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The Grove School at the the Apex Christmas Parade
Ms. Stephanie | December 4, 2012 | Comment
The Grove School Team, parents and students had a lot of fun at the annual Apex Christmas Parade!
They handed out pencils and other goodies, that were greatly appreciated by all the children.
The biggest excitement was produced by the “howling reindeers”.

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“Back to School Picnic” at the Grove School
Ms. Stephanie | August 31, 2012 | Comment
The Grove School students, parents and grandparents had lots of fun at the “Back to School Picnic”. There was a “Bouncing Castle”, painting with “Plasterhouse”, games, and refreshments by “Roly Poly” in Cary. The parents could visit our “Enrichment Showcase” to get information on our new Fall Enrichment Program, which includes our new “Smart About Art” class with Ms. Sue, our Fitness class with Ms. Dawn, a Literacy Class taught by Ms. Alysia, a Spanish class with Ms. Jovana and even a Soccer Ball class taught by Triangle Happy Feet.
We are very excited about the start of our new school year!

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The Grove School shows their creativity with Plaster House
Ms. Stephanie | July 27, 2012 | Comment
Today “Plaster House” came to visit our school. The children got to pick out their favorite wild animal out of plaster, as part of their Eco-Adventure on the Grasslands of Africa. There were giraffes, hippos, elephants and even tigers to choose from.
The children had lots of fun painting the animals in their favorite colors and embellishing them afterwards.

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Curious Critters at the Grove School
Ms. Stephanie | July 25, 2012 | Comment
Monday was an exciting day at the Grove School. Arlene Maynard came to visit with her “Curious Critters”.
The children learned about marsupials, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. We learned that the squirrel is our State mammal and that the box turtle is our State reptile. The children loved to pet Zoey, the opposum, with it’s soft fur. They were astonished to hear that she could use her tail like an arm and that she has a pouch to carry her babies in when they are very small. We learned that salamanders are very common in North Carolina and that we might have some living in our back yard. Some of our little friends were very excited to hear that toads can use their eye balls to help them push food down their throats. Bluey, the skink, showed us his beautiful blue tongue and we learned that we can distinguish a male box turtle by his red eyes. The children especially loved to touch the madagaskar cockroaches and make them hisssssssss!!!!! What an exciting and informative event!

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The “Disenchanted Dragon” at the Grove School
Ms. Stephanie | July 17, 2012 | Comment
We had fun during our Summer Program with ”Rags to Riches”, a local theatre group for young audiences. They performed an adaptation of the classic tale “The Reluctant Dragon”, that was written by Kenneth Grahame in 1898.
The children really enjoyed this live performance of Samantha, a shephard’s daughter, fighting the “Dragon” and saving the townspeople. Our Grove School students were “enchanted” by the performance!

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PreK Room 2 talks about Transportation
Ms. Stephanie | March 6, 2012 | Comment
Whether it is trains, planes, cars or buses, many children have a fascination with different modes of transportation.
Our PreK Room 2 class was talking about how people get from place to place and they were very impressed that I have to use a plane when I want to go see my parents. We talked about how there is a big ocean in between the USA and Germany and the children brainstormed about how to get across the ocean. Their ideas were “by plane”, with a “big ship” or with a “helicopter”.
As a group project for this unit we worked on a car and all the children loved to drive our home made recycled box car. We sang a song about driving in a car, honking the horn and turning our windscreen wipers on.
We learned about how wheels affect movement and we compared the distance a large, a medium sized and a small car can drive when being pushed. Some friends guessed the large car will drive the furthest, some guessed the small car and one friend guessed the medium car. We made a chart and found out that the large car drove the furthest and came up with the solution that it has the biggest wheels.
Today we fired up some balloon rockets and even had a balloon rocket race. The children learned that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. We all love science experiments!!!!!!!!

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Mommy and Me! Preview
Ms. Stephanie | August 25, 2010 | Comments (2)
Wow! What an exciting morning. I just finished our preview session of the Mommy and Me! program and it was so much fun. We had 10 children between the ages of 12 months and 24 months attend.
We took time at the beginning of our class to introduce ourselves. Some of the moms and children already knew each other and some were meeting others for the first time. It was so nice to see all the moms talking and sharing stories with each other. It was also nice to see the moms help out the other moms when needed.
Today we read a book that I made about a fish that wanted to change colors all the time. The fish has to say a magic phrase, “I am Mitch the fish. I swim and I swish. And I can change my color if I wish.” After the second time of sharing the magic phrase with them, the children were able to repeat with me each time Mitch wanted to change colors. I made a special fish that changed colors each time we said the magic phrase. The children loved it!

The children were also able to do an art project where they made their own fish and decorated the fish with scales of paper of all colors, much like Mitch in the book. We then put sticks on the fish and glued them to the fish so the children could better hold them and make them “swim.”
In order to help the children learn their colors, we also went “fishing” for colored fish. The children used a fishing pole with a magnet in order to catch the fish. When the children caught a fish, they named the color and then we sang the “Fish Alive” song.
Of course, you know what we had for a little snack! Multi-color goldfish. They are always popular! Today was no exception.
We ended the class with a few minutes in our outdoor grove. The weather was so nice and the children enjoyed playing in our lovely outdoor classroom.

I hope you enjoy some of the pictures I took during the class. I wish I could have taken more, but I am teaching the class after all!!!
The first class of Mommy and Me! begins Wednesday, Sep 8. Click here for more info.









































