Preschool Pizza Party

by | Feb 28, 2020 | early learning

Our Preschool Classroom enjoyed a Pizza Party today! Their classroom has incorporated an age-appropriate reward system, that manages behaviors by rewarding students through positive reinforcement. It encourages the children to work at being kind, generous, grateful and helpful. Over the course of some time, the children get to add Pom Poms to their Pom Pom Jar when they are caught in the act of doing something positive. Once it is full, it is their choice (within reason) to choose how they want to celebrate. They have the choice of DOING something fun, like celebrating with a party or certain experience. They filled their jar this week and they chose to have a Pizza Party! They helped make their pizzas, read a story together and then ate their yummy creation for lunch! Way to go Preschool!

National Love Your Pet Day

by | Feb 24, 2020 | extended education

National Love Your Pet Day

February 20th was an exciting day at the Extended Education Program. We celebrated Love Your Pet Day by welcoming our adopted manatee to our White Birch Family and having a visit from the Pope Memorial SPCA.

When our manatee arrived, we had to give him a name. So, we selected some names for our manatee and voted on our favorites. We ended up with a tie between Jeff and Wonder, which was solved with a round of rock-paper-scissors. The final name we decided on was Jeff. Welcome Jeff, to our White Birch family! We then had to give Jeff a nice home, so we built an aquarium out of cardboard and used paper to make plants, decorations, and fish.

A Humane Educator from the SPCA, Shannon, and her daughter, came to the Extended Education Program to share what they do at the SPCA and teach us how to properly approach a dog. The four most important steps in approaching an unfamiliar dog are: 1. ask your parent/guardian for permission, 2. ask the owner for permission, 3. approach slowly and let the dog sniff you (ask the dog for permission) and 4. once the dog has sniffed you and shown that it is okay with you, pet it in a place where it can see your hand (the front of its body). Once we learned these important steps, we practiced what we had learned on their dog Jax.

National Thank a Mail Carrier Day

by | Feb 11, 2020 | extended education

February 4th was National Thank a Mail Carrier Day. The Extended Education Program took advantage of the warmer weather and walked to the Henniker Post office to hand deliver thank you cards they made to their mail carriers!

WBC Extended Ed sells Cookbooks!

by | Jan 31, 2020 | active living, early learning, extended education

The Extended Education children love engaging in imaginary play, forming store fronts and retail exchanges, and selling their paper crafted goodies once they have created them. So naturally, when the opportunity arose to sell something real, with actual money, the children put on their sales hats and got to work. The White Birch Cookbook: Recipes from Cooks and Kids, served as a great opportunity to harness the children’s interests.  

First, we conducted “job” interviews where children were asked why they wanted to sell cookbooks and what their sales pitch would be. All applicants were hired for the job, but we used their individual strengths to determine which part of the sales process they would be involved in. After the interview process, the children got to work within the marketing department. They created flyers and posters that were hung up in the classroom, highlighting the information in the cookbooks. Our sales team then went to work, establishing ways on how they could politely ask people to buy the cookbooks. Then the sales began! The children set up a table with their flyers and a copy of the cookbook. They took turns greeting people when they entered the building, talking to them about the cookbooks, showing them examples of their own recipes, and taking money and recording cookbook sales.  

The cookbook sale has been a great opportunity for the children’s individual skills, knowledge, and interests to emerge and grow through a multi-step, multi-day project.