Preschool

Curriculum should help children make deeper and fuller understanding of their own experience. Going outside the classroom – and observing what is right there – that is where meaningful learning happens.

Lillian Katz, Ph.D
International Expert on Early Childhood Education

We had some wonderful “firsts” this week. This was the first time all 10 children were together since the beginning of school. Welcome back, everyone! For the first time we were able to sit in circle for a little longer time. And, we celebrated the first day of October! That was a big treat as the calendar was completely empty when we arrived on Wednesday morning. Learning about time, sitting in circle for more time, acquainting ourselves with the rhythms of a day and week, and recognizing the passing of the days and months are important concepts that we fold into our routines and celebrate when we hit milestones.

Circle time routines include greeting every child by name, sometimes in French, taking roll call, counting number of days we have been in school and marking our calendar. This week we introduced a days-of-the-week song (to the theme song tune of the Addams Family!) Children do their chores, building on their helping skills with roll call, calendar and charting the weather. All of these activities create mindfulness of the time and space around us.

Speaking of weather, we are using our senses to feel the changes in the weather – breathing in the air of the cooler mornings and days, seeing the fog and mist along the path, listening to and seeing the breezes through the trees, watching the leaves dance and fall, and listening intently for bird song. Children noticed different things on trees (bark, things that have rubbed off onto the bark, moss) and wondered why it is there, how it got there and what kind of animal might have made it. We investigated the infinite variety of tree bark in our woods and discussed what animals might strip the bark.

We noticed the clouds, the rain and the squishy sound our feet make in the woods. We talked about what animals might live under the wet leaves, and we saw and discussed the maintenance men pulling the swimming dock out of the pond. And, sh!!!! We saw a frog!

The bark itself yields many textures for exploration and will (along with the breezes, bird song, leaves and so much more) be a continual source for inquiry throughout the year. Children naturally learn through their senses, and by learning in nature this way they are also developing their ability to focus. It was also wonderful to see the children draw (and write) in the sand with sticks finding transformative possibility in our world.

Our stones continue to present learning opportunities. We have felt and compared their textures, sizes and shapes. We have counted them, and lined them up to make patterns and designs. We have dressed them up by painting them and invited them (!) to help decorate our classroom. This week we introduced a new level of counting, by matching a written number with numbers of stones. This will be an ongoing development. As you know your children can rote count – some pretty high! Most children this age have not yet developed what is referred to as one on one correspondence, meaning they are not yet able to match an exact number of objects with a corresponding appropriate number.

The rain on Wednesday kept us indoors (although we would love to go outside, so please send in rain coats, boots and hats.) Gail, our PE teacher, let us play in the gym during her free time. What a treat that was. Another first! We also had some special indoor activities that your children loved. The children played with kinetic sand (mostly sand with a binder to hold it together.) This is fun and easy to shape. It has a gentle texture, and provides lots of opportunities for exploration of volume, shapes and even erosion. We took out new wooden puzzles, and we painted at the easel.

Indoors we also practiced counting other manipulatives and we played the “What’s My Rule?” game. We used counting bears for this. This is a classification and comparison game, and the children see what is the same and what is different regarding color, size and so forth.

In addition to cognitive skills playing games like this increase social skills, including working together and taking turns. We sang and danced to Tootie Ta. This fun social activity includes a lot of listening to and following directions. We also sang in French and we began learning Frère Jacques.

Next week will be very busy with our field trip, and our Grand Parents’ and Grand Friends’ day.

Please be sure to send in appropriate rain boots, coats and hats!

We would like your children to bring in acorns and other wild nuts on Monday.

For those of you viewing this blog on your iphone or ipad, you can view the pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bcdtech/sets/72157647254977052/

Education for most people means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society…but for me…education means making creators…You have to make inventors, innovators, not conformists.

Jean Piaget

How can we teachers and parents support discovery, learning, thinking, and transformative, innovative behaviors? We provide a rich environment of materials for exploration and discovery, help children to organize and plan their play, and generate ideas for themes to extend their learning. We monitor play and allow play/discovery to unfold naturally. We help individual children by suggesting where connections can be made among themes. We also model discovery strategies.

What we want to focus on this week is how we support learning through intentional queries. Asking questions is a way to model the logic of learning, and to give children the tools for applying this thinking in other situations. Some questions starters that are always helpful are:

What are some of the ways we can…?

How do you think …?

What do you think is going to happen if …?

What happened when …?

What would it be like if …?

What would change if …?

What can you do next …?

How do you know …?

What about children’s questions? How do we respond to ‘why?’ questions? We like to ask, “What do you think?” Even if the child has difficulty answering, other children pipe in with a lot of ideas, which then bounce off of everyone. This encourages divergent thinking, helps children to realize that there is not only one way of viewing things in this world, and it builds their self confidence by learning that their ideas are valued. Inaccurate and harmful information can be redirected with teacher and/or parent queries.

Our week, though short, was filled with observations and discoveries about materials, shapes, sizes, counting and comparisons. At centers the children investigated the properties of sand and planned and executed designs and constructions with tree cookies, rocks, and branches. We used our senses outside to listen to the leaves rustle, to watch the trees swaying and to look for and gather leaves and flowers. A quote from one walk, “The trees are moving because they are dancing.”

Scientific investigation continued throughout the week with observations like, “The sun melted the water