Preschool

Star and snowflake cookie cutters.

Dear Families,

We continued our work creating lanterns and rolling candles, transforming flat sheets into cylinders of light. The children have put enormous effort and concentration into these projects.  They know they are creating something very special to bring home and share with their families.  I noticed while we were decorating candles that the children asked for different colors using thier newly acquired french vocabulary, “Vert, please.”  “Jaune for my candle. My candle is jaune and I need more jaune.” “Noir and blanc.” “Rose.”  “Rouge.”  “I need violet, because violet is my favorite color.” They made connections to Halloween, too,  and to  pumpkin lanterns from the Fall.  “These will not be scary lights,” someone said, and ran to find Pumkin Moonshine and show me the picture of a jack-o-lantern.

Cutting windows in our lanterns.

Star-shaped window.

Star-shaped class.

Star-shaped body! 

We are still finding stars in apples.

Decorating candles.

Sheets of thin beeswax.

Beautiful candles.

Gluing yellow transparency paper over windows.

We continue to sing every morning and the children’s repertoire of memorized  verses grows and grows!  We learned a new song about a person rowing in a canoe, following the wild goose flight: “My paddle’s keen and bright, flashing like silver.  Follow the wild goose flight, dip, dip and swing.” When someone asked for a piece of silver beeswax for their candle, they said it was part of the song, the silver dot was a piece of the song about something silvery.  This led to an interesting discussion of all the beautiful things in the world the different colors reminded us of: Sky, leaves, sunshine, Wiskey-Friskey (a little squirrel who lives in our classroom), roses, strawberries, oranges, banannas, etc, etc. So much significance and so many stories on one small candle! I asked them to imagine what would happen to the colors when the candle was lit. “It will get on fire.”  “I don’t want my candle to get on fire!” “I don’t want my candle to disappear!”  “It will melt.” “No!  I don’t want that.”

We have been playing games in our morning meeting with jingle bells and a wintry cape worn by, “Jackie Frost.” Each child takes a turn running through the ‘windows’ in our circle and nipping(gently) fingers and toes with icy magic.  Outside, the children have noticed the way the grass in the shadows stays icy and how little puddles are frozen. “Look! It’s Jackie Frost on the leaves!” “Jack Frost got snow on my swing!”  One day we went out with the Pre-K class to sing to the sun on top of the berm and shake bells.

Singing and dancing outside at 12:12 on 12/12/12.

Beautiful star shadows in the afternoon.

Children continue practicing writing and are ‘reading’ the signs in our class: Their own and their classmates’ names on pictures and aprons, the labels for songs, the attendance sheet, the schedule of the day and when they take out books to retell stories to themselves and one another.

Practicing the letter, ‘A.’

Suleman’s label for “TIE.”

On Friday, we went to the compost pile to check on our pumpkin and the garden.  I asked the children what they thought they would see. “It’s gonna be all gone because the squirrels eat it!” “Yeah and the fox is gonna come and eat the yucky pumpkin.”

Our pumpkin continues to transform. We noticed it felt very hard and frozen.

Checking on the bulbs in their garden bed.

Last week, I talked about children wanting their work to ‘stay.’ Each child has had an opportunity to share something with the whole class – a piece of artwork, a special book, something from home.  These times of sharing are important learning opportunities.  The audience is able to respectfully listen, ask questions, offer a comment.  The presenter is able to engage in public speaking.  Reese shared a presentation about a special block construction.  I largely stayed out of the way as the five children decided how to arrange themselves.  They lined up chairs and Reese placed a chair in front of everyone, right next to his tower with a ‘balancing block’ precariously placed on top.

Some comments: “I heard a movie about blocks.”  “I like that block on top and it doesn’t fall.”

Some questions:”Why Reese take blocks?”  “Why is that block balancing?” “Why’d you put that thing right on top?”

Some answers: “I was doing this and there’s squares on the bottom.” “It’s balancing because it can’t fall down on either side.” “I know this doesn’t talk but it’s the control. I know that.”

 

“Building with a balancing thing on top.”

Reese gives a talk about his construction. His classmates ask questions and offer comments.

Audience and presenter applaud one another.

Early childhood is a time of  such wonder and magic.  I feel a great part of my role as teacher is to show the children every day that they are reflections of a world filled with  goodness, beauty, light, artistry and mystery.  It is difficult to express how deeply saddened I am by the tragedy of what occurred on Friday in Newtown. Please know that I will always strive to protect your children, keep them safe and affirm for them that they are surrounded by love. Since the children in this class are so young, I do not anticipate questions to arise about what happened.  Should the topic come up, however, I will answer their questions very simply and reassuringly. If any of you have questions or concerns, or just want to talk, please e-mail me.  Paul, Carmen and John Evans are also available to talk with you.

All the best,

Sarah

Ice makes a clear window.

Love.

The stars in the wall in the entrance to Albright Hall. “They’re holding hands.”

 

Looking at radiating shapes.

 

The pentagon inside the star.

Examining sheets of beeswax with magnifying glass and finding a similar shape repeated here. One more side though!

 

Our first window star made by Stella. “Mine’s got two pinks and three reds.”

 

Figuring out how to attach arms to make a star.

 

Zora’s purple star.

 

Four stars for four radiant children.

We also worked very hard on rolling beeswax candles and decorating them with tiny pieces of melted wax.  Each child spent time carefully warming the wax in their hands and melting it onto their tapers. We noticed that the wax  sheets got soft after resting on the radiator and smelled like honey.  Suleman looked through a magnifying glass and we saw that the bees made a shape in the wax like the shape in the star, but it had one more side.  We will look at these shapes some more with pattern blocks next week.

 

Handmade by the B3s!

 

We borrowed a book from the book fair and as sometimes happens, it captured the children’s imaginations.  Every day they requested this story about a black cat who is cheeky and cheerful by day but at night heeds the call of “wicked whispers” and becomes a thief!  We practiced closing eyes and imagining the pictures before we looked at them.  “I saw myself in the picture,” said Stella.  “I saw the pictures in my brain in my imagination,” said Reese.  The children wondered if Slinky Malinki could come out of the book and scratch them or steal precious food items from their homes: Croutons, Caesar salad, challah bread, peanut butter, sandwiches, salami and cookies were some of the things the children did not want the cat to take.  They each asked to pet the cat on the page of the book and decided he could not come out and they were safe. Shortly after, however, they shared with me that their stuffed animals were afraid of Slinky and had to hide their faces while we read the book so they wouldn’t get scared. Except Suleman who said, “My monkey,  he no scared.  No way!”

Our new favorite story, “Slinky Malinki.”

 

Getting ready to read in the sunny book nook.

 

Closing eyes to imagine the pictures while listening to a story.

 

Another fun thing we like to do is play together while singing and wearing different hats.  We sang about a pirate ship and tried to really listen to each other and follow a pattern with our percussion instruments. When we come to a new verse we pass our instruments to the next person and everyone gets a turn with every noise maker we have.

Playing in the band.

 

Cymbalist.

 

Rhythm sticks.

 

Pirate hatted drummer.

 

The children are learning and growing so much! I am really proud of them for all the ways they continually stretch themselves, take risks and try again and again to master a huge myriad of skills.

Reese made a label for, “Button.”

 

Our alphabet continues to grow!

 

Thank you to Zora’s family for contributing a wonderful new book to our class, “Bear Gets a Visitor.” We loved reading this humorous tale about friendship.  Next week we will have pizza on friday.  The following week we will celebrate the solstice on Tuesday with a small party.

 

All the best!

 

Sarah

 

Hot chocolate in snowman mugs! Life is good.

PS – We missed you, Beck!  See you next week.

 

Beginning work on our lanterns.

Dear Families,

Last week we began work on our lanterns, learning the technique of blending pastels with our fingers and sponges . Children noticed that this makes the paper, “..feel soft.” We covered the smudged colors with water color paint and swirls of silver.  We thought about the lights in the darkness at this time of year – on people’s houses and in the dark, starry skies. We talked about how we will need to cut small windows in the paper to let the light shine through and how the flat paper will be rolled into a cylinder to carry light.

 

Blended pastels and watercolor paints.

 

We have enjoyed the wintry weather, rolling wet snow into balls and finding frozen puddles on our slide when we play outside. We continue to observe the changes in the world and the never ending transformation wrought by seasons and time.

 

 

Making a snowman.

 

Another project we have been enjoying is the illustration of songs we sing.  The children collaged images from I Had an Old Coat, and began tracing some of the letters to form words.  So far we put up one word, “Patch.”  The children are very proud and excited to begin this process of writing and I see them noticing letters and print everywhere.  “What does this one say?” “Which one says coat?” “I made that one.”

To help with this process we have begun creating our own alpahabet cards with thin strips of sandpaper. Tracing the forms of the rough paper helps everyone remember the way the letters are made and I am seeing every child practicing some form of writing as well as increasingly detailed drawings.

 

Practicing tracing words in our song.

 

Collaged jacket to illustrate our song.

The children have been enjoying creating intricate shapes with play dough and pipe cleaners. Next week we will use clay so our creations can have more permanence. The desire to have work ‘stay’ indicates the pride children feel for their work.  I have noticed more intricate building occurring too – large collaborations using scarves, animals, people and colored blocks.  Children have requested that these constructions be left out, so we can look at them longer.  We have been trying to allow for these buildings to stand after clean up, carefully skirting around the small cities, swimming pools, bridges, rivers and helicopter landing pads that arise daily.

 

 

Play dough and pipe cleaners

 

“Spider web”

 

Beginning to paint our alphabet cards.

 

Bridges over colorful water.

 

A small city with lots of buildings.

 

Patterned construction

 

Sensory exploration: Food coloring and shaving cream

 

Figuring out how to make the letter ‘A’

 

Our first sandpaper letter!

At the end of the week we went to an amazing assembly with a member of “Bang on a Can.” The children were attentive and highly amused at the amazing sounds produced by blocks of wood, metal bowls, hula hoops, springy guitars, shells and many more unusual instruments. Imagination can transform anything into a wonderful sound maker!

Next week please remember to visit our book fair in the library with your children.

All the best!

Sarah

 

 

 

Children add shoes, first letters of their names and faces to  pictures of themselves on the morning message.

 

Dear Families,

 

I hope you enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving with family and friends!

The children have been enjoying the addition of a morning message and small assignment when they come in.  They have been forming letters, finding their names and doing all sorts of interesting writing and drawing both on this board and on their own.  Everyone seems to feel a true sense of pride when their efforts become part of a large, public sign.

We continue to work with play dough and clay.  The children know how to make coils or ‘snakes’ and roll balls that can be flattened into pizzas and cookies and tall towering shapes that topple and  are squished into new shapes with rollers and hands.

The felting that began when we wrapped small pebbles to create Farmer Brown’s apples evolved into wrapping bare wintry branches with red wool.  The small woolly trees were planted in clay, and children pressed small objects into the ‘earth.’ “I’m putting this here so the grass can grow.” “The frogs live under here. They’re hibernating under my tree.”  Some children painted around their trees and used glitter to look like frost on the ground and branches. “I see this when I come to school. I see the sparkly ice!” 

As the children worked on these beautiful pieces of art, their stories evolved:

“That’s the baby way up there sleeping.  It’s me standing up at the top of the tree.  Look I’m a superhero!”

“There was apples in the tree and then they got covered by Jackie Frost and then they got out and then they were rescued and then the sparklies were on the ground!”

“Mine is a boat. A tree boat.  I put buttons sideways because I like them sideways.”

“There was green apples on the tree near my house.”

“Mine is a pond.  It changed colors around the tree.”

 

 

 

Making balls from play dough that become pumpkins of all different sizes.

 

Felting wool onto tree branches.

Another activity that everyone enjoyed in the sunny November air, was painting our little house with chalk and sponge rollers and paint brushes dipped in water. Seeing the chalky dust become brilliantly colored, drip and then disappear was endlessly fascinating

 

Painting our house with chalk and water.

We ended our two day week with  the experience of breaking bread and eating soup with our whole school community in the big hall.

 

Soup with kindergarten friends!

 

Soup!

 

BCD song.

We have so much to be grateful for!

All the best,

Sarah