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Principal’s Message

Dear Preschool Families,

Happy Twosday!

As we just entered the Year of the Tiger, please allow me to report that Zero positive case has ever been found during our recent Preschool COVID tests. While we continue staying vigilant against COVID, we are embarking on a new journey that is full of healthy, loving vibes from our amazing community. Thank you all for being part of this community.

In reading this newsletter, you will probably notice that our young learners have been growing and experiencing a lot over the past month. Performing at the CCACC Lunar New Year Celebrations at Montgomery Mall, in addition to our LNY and Valentine's celebrations at school, turned out to be very helpful for them to study and appreciate the cultures and language art relevant to the holidays. This undoubtedly boosted their intellectual, social and emotional development. Following our Master Teacher Ms. Saadia's wise emphasis last month on fostering independence in our students, our teachers have been working hard to implement this key goal of our educational policy in everyday teaching and facilitation. A number of students have demonstrated marvelous improvement in this respect. Mindfulness is the topic that Ms. Saadia emphasizes this month. I am sure you will enjoy reading her letter on this subject. 

Nap Policy
Per our communication with parents and consultancy with experts, we recently divided our 4-5 year old students (Victor & Explorers Classes) into two groups: those who nap, and those who don't nap, which has been approved by their parents. The non-nappers are transitioned into another room for afternoon work under the supervision of a lead teacher. According to Maryland state guidelines, children under 4 years of age and who are enrolled in our full-day or extended day programs are highly encouraged to rest on a cot from 1:00-2:45pm. Therefore our new nap policy applies only to our 4-5 year olds.

Please email to your child's lead teachers to notify us whether you would like your child to nap or not.

New Hires
The past month witnessed a few dedicated and talented employees joining our team. Among them are Ms. Malika Bryant and Ms. Nidian Martinez, our Racer Class lead teachers, who bring over 1-2 decades of experience teaching preschoolers; and Ms. Isabella Chang, our Academy Receptionist & Administrative Assistant, who recently graduated from the University of Toronto with Honors Bachelor of Arts, with a double major in Cognitive Science and Book & Media Studies. Welcome aboard, dear colleagues! What made me so proud is that, thanks to your excellent support and my colleagues' dedicated hard work, we are receiving programming (especially our Preschool) enrollment requests as well as job applications on a daily basis. 

Teachers' February Birthday Party
Five of our teachers -- Lindsay, Winny, Simbisai, Jean and Nadia -- have February birthdays, thus we had a birthday party last Thursday celebrating their birthdays and acknowledging their contributions to the Academy. Hope you like the photos in this newsletter.

Take care and enjoy the beginning of spring!

Avery

 

Letters from Our Teachers
Letter from Ms. Saadia
Master Teacher
Mindfulness: The Well Grounded Child

Parents' highest hope for their child is for them to become independent, caring, contributing adults, and happy in their chosen field. Our educational institute plays a significant role in the development of a well grounded individual especially when it includes developing a sense of self worth and worth of others.

Being a teacher carries a great deal of responsibility. Teachers as role models teach the young child civility, kindness, courteousness, graciousness, mannerliness. Our teachers keep in mind - what they say, how they react, how they carry themselves, how they treat others, and all of this is absorbed by the young children.

Children learn by example from their teachers. Being mindful teaches children to be self-aware (noticing their feelings), being mindful of others (acknowledging others’ feelings), and being mindful of their environment.

One aspect of an exceptional environment is the way children and teachers speak to one another, how children speak with other children, and how teachers speak with their colleagues. Mindfulness plants seeds of compassion. Mindful Approach lessons teach children a set of skills necessary for a rich everyday life. It helps develop compassion: compassion for oneself (self-care), compassion for others (care for others), compassion for their environment (indoor & outdoor), and overall/general politeness.
Letters from Ms. Nadia & Ms. Malika
Lead Teachers, Racer Class
Hi Parents,

In January we celebrated New Year. We also had a new friend Estelle join our class. We all welcomed her to our class and were very happy to have her join our big family. This month, we talked a little bit about Chinese New Year and the tradition to our students. They had dumplings for their lunch one time and they loved it. For the theme of this month students learned Chinese New Year songs in Chinese. Children were also learning the Chinese tradition and listened to CNY theme stories. In February, the theme of our Chinese class is Lunar New Year, Valentines, Black History, and human emotions, which is consistent with our English class. Once again, the students are keeping up with their great work!

Keep growing and Cheers,

Nadia

 

Great Day Families,

My name is Malika Bryant and I will be your child's Preschool Lead Teacher until we are able to find a Lead Teacher. After that I will be your child's Yoga/Art instructor. I received my Bachelor's Degree in Education from Ashford University. In addition, I have been teaching PK3 through 6th grades in District of Columbia's Public School system since 2011. 

In the Racer Class during circle time students are learning about the days of the week, weather/season and how to identify their names through songs. In the different Centers they are learning about shapes, letters and the sounds that they make through puzzles, books & flashcards. In the sensory table they are learning about the feel of "hard and soft" objects. We also enjoy playing with our friends outside when the weather permits, as well as playing in our state of the art gym :-).

I feel very honored to help shape and mold your children at this very precious stage of their lives. Remember that “every student can learn, just not on the same day, or in the same way.” 

Best,
Malika
Letter from Ms. Kriti
English Lead Teacher, Adventure Class
Dear Parents,

The never-ending celebrations are what makes learning so much fun here at CCACC Academy! Right after our Christmas celebrations ended, we once again got ready to celebrate the Lunar New Year. The children learned all about the lion and dragon dances, different kinds of decorations used for the festivities and most importantly, the rich culture and traditions that signify the beginning of the Lunar New Year. The highlight for this month was definitely getting to see the children's excited faces when they did the dragon dance around the school and got to eat dumplings for lunch! 

For the remainder of the month, we will be learning all about emotions and feelings. Valentine's Day is the best time to teach the children about love, kindness, empathy, friendship, etc. It is important that children learn how to identify and express their emotions as they navigate this world around them. In the classroom, we frequently encourage each other to use our words and describe how we’re feeling in different situations. I am blessed to see these tiny human beings process so many different emotions, whether it is just a simple act of giving a tissue paper to a crying friend, giving them goodbye hugs, or telling on a friend. There is never a dull moment in the Adventure classroom! 

Warmest Regards,

Kriti
Letter from Ms. Winny
Chinese Lead Teacher, Racer & Adventure Classes
In January, after a week of online teaching, the children were back to school and resumed their normal learning. It was heart warming to hear the children saying how much they had yearned to return to school and how much they had missed their friends and teachers. In January we completed a two-week learning session on various means of transportation that fly in the sky, run on land, and sail in the ocean. Together we learned a lot through fun little experiments. For example, we were lighting a sky lantern to understand the principle of hot air balloon lift-off. We studied the aircraft principe by observing balloon-driven propellers. We also learned nursery rhymes that build literacy skills, such as those entitled "Car" and "Airplane." Now the children can recite the nursery rhymes according to the rhythm, and some children can do finger pointing reading and sorting.

During the first two weeks of February, our theme of learning was the Lunar New Year. The children sang New Year songs, said auspicious words, received red envelopes, and learned how to pay New Year's greetings to their elders. The children were able to feel and experience a strong festive atmosphere through wearing traditional Chinese clothes, tasting Chinese food, doing the dragon dance, kneading dumplings and glutinous rice balls with play dough, reading stories and decorating the classroom. Topics we discussed include the Spring Festival celebrations and Chinese traditional culture. The students also learned about the LNY's culture of other countries by studying the customs and food of other Asian countries for celebrating the LNY. The dance entitled "12 Chinese Animal Signs" we had rehearsed was presented at the CCACC LNY Celebrations at Montgomery Mall and was well received. It turned out to be a great learning experience for the children.
Letter from Ms. Julia (Chinese Lead Teacher, Victor & Explorers Classes) & Ms. Lindsay (English Lead Teacher, Victor Class)
Dear Parents,

Time flies! January passed quickly. In January, students continued their studies, reviewing vocabulary about transportation vehicles, shapes (planar, three-dimensional), and completing many interesting crafts and exercises on paper.

Coinciding with the Lunar New Year, we studied and discussed the significance of this festival to Chinese families, learned its traditional culture, the forms of celebration, etc., and learned many Chinese and English vocabulary as a social studies program. We learned about the history of the Tiger and how it became part of the 12 zodiacs. The children learned the dance entitled "the 12 Chinese Animal Signs." After intensive rehearsals, a number of our students stepped onto the big stage at the Montgomery Mall to perform. Instantly the audience burst into spontaneous applause.

In February, we celebrated Valentine's Day in various ways. We threw a Valentine's Day party in the class, where we had lots of fun exchanging Valentine's cards with each other, and sharing fruits and desserts. The children also enjoyed participating in playing games, doing craft work, and so on. Meanwhile we have been practicing a lot of phonemic awareness, mastering beginning sounds, word families syllables and sight words. We’ve also been learning about 3D shapes. 

We studied human emotions and feelings. We also briefly reviewed how plants grow and what they need to live since weather will be changing soon. 
Letter from Ms. Toya (English Lead Teacher, Explorers Class) & Ms. Esther (Assistant Teacher, Explorers Class)
Hello Parents! 

January was a very busy month for our classroom. We celebrated Lunar New Year, reviewed counting, phonics, sight words, basic addition, subtraction, and creating patterns. During the month of January we also had new students join our amazing class. Our new students: Max, Alice, Vivian, and Major have been a great asset to our classroom.
     
So far, for the month of February we have introduced new sight words such as those of colors; we have begun blending more letters, and studied the pronunciation and meanings of -It and -At family words. We have started counting by 5's and 2's. Some students can use two languages fluently to count to 100. We will also start creating more complex patterns, and we will start using larger numbers for subtraction and addition. We will continue to work on our fine motor skills. We will also be discussing the importance healthy eating habits.                                                                     

In the scientific and handicraft activities, we studied the knowledge and vocabulary about the LNY theme, such as the origin of the year, the customs of the year, and the zodiac years - tiger, dragon and so on. We did LNY themed craft work as well. Learning the singing and dancing of traditional Chinese nursery rhymes such as "After Laba Is the New Year" and "12 Chinese Animal Signs" helped deepen the students' understanding of Chinese culture. The gesture dance entitled "12 Chinese Animal Signs" was not only performed in front of hundreds of audience at Montgomery mall, but also broadcast online as one of the programs at the LNY Internet Gala of the Washington Metropolitan area!

Lastly, we would like to thank all our wonderful parents for helping to make our Valentine's day a great success. The children were so excited!
Our Gallery
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AC Business Media's Coverage on
CCACC 2022 Lunar New Year Celebrations at Montgomery Mall
06:02  CCACC Academy Preschoolers Performing
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About CCACC Academy
CCACC Academy is a reputable nonprofit educational institution and community cultural space in Rockville, Maryland with year-round STEAM & STEM, Art, Chinese, Reading & Writing, Leadership, and Sports programming for youth and a stimulating bilingual early education center. Our Preschool’s popular Chinese immersion program is co-delivered by an experienced, professional English teacher and a dedicated native Chinese teacher. We are using World of Wonders and The Creative Curriculum as the curricula. We work hard to get your child ready for school by promoting artistic expression, intellectual development, leadership potential, and traditional Chinese culture.
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The CCACC Academy · 9400 Key West Avenue · Rockville, MD 20850 · USA