Skiing trip January 2015

NEWS YOU WILL NOT FIND ANYWHERE ELSE
JANUARY 2015
Happy New Year!
This month at
Hello everyone and welcome to 2015! We hope all of the
families at Bumble Bee had a very merry christmas and this
new year sees you all happy, healthy and hopeful of all the
wonderful things to come over the next twelve months.
Bumble Bee:
January has been an adventurous month with the Blue and
Green classes going to Moninec for the school in nature.
Despite concerns about the weather, we were lucky enough
to get plenty of snow so the children could learn to ski, go
sledging and have fun building snowmen and throwing
snowballs. Moninec is a beautiful place with a lovely nature
walk and some very good food at the hotel. We were very
happy there all week but missed Mummy and Daddy and
were glad to come home again.
museum
While we were away, Yellow and Red class learnt all about
different fairytales and books and got to go on a trip to the
library. We also had a very interesting trip to the kalidescope
museum in Prague 1 where we walked through the maze of
mirrors - luckily no-one got lost!
We hope you enjoy the month. We've already had a few
days of blue skies so let's hope it continues!
Bumble Bee editor, Ciaran O’Hare.
BB NEWS JANUARY 2015
 Trip to the
kaleidoscope
 Trip to the
library
 Skiing trip
Skiing trip
January
2015
Trip to the library
At Bumble Bee in January our theme is ‘The story of a book’. We learn all about different
fairytales, the structure of stories, the meaning of beginning middle and end. In keeping
with our theme, the Yellow and Red classes took a trip to the library. The friendly librarian
was very kind to us and arranged a lovely programme that all of the children enjoyed. We
hope it will encourage them to be avid readers in the future!
Skiing trip
It’s that time of year again! When everybody gets their skis, boots, helmets, gloves and snowsuits
and heads to the mountains. Skiing trip is always a challenge – it can be scary to be away from home for the
first time. But it’s always a very rewarding experience and this year was a big success! We had a lot of fun
on the slopes, in the snow and doing different projects.
BB NEWS JANUARY 2015
ALENA MUDROVÁ
My name is Alena Mudrová, I was born in Prague.
I studied for six years Prague Conservatory
department of acting, singing and dancing.
During my studies I had opportunity to work with
czech and foreign directors. I ended my studies at
Prague Conservatory as a teacher of drama art for
children.
Then I decided to continue in my studies and now
I am studying second year of pedagogy at Charles
University in Prague.
I started to work at BumbleBee in November
2013 as an afternoon teacher. Before that I was
working with children in Children acting school
where we sang songs, read books and played a lot of
games. I love to do a creative work with children in
afternoon programs. I enjoy every day with children.
I am glad to have an opportunity to work at
Bumblebee.
BÁRA VALNÍČKOVÁ
My name is Barbora Valníčková. I studied Czech
University of Life Sciences in Prague and the aim of my
master thesis was to find how social environment affect
play behaviour of youngs. I am currently studying a PhD
in ethology. During my studies I have been attended
Academic horse-riding club of CULS and I had
opportunity to work with handicapped children. Also I
have been working with children who attended horse
riding club. I started to work at Bumblebee in 2010 as
teacher assistant and teacher of horse-riding. I love to
work with children and I greatly admire their
fearlessness and desire to discover new experiences.
BB NEWS JANUARY 2015
The January issue of the BB news magazine
features Mgr. Petra Antonova- the yellow class
teacher. Petra has been with Bumble Bee
throughout most of its history and I am
curious what Petra is going to reveal about
herself…
Olina
…
Olina
PETRA ANTOŇOVÁ
I have worked at various Bumble Bee branches over the years. I started in Braškovská, after
maternity leave I continued at Trojdílná, and since last year I have worked here in Bubenečská.
Places changed, but the family atmosphere and the creative spirit is common to all sites .
Thinking back to my beginnings in the Bumble Bee, I always think of the book by English writer
Robert Fulgum called "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten", which really affected
me at the beginning of my teaching career. Coincidentally, my favorite story of this book called
"Credo" fell into my hands during the Christmas cleaning (this time in the book called „From
Fulghum 1“). While reading it again, I realized that its simple message acts the same way even after
the years. I decided to share it with you in today's article as there is everything that I consider
important to give children that I teach. These are the principles that I try to pass on so that their life
will be healthy, happy, colourful, among people who love and respect each other. Here they are:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play
and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
(Robert Fulghum, From Fulghum 1, Argo 2008)
I hope this simple message will inspire you like me in the New Year 2015, to which I wish you all the
best.
Petra
BB NEWS JANUARY 2015
Our theme for skiing trip this winter was Ice and Snow. Green and Blue class worked so hard on
all of their projects and learnt all about penguins, Eskimos and igloos, ice fishing and bobsledding!
Kaleidoscope museum and mirror maze
This month we went to the kaleidoscope museum in Prague 1. This trip gave us the opportunity to
pull some funny faces and see ourselves reflected into infinity! We also got to see some pictures of the city
of Prague reflected in a giant kaleidoscope.
BB NEWS JANUARY 2015
News from the Yellow class (Petra)
We were looking forward to a “white cover” in January which didn't happened. However, the
snow and winter theme appeared repeatedly in our projects besides reading stories and books.
We danced and sang the song „Dance Like Snowflakes“, counted paper snowflakes and
matched pictures with the same number of snowflakes. We learned a new song „I'm a Little
Snowman“ and made a picture of snowman using the cork prints. We also learned a new rhyme
with a chasing game called „A Chubby Little Snowman“.
We spoke a lot about winter weather and appropriate clothing, learned a rhyme with actions
„Hands are Cold“ and decorated paper mittens. We revised the vocabulary for the clothing items
and tried to remember in which order we put them on. A story about „What Will Little Bear
Wear?“ helped us to remember it better. One of our favourite games was to „find a lost mitten“
or to „match the same mittens“ to make a pair.
Of course we read lots of stories and books. Some of them like „Snow“ or „The Snowman“
were a great inspiration for our snowfights with paper snowballs. The others were followed by
pictures or role play - „Matthew's Mitts“, „ The Magic Porridge Pot“, „The Enourmous Turnip“.
The book about the little pinguin called „The Pingu“ even inspired us to build an igloo.
We are not leaving books with the end of the topic. We will look at picture books about food,
fruit and vegetables and read stories about healthy habits and healthy lifestyle in a new topic
Body and Soul.
Petra
BB NEWS JANUARY 2015
News from Red Class (Jana)
Welcome to the world where fantasy has no
limits. This month we were interested in reading a lot
of books. We started with a story about “The Lost
Mitten.” The children enjoyed not only listening to a
story, but also playing different characters and hiding
in the mitten.
Then we moved on the other fairy tales, for
example: "Stone Soup” (a soup made of a stone) and
"Goldilocks". We also made art projects like a glove
with animals, three brown bears or a pot full of all
the ingredients, including a stone. Why did we put
the stone into the soup? Because we cooked a
special fairy tale’s soup. :-)
In the class we found a place for our small library
where the children put their books that were
brought from home. Together we looked through
them, we also read and borrowed them. We learned
how things work in the real library. At the end of this
month we had an excursion to a very big library. Ms.
librarian prepared a very nice program for us.
Another activity was counting and learning about
shapes. We continue to visit the salt cave and
swimming lessons.
This month we had three great birthday parties.
Emmička, Natálka and Lukášek celebrated their four
years.
I'm looking forward to the next adventure that the
month of February will bring us!
Jana
BB NEWS JANUARY 2014
News from Brandi’s Blue Class:
January has been such an exciting month
for our blue class. Our theme “A Book Comes
to Life” has been so much fun! We spent our
lessons reading some of our favorite stories
like “The Three Little Pigs” and “We’re Going
on a Bear Hunt”. Our stories became magical
when we acted them out and made them real
in our classroom. The kids have learned that
books have characters in them and that the
stories have a beginning, middle, and an end.
We even tried making silly stories of our own!
We also went on some incredible adventures
this month. Our trip to the mirror maze was
confusing and fun and silly for almost all the
students. In the labyrinth we only had one
person accidentally walk into a mirror and one
person afraid we would never find our way
out! In the end (about 4 minutes later) we
successfully reached the finish line! Later we
watched a kaleidoscope film and relaxed with
the symmetrical images. Lots of fun.
And of course the last week of the month was
our School In Nature trip!!! I am so
unbelievably proud of these kids! They were
very, very brave choosing to be away from
their Mommy and Daddy for a whole week.
Every day was filled with big group projects
and games, exciting skiing adventure, and
calm night time routine. I felt so full of love
hearing about their day, reading them a bedtime story and kissing them goodnight. We
had a beautiful time together up in the snow!
Brandi
BB NEWS JANUARY 2014
News from Ciaran’s Blue class
This month in Blue class has been full of magical stories and
new adventures. We've been learning all about the world of
books, looking at some well-loved fairytales and some new
stories. We learnt how a story is sequenced and how to talk
about different characters. We learnt a new story that we can
perform for ourselves called 'We're going on a bear hunt.' This
story has helped us to learn how to put events in the correct
order and about the beginning, middle and end of a story.
Everybody really enjoyed this project because it gave us a
chance to practice our drama skills and learn some new
vocabulary.
We also studied the well-known story of the Three Little Pigs.
We talked about the big bad wolf and the clever piggy who built
his house of bricks. We discussed the different materials that
the pigs used and which ones would make the houses weaker or
stronger and any other problems they might have. We did a fun
mixed-media project making the three houses which is
displayed in the classroom. We also built our own houses with
things in the classroom, and tried to make them strong enough
that the big bad wolf couldn't blow them down.
We also read some new stories from the Junior Acheivement
programme, and learnt about the benefits of saving money to
buy something you really want and the rewards of working
together to complete a project that your community can enjoy.
The children got a new piggy bank so they can start saving at
home! We've now completed this programme and will be
having the graduation ceremony in February.
Because we were talking about books and reading, we
focused on the alphabet and the sounds of the letters. We
reviewed letters A – D that we learnt about last term and have
now moved on to letter E. The children are doing well with the
writing and can recognise the sounds of the letters and know
some words that contain that letter sound. We will continue
with this so that we can reach the end of the alphabet by the
end of the school year.
January is the time we get to go on a fun adventure to the
mountains to learn to ski! This school in nature was very
successful this year. The children were well-behaved around the
pension and in the hotel where we went to eat our meals. We
all worked hard on some fun projects based on the theme of ice
and snow and had fun sledging and building snowmen. The
children also went to the skiing school and did very well at
learning or improving their skiing skills. We all had a lovely time
and I look forward to the next one in May.
I hope you all had a good month and you didn't miss the little
ones too much while we were away.
Ciaran
BB NEWS JANUARY 2014
News from Green class (David)
As it was the month of books and stories we
made up our own story and then created our own
book and illustrated it using photos of the
children's faces and drawing in the rest. The
children read the story back to the class using the
pictures as a guide. We also acted out the story in
the classroom. As our story strongly featured
zombies we also started making a short little film,
working on the children's acting skills.
This month we also had the Children's School
Library. Many children brought books in, it was
good to have some fresh new stories to read at
school and to take home. I was glad to hear that
many children are having bed time stories read to
them, it's such an essential and fun thing to do.
We also had our trip to the kaleidoscope
museum. It was very entertaining for everyone.
Of course the School in Nature is a big feature
of this month. Apart from a few coughs it was
very successful. Me made sugar igloos, penguins,
made an ice fishing game and snow goggles and
of course we had the traditional treasure hunt
and party. I hear from the skiing teachers that the
children enjoyed the ski school very much. As for
the teachers....we survived!
David
BB NEWS JANUARY 2014
Column of the month – From the Diary of a Crazy Teacher
School trips and field trips are children’s favorite adventures. They usually participate in these
activities to learn independence and responsibility. It makes their parents feel very proud of
them. People who are not teachers usually consider these trips as an opportunity for teachers
to “slack off” and just “relax on a vacation”. All of my teacher colleagues would agree that
school trips are definitely not a time to relax. On the contrary, school trips mean much more
work and huge responsibility. In other words, to take school children for a one day field trip
means to have one foot in jail and to take them for an overnight trip is close to having both of
your feet in jail…   
GIFT for a BROTHER
When I started to work as a teacher at the Middle School in Neratovice, I really liked the class to which I was assigned as a
homeroom teacher. The children in that class were no “Einsteins”; however, they were very honest, sincere and fair. They also
had a great sense of humor and I really enjoyed spending time with them. In order to reward them for good behavior, I decided
to take them for a two-day school trip to Vienna.
The children and I were looking forward to this trip for the whole school term. As we were approaching the day of our
departure, all of us were following the weather forecast continuously. Unfortunately, the forecast was rather disappointing
because it was supposed to rain the whole time. I was trying to figure out what I would do in case it really rains during the entire
trip. I had already made all the bookings and paid for everything.
Nevertheless, we got really lucky. The weather turned out to be really nice on both days. We enjoyed our visit to the protected
nature area of Moravian Karst and a walk around Mikulov town. We spent the night in a beautiful bed n’ breakfast type of hotel.
The following day we visited the downtown Vienna and we were just about to do our last activity – visiting Vienna’s
entertainment park Prater. Suddenly, clouds started to appear in the sky above us but we were not paying much attention to that
and let the children enjoy the entertainment park one hour longer than originally planned. We thought: “Let the kids have some
fun.”
In the end, we got punished for our good deed. At exactly four o’clock, when the children were supposed to leave the park
according to the original plan, it started raining cats and dogs. I was hoping that the children were already tired of all the rides
and hid from the rain somewhere in a candy store or an ice cream parlor. How wrong was I! At five o’clock, all the children came
back to the bus as we agreed upon but they were all soaking wet. When we asked them why they hadn’t taken shelter from the
rain, they replied they wanted to enjoy all of the park’s attractions until the very end.
My colleague Ivana and I were trying to think on our feet and figure out what to do with a class full of wet children. They did
not have any extra clean clothes because we were going home that very day.
Suddenly, Ivana said: ”I have an idea! They can put on their PJ’s. We are travelling home during night anyway and at home they
will just quickly run into their parents’ cars. “
“Great idea,” I replied immediately.
So we made everybody change their clothes and we set off for our trip back home. Both Ivana and I were pleased with how
creatively we were able to solve the problem. The children were dry and no one was going to catch a cold. A young male
colleague of ours who accompanied us during the trip did not share our excitement.
Everything went well until the time when all the children suddenly wanted to use the restroom. The driver stopped at a gas
station close to the Austrian border. At first, we did not notice that the building standing on the opposite side of the rode was a
brothel. You should have seen the face expression of the store attendant when twenty young and sweet girls wearing their night
gowns appeared in his store, some of them holding their favorite stuffed animal. The attendant looked suspiciously at the
children and at us. The young colleague of ours did not wait for anything and ran away from the store muttering that he does not
want to go to jail for pedophilia. So I remained there alone with the girls. Everything could have been fine if we just had left the
store quietly. But one of the girls, Nikola, suddenly remembered that she had promised her brother to bring him a gift from the
trip. She approached the tattooed attendant and with her sweet voice she asked him for a pack of condoms with strawberry
flavor. The attendant stared at her for a second- probably thinking whether he should call the police or not.
“Why do you need it?” He asked sternly.
“It’s a gift for my brother. He is going to turn 18 soon.” Nikola explained and she straightened up a strap of her nightgown which
was slipping of her shoulder. At this point, I also cowardly ran away from the store.
Outside I gathered all the children and directed them back to the bus. Two hours later, the parents were picking up their
children (still in their PJ’s) after our arrival. We did not forget to share the gas station story with them. “We are very happy Ms.
Olina that you are teaching our children,” one of the mothers told me. “They really have a lot of fun with you!”
Olina
BB NEWS LEDEN
2014
JANUARY
2014
Bumble Bee News redaction:
Editor of Bumble Bee news: Ciaran O‘Hare
Graphic design: Ciaran O’Hare
Authors of the articles: Ciaran O’Hare, Mgr. Olga Kneprová and the Bumble Bee teachers team.
BB NEWS JANUARY 2014