Paper Mache Bee Hive!

The Sellwood Kindergarteners experimented with Paper Mache! In order to create their bee hive, they used newspaper dipped in a water/flour mixture for the first few layers over the balloon. Then they combined a mixture of white glue and water for the outer layers, making it nice and solid. White paper is good to put over the newspaper at the end so that you can paint on a smooth white surface, again they used the glue/water mixture.  The Kindergarteners then painted the paper mache balloon, made some bugs to glue on, and attached styrofoam bees and wasps to wires flying around the hive! This was Teacher Aaron's favorite part! Check out the photos below!

Sellwood's Huckleberry Class

The younger infants have had quite a busy month! We welcomed a new baby (Welcome Clay!), new toys, and have enjoyed lots of sensory activities in the classroom. The infants loved our fun art projects, geared towards helping them enhance their fine motor skills. They have also enjoyed numerous strolls to the park and even fun water play in the classroom! How fun!

Summer is almost here and at Creative Minds we are so excited to get their gardens growing! With a big thanks to our friends at the Portland Nursery, this last week we planted  zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, strawberries and many other veggies in our gardens. Portland Nursery donated soil, plant starters, and seeds for our children to explore the world of gardening.

The educational experiences are endless. By being a part of planting and caring for a vegetable garden our students learn about more than just how plants grow. They become connected to their food source,  trying new foods, and understanding the work it takes to produce it. We are also able to explore other parts of nature that help nourish or protect our plants, such as worms and ladybugs.

CMLC Spring/Summer Menu

CMLC's Seasonal Menu is healthy and delicious! Each of our meals are prepared, from scratch, on-site with fresh, local ingredients served with hormone- free dairy products and organic whole milk.

We take pride in serving the CMLC children the very best ingredients available in their nutritious meals! 

We believe in serving seasonal fruits and vegetables not only because they are guaranteed to be the most fresh but because we strive to support our local farmers and encourage sustainable eating practices for our children and families. 

Our child-friendly vegetarian menu includes homemade meals and snacks such as, Black Bean and Brown Rice bake with Tillamook Cheese, Whole Wheat Pasta and Garbanzo Bean Salad with Homemade Lemon Garlic Vinegrette, and Warm Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins. We select meals that engage and expose the children to adventurous and healthy foods!

Please visit our website for more information about our healthy and seasonal menu!

In Honor of Teacher Appreciation Week....

In Good Hands (author unknown)

In the hands of a gifted teacher
a classroom is a magical place
In the hands of a gifted teacher
There’s a smile on each child's face
In the Hands of a Gifted Teacher
Creative Energy is Everywhere
In the Hands of a Gifted Teacher
There’s a Catalyst who Genuinely Cares
In the Hands of a Gifted Teacher
Desire and Wonder is Awakened
In the Hands of a Gifted Teacher
The Educational Agenda is Shaken
In the Hands of a Gifted Teacher
Self-Management Skills are Modeled
In the Hands of a Gifted Teacher
The Best of Reality is Bottled
In the Hands of a Gifted Teacher
Gifts and Talents are Refined
In the Hands of a Gifted Teacher
The Willed Future is Designed 

Visit Our Teachers page to view our outstanding team of teachers that CMLC is proud to honor this week and always!

    

Lady Luck!

In many countries in the world, the ladybug is considered a symbol of good luck and some cultures even rear them as pets. The most likely explanation that ladybugs are lucky is because of their huge appetite for crop pests, like aphids, mites, and white flies. Farmers and gardeners welcome the presence of ladybugs and venerate the insect as a lucky symbol. They also say that if a ladybug lands on your hand on a Sunday, and stays there until you count to 22, then good luck is on its way.

One of our Gateway families was kind enough to donate over 1500 Ladybugs for our CMLC garden to help rid of garden pests! The Kindergarten class released them into the garden a couple weeks ago, hoping that the lucky ladies will fill up on garden goodies, lay eggs to create another generation for our garden, and make our gardens filled with beauty and luck! Thank you for the awesome contribution to our garden!

Over 1500 in this bag! 

Preparing the garden for the lady bugs with nice wet soil. 

The release!

Happy at home.

A Closer Look at Infant and Toddler Playtime:

A Closer Look at Infant and Toddler Playtime:

Independent Play/Floor Time includes activities like…

• Building with blocks
• exercises fine motor skills, builds concepts like balance and stability, aids color differentiation and counting abilities.
• Playing with toy animals
• helps cement animal sounds, encourages dramatic play and imagination.
• Climbing on large blocks
• exercises large motor skills and builds concepts of balance, gravity, height, and perspective.
• Playing with balls



Picasso Class Circle Time

• exercises large motor skills, hand-eye coordination, cooperative skills, and interactive play.
• Exploring the sensory boat
• exercises fine motor skills and concepts of force and cause-and-effect.
• Playing with puppets, babies, and stuffed toys
• which encourages self-soothing, dramatic and imaginative play, care-giving, and concept of gentle hands.
• Looking at books
• encourages fine motor skills, early literacy skills, and observation skills.
• Playing with vehicles
• exercises fine motor skills, large motor skills, color and shape identification, and dramatic/imaginative play.
• Using musical instruments
• instills beginning math skills of rhythm and patterns, exercises fine motor skills and dramatic play, encourages self-expression

Art activities…

Water Touch Tub Time

• exercise fine motor skills, color and texture differentiation, and decision making.

Touch Tubs/Play Dough…

• aid texture differentiation, self-soothing, fine motor skills, cooperation, and cause-and-effect.

Circle time (singing and reading)…

• aids early literacy skills, counting, alphabet, rhythm, memory, decision making, cooperation, listening and responding.

All activities encourage sharing, parallel and/or cooperative play, and vocabulary development. 

~ T. Marissa

Getting our hands messy with some finger paint

Looking at a book about trains