February 2025: Love and Appreciation!

**Every child deserves a childhood full of wonder, laughter, joy, excitement, exploration, safety, and love.**

Mindful Focus: The Many Ways To Say I Love You

Explorations: Animals and Habitats

February was another month of love, kindness, exploration, and creativity at SimpleLife! Children get so excited to learn about animals and the places they live! We did so many fun activities full of developmentally appropriate learning to engage children to let their curiosity guide their desire to know more about the world we live in! With hands on activities, dress up, matching, real life photos, and deep human connection we are able to successfully support each child with their preferred style and approach to learning!

Although most celebrate Teacher Appreciation in May, we have decided to have our SimpleLife Teacher Appreciation week in February, in line with out Love Day Celebration. SimpleLife always guarantees your child a safe and belonging environment with loving teachers. To uphold this guarantee that means we take extreme priority into hiring and training our teachers. With the hard work and passion they put into the profession, they deserve all the love and appreciation! My own daughter attends SimpleLife and she adores all the teachers! As a parent, knowing that my child has a grown up she can trust and count on is the best feeling. I couldn’t ask for a better group of ladies caring and teaching my daughter, as well as a team of employees that continually lift each other up! Thank you teachers!

- Miss Demi

This was an exciting month at SimpleLife! We got to dive deep into the world of animals and learn so much together! The children really thrived during this months circle times, they loved sharing all the facts they knew about the different animals and you could really see how enthusiastic they were with this subject! From pets to wild animals we got to discover all their different habitats and try our best to match where each one would live. We got to engage in some hands on activities such as a frog pond sensory bin, our very own pet shop/grooming station and an animal sound guessing game which required some good listening ears! A personal favorite this month was when a few of our SimpleLife families brought their very own pets for a visit at the school, how cool are Axolotls! Okra, a Snowbasin Avalanche Rescue Dog, taught us how important animals are to us. The month ended with a super fun art project where each child was able to create and bring home their very own pet. No matter how old you are, we can all appreciate how incredible all the different creatures are all over the world!

- Miss Mallorie

Mindful Focus: The Many Ways To Say “I Love You”

*Inspired by Mister Rogers*

This month we focused a lot on love and how we show our love to others. This was made especially special by incorporating the words of our dear friend and neighbor, Mr. Rogers, who sang the song “Many Ways to Say I Love You”. We sang this song throughout the month, mentioning different ways we saw the children showing love to each other. “There’s the saying thank you way, to say I love you”, “there’s the helping clean up way, to say I care about you”, etc. This was special and sweet. We also celebrated love during our Love Celebration. This was such a fun day for the children to share their love with each other. They loved making and handing out their special gifts! Showing love as a child comes naturally, but they don’t always know how to express it. At SimpleLife we show them appropriate ways to say and show the love they have for each other, and we believe these experiences are helping them grow and learn how to be better people in the world.

- Miss Annie

Our Love Day celebration was filled with fun and meaningful activities that aimed to help children learn about kindness, friendship, and caring for others. Leading up to the celebration, each child designed their own bag with paint and stickers, using their fine motor skills and creativity. They also cut out hearts and decorated the classroom!

On Love Day, we read The I Love You Book, by Todd Parr and made special videos where the children expressed their love for their families. For our special treat, we enjoyed a healthier version of a cookie; a homemade almond flour cookie and some heart-shaped strawberries.

During outdoor time, the children played a Love Hunt Scavenger Game, where they searched for over 30 hidden hearts around our outdoor learning space. Each heart featured a different way to say “I love you,” like giving a hug or helping at home. We’ve also been singing the Mr. Rogers song, “There Are Many Ways to Say I Love You”, reinforcing these loving messages. Many children loved the scavenger hunt and were so excited that they wanted to play again! This activity encouraged them to use their gross motor skills while running, as well as their patience and persistence when finding the last few hidden hearts. This also helps problem-solving and observation skills as they searched carefully for each one.

One of the sweetest moments was when the children took turns passing out their Love Day cards/items to their friends. They practiced gratitude, turn-taking, and communication as they shared their cards, waited patiently, and said “thank you.” It was heartwarming to see them show kindness, empathy, generosity, and inclusion throughout the celebration.

This special day was not only fun and engaging but also a great opportunity for children to develop social-emotional, cognitive, and motor skills in a meaningful way. Thank you for all you did for them, us, and this day!

- Miss Lacey

Art Exploration:

Showing love through one-on-one time during art

This month our main art project really asked our kids to practice their patience and deliberation. We spent the month teaching the kids about new art terminology - like primary colors, background, and foreground - and took it one step at a time. The kids worked hard to create all the colors and patterns they wanted on their boards to create a rainbow background, and then had to wait so patiently while it dried AND we practiced drawing animals one step at a time, talking through what shapes each of the creatures' body parts were. They were all so excited to finally work with teacher on their animal foregrounds, that when we broke it up to work with them one kid at a time they were each clamoring to be the first one to paint! I love doing this project each year with the kids because it truly shows the patience and love for art they have gained since our first art projects of the year, as they’re all so willing to slow down and work carefully to get the results they desire - even when it’s tricky to wait and may make them feel like jumping out of their seats!

Because our focus this month was animals, and we talked about pets so much, we ended the month with an art project creating pets out of recycled materials. This project emphasizes the SimpleLife mentality of simple and meaningful being far more valuable than shallow and complex. These kids take what we all acknowledge as garbage - bottle caps, corks, fabric scraps, and berry containers - and create pets that they love and adore. They hop their little cork pets around the table and introduce it to all their peers. They make sure the food bowl is always full, and they tuck them into their cozy beds. I even overheard some of the kids asking their friends how their pets slept at home when they came back to school the following day, and some of our returning friends expressed how excited they were to introduce their new cork pet to their rock pet they still have from the year before! They really love those goofy little things with their whole hearts.

- Miss Sushi