school year is almost here & in celebration we have a brand new extra curricular activity starting...whoo hoo! We are excited to be offering a literacy program, please read below to find out all about it.

Little Wonders Literacy Program

Little Wonders is now implementing a supplementary early literacy program. In addition to the reading program that is currently running, we will now have an expert in children’s literacy skills come to Little Wonders once a week to help expand and support our curriculum.

Heidi Anderson, who is currently the Youth Services Programming Administrator for the Houston Public Library will be running the program. She oversees all programming and services for children and teens ages 0–18 in 40 Houston Public Library Neighborhood Libraries. She has a Masters of Art in Library Studies, and her areas of expertise are children and young adult programming and services in public libraries, children and young adult literature, and early literacy.

The Pre-Literacy Skills that the program will focus on are:

· Print Motivation: thinking that books and reading are fun

· Vocabulary: knowing the names of things

· Print Awareness: recognizing print and understanding how the books work

· Letter Knowledge: understanding that each letter has its own name and sounds

· Narrative Skills: being able to tell stories and describe things

· Phonological Awareness: being able to recognize and play with the smaller sounds that make up words

We will have Biweekly Story-Time with a Children’s Librarian: This story time will be offered for toddlers in toddler 1 and 2, and for the preschool and preK classes. Preschool and PreK story time is a traditional library activity that includes sharing books, singings songs and using rhymes to introduce new vocabulary, strengthen letter knowledge, narrative skills and phonological awareness while reinforcing print motivation. Toddler Time is similar but has a focus on shorter stories that develop vocabulary and letter knowledge while reinforcing print motivation and print awareness. Toddler story-time features a lot of movement and interaction, including use of a parachute and bubbles. Story-Times will be every other Wednesday at 9:30 a.m., beginning on August 11th.

Monthly Parent Take-Homes: These take-homes will share with parents what stories their children listened to during story time, what songs and rhymes they did, and will give suggested other books and activities to share as “extenders”. They will also offer pre-literacy information and tips.

Monthly “Baby and Me” Story-Time for baby and parent: An interactive 20 minutes to spend with your baby singing and playing before you separate for the work day! This story-time introduces print motivation right from birth, as well as offering a special little jump start to your day (and a chance to interact with other parents!) Classes will be on the first Wednesday of every month at 9:00 a.m., beginning on Wednesday, September 1st.

Listed below is all the of the extracurricular activities we offer with their day, time, fee & how to find out more about each program, so please don't forget to register today!

Monday- 3:00 Art Class with Marjon Aucoin
http://www.marjonart.com/
$70- 6 weeks

Tuesday- 10:00 Soccer with Coach Mario
mrmadrigal65@latinmail.com
$50 per 5 session

Tuesday- 11:15 Dance Class with KT Dancing, Inc.
KTDancingKim@aol.com
$45 a monthWednesday- 9:30 Literacy Program with Ms. Anderson
Provided by Little Wonders Learning Center
1st Wednesday of every month baby and me classes with Ms. Anderson provided by Little Wonders Learning Center
(parents must accompany his/her child for the class)

Thursday- 9:30 Gymnastics with Alpha Omega Gym
http://www.alphaomegagym.net/littlewonders.html$55 a month

Friday- 11:00 Computer Class with i kids inc.
http://www.ikidsinc.com/
$60 a month

cooking and building

We work so hard everyday making sure that the babies are fed and taken care of!  It is a full time job ;0)Jonathan is so good at dropping off loads of supplies to all of the children

Livia thought she should build a highway to the "house".......but at the end of the day, she thought that the road looked better in a pile by the wall!!! ;0)