News
Program highlights: spring 2026
Enjoy a peek at the activities that have kept our classrooms busy lately!
Infants and toddlers
Bungalow A has been having seasonal fun with ice! Using ice rings with food dye in them, the children painted on paper. Painting with ice is not only a sensory activity, it also reinforces children’s understanding of cause and effect. The children also experimented with melting ice and had a unique opportunity to push around a large orb of ice, focusing on passing it between friends. Their teachers emphasized the word “push” throughout this activity to help grow the connection between the word and the action.
Bungalow B celebrated Friendship Week in mid-February. They talked about friendship, kindness, and doing things for others to brighten their day. They created love notes and made “kindness cookies,” and had a lot of fun making their way around the building and stopping off in different places—marking them off on a checklist as they went.
The children happily offered their art work, treats, love, and smiles with teachers and staff and were pleased to see big smiles and hear enthusiastic thank yous from the recipients. Many staff told the children it made them feel happy. The children acknowledged that they feel happy when people are kind to them too. They are developing empathy and a deeper awareness of others in relation to themselves.
Children in Bungalow C have been showing a strong interest in shadows, so their teachers have planned many opportunities for them to learn about shadows and light! They put out some new materials to support this exploration, such as colored light blocks, mirrors, flashlights, and color viewers. They read books about the topic. They also set up a fun science experiment in the dark closet: “Guess the Animal.” The toddlers used their observation skills to identify animals based on their physical characteristics. The children also had a chance to explore the translucent properties of cellophane by painting on it!
Full-day preschool
Last month, the children in D7 (Hawthorn) and E10 (Boxelder) worked together to create a giant climbing structure out of snow. They decided to turn it into a Lunar New Year horse and painted it red!
Throughout the fall and winter, children in D8 (Birch) have been cooking up a storm! They have made apple pie, pumpkin muffins, candy cane cookies, vegetable soup, vegetable pasta sauce, and most recently, dumplings!
E9 (Cedar) children have enjoyed multiple visits from family members this winter! They have had a big brother and a big sister stop by as guest readers, and they even received a visit from the grandmother of one of the children. She shared her skills on violin with E9 and also with the younger infants’ A2 classroom, where another of her grandchildren attends!
Part-day program
In the part day classrooms, many of the children have been enjoying exploring the changing weather! Outside, the toddlers have been enjoying all of the ice. Skating on the ice and finding puddles to splash in have been favorite activities for many of the children. Inside the classroom the splashing continues as children enjoy the water table!
In the morning and afternoon preschool classes children have been experimenting with melting ice, using salt and warm water to melt it and hammers to chisel away at it. We’ve also been noticing the changing weather and enjoying the puddles and melting ice we find outside on the playgrounds! Inside the classroom, we painted using ice to wet tempera cakes. Many children have also been building airplanes and vehicles with blocks, pretending to travel to warmer destinations.
Dakhód’iapi Wahóȟpi | Dakota Language Nest
Lead Teacher Wóokiye Wiŋ (Katie Bendickson) completed our hallway mural with help from the children who painted the flowers at the bottom of the mural! The children have been very interested in storytelling and pretend play, and this week they will be sharing some stories with their families. Children, staff, and caregivers in the Nest and the part-day program recently enjoyed a field trip to Dodge Nature Center, where they visited the farm animals as well as the reptile and amphibian lab and harvested Čhaŋšáša mnaúŋyaŋpi, or red osier dogwood, also known as red willow.
Mural by Wóokiye Wiŋ | Katie Bendickson and children in the Dakhód’iapi Wahóȟpi
Detail shows flowers painted by Wahóȟpi students
