Kindergarten

We’ve had an amazing two weeks – busy, happy, and productive.

The children have spent a lot of time discussing their “Hope and Dreams” and are working on developing a set of classroom rules that will allow for everyone to have a successful year.  We have 32 rules at present.  Many use what I call “grumpy language” – i.e. “no running,  no yelling.”  These are being reframed in the positive  – “use walking feet, use an inside voice.”  The next step will be to distill these into two or three broad rules that cover everything. By next week we should have our classroom rules in place.

We went on our first class trip to Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory, where we saw over 3000 butterflies!  These included the electric Blue Morpho and a very delicate Glasswing.  We also saw a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis (amazing!), a Senegal parrot, many lizards, poisonous tree frogs, small quail, and even a tortoise.  Thanks to Natacha and Lyndsey for being our chaperones!

As of this writing, we have 13 healthy and plump caterpillars!

Look how they’ve grown!

Some are well over 2″ long.  We’re expecting to see them in chrysalis soon. Last week the caterpillars crawled on the tables while the class drew them.  Here’s a peek into that experience:

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/72157647374996979/

We celebrated  International Peace Day today with the entire BCD community.  The children brainstormed ideas of things that should be part of a peaceful world  and came up with food, shelter, clothing, drinks, nature, and love.  Together they created a poster (working quite peacefully together to color it).  We presented this at the school-wide gathering today and sang a song with our Lower School friends.

Peaceful class making a peaceful world…

This week we talked about wants vs. needs, and specifically about hunger.  We read a wonderful book called Apple Picking Time by Michele Slawson, which depicts a migrant family where all members – grandparents, parents, and little girl, have to work to bring in the crop and earn enough money for their own needs.  The book led us into a discussion about what we might be able to do to help those who are hungry.  Our plan is to bake cookies every month and so yesterday we baked our first cookies, which I then delivered to Open Table.  (Open Table, located in Stockbridge, serves meals on Thursdays to anyone who wants one.) The children made cards and drawings as well, and are actively committed to helping out in this way.

No school next Thursday because of Rosh Hashanah.  A very Happy New Year to those who celebrate!

Andrea

What a GREAT first week this has been!  New friendships are quickly being formed as the children learn to work and play with each other.  Classroom routines and ways of interacting with one another are being established in an atmosphere of caring and respect.  This significant part of Responsive Classroom takes several weeks to complete and will enable us to create a classroom of cooperation and trust that will hold throughout the year.  Next week we begin to talk about our school “Hopes and Dreams,” which will guide us into creating classroom rules together.

A few photos are below from our guided discovery on pattern blocks.  Many children have chosen to continued to explore these manipulatives on their own.  Below, a few of their creations-in-progress!

Our teeny-tiny (1/8″ long – yes, you read that right) monarch caterpillars arrived in the mail today.  We will observe the entire life cycle, from egg to butterfly, and the children will document each stage of the process.  It’s very exciting!  Below is one of our new classroom friends (magnified a lot!)

I’m tiny now, but watch me grow!

A final shot of your cuties, already hamming it up!

Kindergarten rocks!

Have a good weekend!

Andrea