Preschool

We were amazed that these ‘magic scopes’ really did help us to start noticing more and more circles both inside and out.  At this point of the year, the children are very familiar with seeing me write down their words and capture images of them working  and learning.  Now they say, “Mrs. Cooke, take a picture of this.  I found a circle!” “Take a picture of this circle, look!” 

After making our kaleidoscopes I noticed children building with cylindrical shapes.  I also noticed more awareness of other shapes:

Duncan brought a measuring tape to school  one day and we had fun figuring out how tall the members of our class are.  We noticed that  the measuring tape could be wound into a small, spiral circle, just like the flat piece of paper that became a Ferris wheel and a merry-go-round!

Later in the week I observed children playing with our felted apples and singing the apple song to Farmer Brown.  This evolved into measuring Farmer Brown with round apples and straight Cuisenaire rods.

We have been reading more complicated stories lately, ones that generate a lot of interest and discussion among the children. The Fox Went Out On A Chilly Night, is an old folk song with beautiful, intricate illustrations. We have greatly enjoyed noticing the details in the pictures and pondering the story from multiple viewpoints: The fox who must feed his family that includes a wife and ten children, the ill-fated duck and goose, Old Mother Giggle-gaggle and John, the farmer whose fowl are stolen by the fox.  Sadie shared with us that her family had birds and once a bear had come and three birds hid and three birds ran away and another time her Daddy had to run out to turn off the “shock-fence,” because a fox had gotten his nose caught.  The other children listened raptly to these exciting real-life details of a dramatic story that closely paralleled our book.

The children are showing more ability to really listen to one another, to take turns in a circle sharing, and to understand that in a group we need to be respectful and share the space.  These skills of sensitivity and self-regulation are an important part of early-childhood learning.  In addition to sharing books and discussions, we have been practicing small moments of silence, deep listening and mindfulness.  We ask the singing bowl to sing and try to sit in silence with one finger on our noses until the reverberations completely cease.  It is a true feat for the children to be so quiet, still and present as the  music flows around us, through us and then disappears.

Next week we look forward to a wonderful field trip on the 18th with Kindergarten and Pre-K to Ioka Farms.  We will get to ride on a school bus!  Please make sure your child is warmly dressed in layers and with good shoes for tromping around in.  We will have an early snack in our class before departing at 9:15.  Later, we’ll eat lunch on the farm after visiting animals, exploring and choosing a small pumpkin to take home. We will return in time for early dismissal and a regular afternoon routine.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Sarah

We sat together to hot glue the wings and button eyes and pine cone beak and the children were really excited to hold their creation once the glue had cooled.  “It’s really a bird now!” “We have to tell Prince Philip.”  “Where is he now?”  “He’s in my desk drawer,” I answered.  “Is he sleeping?”   “Yes, I think he’s taking a rest.  We’ll wake him up next week and let him know.”   “But he really lives in the woods in a tree, right?”  “That was part of the story I told when we first met Prince Philip.”  “That’s the real story, right?”

This is a question that arises repeatedly – what is real?  Are stories real, is art real, is the puppet real? Children can seemingly hold multiple realities seamlessly – they know when we use blocks to tell the story of the three billy goats that we are using wooden blocks, but they also know that this story and the emotions it touches upon are real.  When they are playing at being a family on a boat, escaping over the ocean, they never say, “But this isn’t real.”  Nor do the children creating roads, tunnels and caverns  with ‘excavator’ hands in the rice table say, “This isn’t real.”  Their imaginations and ability to create worlds with simple props are real and vital components of their understanding, learning and beings. And yet, they are also trying to understand how   the world works in a different way and sometimes step back to ask, “What is real?”

Another exciting curriculum strand has been emerging since the beginning of school – the idea of circles and all the places and ways we can see this shape expressed in ourselves and in the world.  We begin our time of coming together every day with a signal from our beautiful blue singing bowl which is awakened by being tapped by a rod.  We have noticed that the bowl is a circle and the rod which hits it has circles on either end. We sing our song about sitting in a circle , “like the sun,” and the children now raise their hands to offer up other circle ideas: The moon, the grommet in Zora’s sneaker, the treads on Stella’s shoe, an apple pie, our eyes, a clock.  Reese told us he had a ride on a big circle called a Ferris wheel and other children mentioned riding on a carousel.  We looked at a flat piece of paper.  Could this be a circle?  When we folded up the edges there were gasps of amazement -yes!

“Yes!!!”

These discoveries led us to look for circles outside as well.  We like to go on walks around campus and see what we find as we observe and listen to the world.  We especially love to visit the school bus. On a rainy, overcast day we walked out and were astounded by circles everywhere!!!

It is wonderful to see children’s excitement as they find more and more examples of this recurring pattern that is in us, on us and around us.  We will be documenting our circle discoveries and putting them together in a class book.

The biggest excitement of the week was preparing for Grandparents’ and Grand friends’ day on Friday. The children had  painstakingly wrapped rocks in wool in preparation for felting apples, an activity we wanted to share with our special guests.  We practiced separating the wool fibers, looking through them and then covering our rocks in warm little nests of wool. These apples will be used to help us count and sing songs about apples.  The children noticed they were  like circles.  When we baked apple muffins for our guests we noticed so many circles – our arms stirred batter in a circular motion, the yolks in eggs were circles, bowls, muffin tins, lids and more!!!

It was lovely to see children showing their families their classroom and sharing time playing, building and creating with beloved grandparents and family members.

We are so lucky to be surrounded by those who love us and care about spending time with us.  Thank you Grandparents and Grand friends!

We are also lucky to have two new friends who will be spending time in our class each week.  Neeka and Meg are in the eighth grade and will come every Wednesday to have lunch with us and spend time getting to know the children and talk and read to them.  Thank you so much!

I look forward to seeing every one on Tuesday .

All the best,

Sarah

I am continually amazed by these children’s capacity for empathy and kindness towards one another and towards the greater world we all share.  Children are learning to take turns with playground equipment and the coveted jobs of holding open a door, rinsing out paint brushes, using the ‘fox-tail’ broom to sweep up paper scraps and  turning on lights in the library during  our after lunch story times.  They reflect back what they hear: “It’s OK.  I could give her a turn.  There are lots of children.  I’m sharing, right?” They also extend warmth to one another in the form of hugs when a friend is feeling sad and kind and comforting words: “I miss my mom sometimes, too. But then I see her again.” “You will see her again, don’t worry!”

We were very happy to welcome a new friend into our class this week!  Duncan was excited to visit the pumpkin in our little pumpkin patch.  A group of children followed and we noticed that the pumpkins were growing larger and their bright green colors were being replaced by an orange hue. “They are really turning to pumpkins!” We have noticed this phenomena in the trees as well.  Green leaves are transforming into gold and red and fluttering to the ground like feathers.  We have attempted to catch them before they touch the earth so we can  make a wish. In the coming weeks we will collect leaves to press and preserve as we walk through campus on our lovely trails.

The children have often requested visiting our pond.  We looked at the water and thought about who might live beneath its surface.  “Maybe a fish.”  “Maybe a snake.”  “I see a bug!” Before we left the children asked if they could touch the water.  I told them they could say goodbye to the water but asked them to keep their shoes dry.  They solved this problem by squatting on the shore and patting the surface with their palms. “Goodbye, pond.” “Goodbye, pond.” It was as if the pond was a friend and this was the closest to giving it a farewell hug. We began reading In the small, small pond, looking at all the creatures who can reside above, below and around the life sustaining waters of a pond.  In the last picture we saw a frog with its eyes closed, nestled in mud, covered by a frozen pond and a layer of snow.

“What’s happening here,” I asked. I was surprised that somebody answered immediately, “He’s hibernating!” We all repeated the word, and thought about what it means to hibernate.  “He’s sleeping.” ” Do we hibernate every night when we go to bed?  Do we hibernate at rest time?”  “Nooo!!”  “Yess!!”  We will think more about this concept as we continue to observe  changes in the outer world and as we  read other books about hibernators. In Leaves, we were introduced to a young bear  who  is sad and confused when his friends the trees start losing all their leaves. He is unsure whether the trees are sick,  so he gathers all the leaves into a pile and uses them to make a cozy bed in a hillside where he sleeps until spring.

In our morning circle we often sing a song about a boat and turn our bodies into boats, balancing on the fulcrum of our seats and rocking back and forth over the waves.  Children imagine what their boats look like:  “Mine is a rainbow boat.” “Mine is green.” “It is a ship!” “A paper boat!” “A feather boat!”  “A glue boat.” At the water table children sail the small scallop shell boat and then sink it to the bottom. They ride together in the big boat, holding dolls or the wooden pear that often stands in for a bell: “Ding-a-ling-a- ling! Get in sister. Brother, come we need to ride quickly!”  “Why we need to ride quickly?” “We need to go to our house.”  “There’s a big fish under the water.”

In the block area children are making tall structures, practicing balance and symmetry.  They are also continuing to use the blocks and scarves to retell the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  Recently someone noticed that when the arched block symbolizing the bridge is turned over, it becomes a boat!   An innovative way for the goats to safely traverse the waters and the troll and get to the green hillsides to eat!

We had a great milestone this week – two children sat with me to look into a mirror and study their faces.  We spoke about the shapes they observed as they traced the contours of their faces with a finger and then began to draw.  It was the first really readable representation of a human face.  All the children were excited and wanted to have a turn.  The second child had closely observed the first and a second face emerged. “It’s me! I have toes, too.  And I have feet.” We will continue to look closely at ourselves and attempt to draw what we see.  Throughout the year children will have the chance to make self -portraits and these representations of self will be kept in their portfolios.

In the next week we will continue working on our long term project of feathers and flying and the bird we are making. We will also look more closely at the fluffy balls of wool roving that have been in our class.  We began reading about sheep and imagining what it would be like to be a sheep getting sheared. The red color of the wool reminded us of apples and the children will be starting another project to make felted apples, illustrations of our Farmer Brown song as well as counting tools we  will use as we continue to learn about numbers and adding and subtracting. We look forward to felting with our Grandparents and Grand friends on Friday.

Our gallery of art and words from the children is growing.  Please come in to look at what your children are creating and please let me know if you have a time in the coming weeks and months when you would like to come in to the class to read a book, share a song, a baking project or anything else that is special for you and your child.

All the best!

Sarah