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Happy Kids News
Dear Parents,
Finally the long, cold month of January is now behind us! Our children have
really enjoyed playing in the snow, riding sledges and of course taking part
in the weekly ski sessions!
Our Valentine’s Day program was a LOVE-ly event! All class groups
prepared for this wonderful day with special activities based on the
important topics of friendship, love and respect.
Over the coming weeks we offer two colourful, dynamic events:
Carnival / Farsang will take place on Thursday, 1 March where the
children will celebrate Carnival with costumes and fancy dress parties.
Children’s Fashion Show is on Wednesday, 14 March starting 9.00 a.m.
– HAPPY KIDS children will hold the ‘world-famous’ Fashion Show to
colour and dazzle their parents.
With the alarming spread of viruses worldwide, we ask all parents not to
bring sick children into Happy Kids! Please take this seriously as your
healthy child could pick up an infection from another child!
We also kindly ask that parents telephone our office in the event of their
child not coming in to Happy Kids for any reason. We wish to remind all
parents that our front entry gate is open at 8 a.m. sharp — afternoon late
pick up is until 5 p.m. Please inform Mariann or Annabelle, our late duty
teachers before you are leaving with your child.
Finally, we hope you enjoy reading the individual class activities and general
news. Please record the important diary dates listed on the last page.
We appreciate your confidence in entrusting the development of your child
to Happy Kids!
With best wishes,
Peter and Suzy Jones
Cuddly Koalas
Dear Parents, We have been talking about the
First of all, a big warm welcome to cycles of day and night, about
Laura and Noyan! They both joined us seasonal changes and health and
recently and have already settled in safety related to the seasonal
very well. Our little Koalas changes, about how climate and
immediately accommodated them by seasonal changes affect our
inviting them to join games, showed activities.
them our routines and helped them in
every possible way. Unfortunately, at
the same time, we had to say goodbye
to Medó, who moved to another
country. We hope to see her back
some day!
We were lucky enough to experience
snow this January and had lots of fun
playing in it, we built a snowman
together, we played snowball fight
and also had a chance to experiment
Before the winter break, the children
spent lots of time with preparing
Christmas presents for their
mommies and daddies and practicing
their performance for the Christmas
show. They put their heart and soul
into it, created a beautiful, loving
atmosphere with a heartfelt
Christmas show.
with the snow-to see what happens
Returning from the winter break, we
with it if we put it in a bucket and
started our new Unit of Inquiry-The
take it inside.
Ever Changing Nature. We were
focusing on understanding the world The children watched the process as
through the central idea of exploring the snow started to melt and
eventually became water with great
the Earth’s natural cycles.
interest and fascination.
Throughout this past two months, There will be several events coming
the Cuddly Koalas have developed up in the next few weeks. Happy Kids
their vocabulary and independence will be closed between the 19 and
rapidly. the 23 of February, we hope
everyone will enjoy the ski break!
Returning from the break we will be
having our Spring Carnival. It is the
time of the year when we scare away
the long cold winter with our
colourful costumes and celebrate
the arrival of Spring.
The Cuddly Koalas were very lucky to
have enjoyed pony-riding in the
fresh snow in the sunshine. They
were all very brave and had a great
time with the ponies.
We also had our next session with
the Rolli-Polli. The children loved the
special gym activities, took part very We will also be having our Student-
actively and were absolutely led Conferences during the second
wonderful. week of March. It will be very
The Cuddly Koalas have been working informative and great fun to see how
very hard, preparing for the the children involve their parents in
Valentine’s assembly, to show their what they have learnt and done so
mommies and daddies how much they far, so please don’t forget to join us!
love and appreciate them.
Our group has also began working on
their costumes for the Charity
Fashion Show. We would like to
welcome all the parents to join us
for the show on the 14 of March.
Many Thanks,
Maya, Enikő, Kitti
Tiny Tigers
Dear Parents,
While playing with snow inside and
After the winter holidays the outside the classroom they learned
members of our little class returned many words, such as: snow angel, snow,
fresh and happy. snowball, pull, push, sleigh, footprints,
slide, slippery, slope, up, down, top,
We managed to pack January with
bottom, fast, slow, together, ice,
many fun activities. We continued
water, cold, warm, melt, solid, liquid,
learning new Jolly Phonics sounds,
full, empty, mittens, gloves, hat, coat,
worked on naming and recognising
ski pants, scarf, snowflake.
numbers, read many different stories,
did several art activities, learned
songs and rhymes for the assembly;
and had lots of fun playing in the snow!
Several times in January, we had snow
They could be very creative at the
same time, making lunch from snow or
creating many footsteps, snowballs or
in the garden of Happy Kids and we snow angels and even attempting to
also brought in some snow to the build their own snowman from the
classroom, to experiment with it snow. During riding the sleighs they
during morning development time. The learned how to work together and help
children enjoyed observing how the each other by pulling and pushing the
snow melted and how it turned from sleighs as well as taking turns and
solid to liquid. sharing. As a follow up activity, we
looked at our book: “Birthday Snow!”,
written based on the above mentioned
common experiences of the Tiny
Tigers and discussed the story by
using the new words.
Our Tiny Tigers sang two beautiful
songs during our Valentine’s Day
Assembly. Thank you for the parents
who came to see their children
perform. What an amazing morning it
was!
The hard work of the children and
the assistance of the parents
participating in this event helped
increasing the children’s self-
confidence, general attitude to
learning and to build a sense of pride
too.
During our Student-led Conferences
we provided children with the
opportunity to show their parents
what we had been learning since the
beginning of the school-year. They
were able to reflect back on their
learning and to introduce their
parents to the different activities
we do during a normal school
morning.
Thank you so much for all of you who
could attend. We hope that it is an
experience that all the participants
enjoyed! It is always wonderful to
see the children talk about and
involve their parents in their learning
journeys!
Have a well-deserved and lovely ski-
break – take care of each other,
please don’t speed on the ski
slopes! :)
Kind Regards,
Children took their learning to a new
level by participating in a Student-
led Conference. They were fully in Kata, Ildikó and Annabelle
charge of what activity they show
their parents and how much they
involve them. It also enabled them to
be the ”teacher”, while their parents
became the students.
Friendly Frogs
Dear Parents, They were so excited to see their
favourite three little ponies again and
Just before the winter break in
can hardly wait to meet them again on 29
December, we, along with all the other
March.
classes had our annual Christmas Show.
The Gingerbread House and the Rolli-Polli was great fun too. On 6
Gingerbread Men that our TRIBES February our class ventured to the well
created, were just super. It was amazing known place just down the road, where
to see how well the children could we were met by those friendly faces of
concentrate and how eager they were to the Rolli-Polli staff. We had abundance
perform and sing the songs that they of fun and laughter, jumping, climbing
learnt with the help of Ms. Milja, our and running around. It is going to be a
Music Teacher and their teachers. I long wait until 17 April when it will be our
think we all have to agree that they were turn to go again.
just adorable.
The last week in January and the first
After a long winter break Friendly Frogs day of February were an important
settled back to routine very quickly and milestone in the life of the Friendly
plunged into ’serious work’ straight away. Frogs. Children had the opportunity to
show their parents what they are doing
On Monday, 22 January 2018 we
at the kindergarten during the day. All
ventured to the snowy garden of Happy
participants were confident and had a
Kids to have some great fun. It was our
great time. Unfortunately the flu season
turn pony riding.
crossed our plans and many missed their
slot due to illness.
The trip to the Fairy-tale Museum was a
great experience. Ms. Katalin met us at
the door and guided us threw folk-tales
pointing out the importance of working
together. This is our Unit of Inquiry at
the moment. We read some stories and
created some really amazing art.
The children and the ponies had a great
time in the blistering sunshine and white,
glowing snow.
At present the Friendly Frogs are Circle times were very busy too. We
taking a close look at the topic that learnt a number of new songs, some
is so important when we are part of related to numbers and some to the
a community. We discussed how new sounds we covered. Our
important it is to work together. favourite one was about the Five
When we work together we achieve Little Ducks that went out to swim
more. Reading some inspiring stories one day. If you want to find out what
the children created some super happened to them, you can ask your
artwork that can be seen just little Froggy to tell you. We also
outside of our classroom. learnt some new sounds. Now we can
recognize s,a,t,p,i,n,c,k e,h,r,m,d,g, o,
u, and l. Amazing! Wouldn’t you
agree? In Mathematics Friendly
Frogs have plunged head first into
studying about numbers. We are
excellent at counting to 10 and some
of us have already memorized
numbers to 20. We are masters of
In January two little Frogs counting back from 5 to 0. The best
celebrated their birthdays both thing about counting backwards is
turning the ’grand old age of 4’. The when we blast our rockets up into
class sang happy birthday first to the sky. ’Blast-off!’
Roland, and three weeks later to
Máté. We all clapped and cheered
when they blew the candles out.
Following our class traditions we
first sang the birthday song to them
and then they took a deep breath
and they blew the candles out. In
the end we ate every crumb of the
sweet, scrumptious birthday cake.
On 14 February, we performed our
Valentine’s Day assembly. Friendly
Frogs sang three songs and had
great fun in preparing the presents
and the cards for their loved ones.
We wish you all a relaxing time and
are looking forward to seeing you
back on the 26 February.
Regards,
Silvia, Lívia and Jacqueline
Bright Bunnies
Dear Bright Bunnies,
It is hard to believe that it is the ski Our centres were mainly focused
break already! The school year is around our Unit of Inquiry: Natural
flying by so quickly and it is wonderful Habitats and our progress with early
to reflect on how much we have learnt blending (reading) and letter
and grown. recognition and formation skills. All
Since Christmas we have been busy the children did a wonderful job and
both inside and outside of the were extremely confident.
classroom. Take a look at what we’ve
done!
Without a doubt, the highlight of the
conference was the Smartboard. All
of the children were very excited to
Earlier in the month, we held our show off their technological skills.
Student-led conferences, which were Here in the Bright Bunnies we believe
a huge success. All of the Bright that this supports our education as
Bunnies were very excited to show 21st century learners and we are
their families around the classroom looking forward to more learning
and demonstrate their skills and incorporating STEAM (Science,
knowledge across many curricular Technology, Engineering, the Arts and
areas, including Language Arts, Mathematics) as much as possible.
Mathematics, Social Science and
Information Technology.
With many seasonal changes we have chance to practice our balance and
been finding it very hard to keep up coordination.
with weather on a daily basis. Luckily Finally, we have been very busy in
for the Bunnies however, we have the classroom with our current Unit
had some nice wintery days with lots of Inquiry learning about habitats.
of fresh snow. Not only can the children distinguish
between living and non-living things,
but they also know about a range of
different habitats around the world
and can detail the four main needs of
living things; air, water, shelter and
energy. We are all so knowledgeable
now!
Our favourite activities when it is
snowing includes making snow angels,
having snowball fights and sliding on
the sleds. What fun!
Look at how much snow fell on the Phew….what busy two months! We
ground! are looking forward to the break and
look forward to seeing all the Bright
Bunnies after a relaxing holiday!
Sophie, Ágota and Anikó
Last week we once again went to Rolli
Polli, where we are learning about
how to roll, crawl, jump and swing.
Our favourite activities include an
obstacle course and the inflatable
trampoline, where we have the
Brilliant Pandas
Dear Brilliant Pandas parents,
Here we are at another point during
our school year where we provide you
with a Newsletter with lots to share.
We have welcomed three new children
to the Brilliant Pandas; Abdulrahman,
Abdulaziz and Jumana from Saudi
Arabia. We hope they will settle in
well and will enjoy the year with us.
Our Unit of Inquiry this term is
Healthy Living and we have been
looking at the different aspects of
what it means to have a healthy
lifestyle. We first covered healthy
eating; the children explored the 6
food groups and how much to eat from
each group, what are considered
healthy and unhealthy foods and also
learned some new vocabulary along the
way. We did some hands-on activities
using the Smart Board and doing a
We can’t believe how quickly winter is sorting activity.
passing us by; thankfully we were able
to have a few snowy days. The
children enjoyed zooming down the
slope on the sleds and were busy
making snowmen and snow angels. We
hope we can have snow once more
before spring is fully upon us.
Nowadays though, we have been
experiencing some wet and muddy
winter days.
We celebrated the Valentine’s Day
with everybody dressed in pink and
red. We had an assembly down in the Next we looked at active living, why
gym and had games and other we have to have physical activities in
activities in the classroom with the our lives and what kinds of exercises
Valentine’s theme continuing through can we do to keep our bodies healthy.
the day. We made some Valentine’s
decorations and hung them in the
classroom and in the gym.The children had the opportunity to It is important that we as educators
do some workout videos and learned and you as parents praise and
how to play the fitness bingo game. encourage the big steps the Pandas
Last we looked at emotional well- have made this year. Well done
being and how important it is to keep Pandas!
our feelings and emotions healthy as
well. This topic is vast and while we
were able to cover a lot, the children
will continue to learn about healthy
living in school and at home.
Thank you to all parents who
attended our Student-led
Conferences. This was an important
event for the children to be able to
The children are making great share what they have learned with
progress on their Individual you. It was great to see parents
Development. Because we have a engaged in rich and transparent
diverse class, the progress the conversations with their children
children have made in their language during the conferences.
and mathematics varies based on
their skills and abilities. We have
some children who will start the We wish you a fun and relaxing
Read Write Inc. Programme soon and break!
we have some children who are
learning to blend and are making
progress in Jolly Phonics. Ranjani, Annabella, Eiko and NatalieCheeky Monkeys
Dear Families,
We would like to say a sad goodbye to
We started the New Year off with Lucy and her family who are
some wonderful snowy days. The returning to China at the end of the
children had a blast sledding down week. WE WILL MISS YOU!
the slope, making a snowman and
being snow angles.
The children have been busy In mathematics we explored the
preparing for Valentine’s Day and for concept of collecting, presenting and
the upcoming Fashion Show interpreting information in a range of
celebration in March. ways. We used picture cards, tally
charts to collect data, and then
presented it as pictograms. Children
were encouraged to ask and respond
to questions about the data to
interpret what they have found out.
The children have been making an
incredible progress over the past
months in their reading and writing.
Nearly all children are now
participating in the “Get Writing!”
programme. The reading books
contain a wide range of activities
which are linked to the Storybooks
and Non-fiction Books to make a
strong link between reading and
writing. Children are gaining
confidence in remembering and
writing sentences.
They find spelling and punctuation
errors in sentences. The composition
activities develop children’s writing
step-by-step from simple sentences
to extended texts.Children write a variety of texts
including: dialogue, recounts, writing
from experience, labels, poems and
letters. Check boxes prompt
children to review their writing
throughout. Children are encouraged
to focus on “power words” which
encourage using ambitious vocabulary
in their writing.
The parents made powerful links how
this classroom experience was
preparing children for the future.
Children showed great pride and
increased confidence in their
achievements during the conference.
The comments on the reflection
form revealed very insightful
responses to the conference
experience. Parents also expressed
what surprised them about their
We have continued exploring our child during the conference.
Unit of Inquiry entitled “What was
it like when you were young?” As We would like to wish you a
part of our TRIBES community wonderful ski break.
circle we revisited the timeline from
the previous lessons and discussed Warm regards,
that the toys we learn about today Petra, Marianna, Joanna
will be older than the toys our
grandparents used to play with. We
looked at many of our favourite toys
and came to realize that these
version of the toys we play with
today were first made in the early
20th century. We followed up with a
writing project comparing the early
version of our favourite toy to the
toy from today.
Our Student-led Conferences were a
great success this year. Participating
in the Student-led Conference
clarified for parents how their child
was being taught and assessed. They
were able to see the classroom
environment and to hear how their
child felt about his/her learning.Music and Drama Cuddly Koalas — ”Rain or Shine” Whether it's a rainy or a sunny day, it doesn't matter. We love songs about all kinds of weather. In this unit children used all their senses to explore sights, sounds and feelings of all kinds of days. But what they always asked to hear few times was the song- story "Eensy Weensy Spider", where they were excited to see the rainbow after the rain. Tiny Tigers — ”Go,Go,Go” How an amazing unit this is, when we can drive the car, row the boat and ride the train! We explored all kinds of movement in this transportation- themed unit. We delved to a concept of up and down, had fun with tempo changes and enjoyed bumpy bounces and the challenge of stop-and-go games. But " Jingle Go the Car Keys" was the favourite song because we pretended to lose our car keys and we had to find them. Friendly Frogs — ”Family & Friends” We were spending a lot of time with our families and friends in this unit. Is there something better? We sang, danced, moved and played our way through this celebration of why families and friends matter so much. We had a lots of fun as we listened to Grandma and Grandpa calling on the phone, we shook hands with everyone and played the instruments together. We had a really great time!
Bright Bunnies — ”Sounds Abound” How many different sounds we can use through the story! In the unit "Sounds Abound" we explore and play with sounds through sound effects, storytelling, graphic notations and rhythm patterns. The story "If I had a Big Blue Boat" is a rich vocal play with sound effects. "The Elephant and the Waterfall" is told through graphic notation and provides opportunity to use a lot of instruments which can imitate these sounds. What fun it is to make an orchestra who play the story! Brilliant Pandas — "Giggles" "Giggles" is the unit full of humour! What funny words in "Lady No Nose"! "Apples and Bananas" we pronounced in different funny ways. But every time when we were listening to a book with knock-knock jokes, children were quiet. That was so different than all the other stories. They always asked to listen to them "one more time"! Cheeky Monkeys - ”Jumping Beans” The Music of Latin America is always cheerful. Children loved to dance with the maracas for the rhythm of Latin American music. We also listened to some songs in Spanish language and learned few animal names in Spanish. The activities also emphasize expressive movement and dramatic play as the children play, move and sing to music and practice folklore dance related to Mexican jumping beans.
Diary Dates
Ski Break 19 - 23 February 2018
First day back: Monday, 26 February 2018
Carnival: Thursday, 1 March 2018
Children’s Fashion Show: Wednesday, 14 March 2018
National Holiday: 15 - 16 March 2018
Spring Assembly,
Easter Party: Thursday, 29 March 2018
Good Friday: Friday, 30 March 2018
Spring Break: 30 March - 6 April 2018
First day back: Monday, 9 April 2018
SUNDAY BRUNCH
AT THE BUDAPEST MARRIOTT HOTEL
Parents can sit back, relax and enjoy a superb Sunday Brunch buffet each
Sunday at the ever popular Peppers Restaurant, Marriott Hotel while the
kids are professionally entertained and creatively occupied by our
HAPPY KIDS staff. The Hotel has set up a spacious “KIDS CORNER”
where children of all ages are guaranteed a great time – painting, arts and
crafts, face painting plus lots of creative projects will ensure the kids are
kept busy from 12 noon – 15.00.
Please reserve your place well in advance by calling +36 1 737-7377You can also read
