Curriculum Breakfast

Thank you so much to everyone who was able to attend our first curriculum breakfast this morning. The kids really loved having you there to work with- how often do we get to paint with our Mommies and Daddies at school!? The collaborative mural is really wonderful, we hope to keep it up in the classroom for a while, and perhaps keep adding to it, since it was so much fun to be able to “paint the wall” together. We will be using the lovely paints that you helped to create next week on some more art projects. We have a really great variety of colors and shades of colors now- and we will continue to have the kids mix up their own paint colors for the remainder of the school year.

If you have some time this weekend, we would really like for you to send Rachel some emotion photos- you can make: happy, sad, mad, surprised, sleepy, and confused faces - of you! We’d like to put together a 2A book of parent faces so the children can continue to learn about reading facial cues and understanding emotions (and the impact their choices have on the emotions of others). Thanks for your help with this- we know it can be a little awkward, but your children will really love having this in our classroom!

Emergent holiday curriculum

As we read one of our new books, Little Blue Truck’s Christmas, we started to open up a dialogue about Christmas trees. Finn wondered if we’d be getting one for our classroom - and we definitely will next week! Then John mentioned that he wanted ornaments for the tree, so we will be making some very soon! We’d still love to hear about your family traditions for the holidays. Would anyone like to come in and help us learn about Hanukkah next week? I purchased some dreidels for everyone, and we will be making some latkes for our shared snack.

Emotional growth

This week has been filled with some really tender and gentle moments between the 2A friends. They are really starting to enjoy each other’s company and are able to initiate play with one another. It is beautiful to watch these budding friendships form, and to see our words about kindness and caring start to permeate the classroom.

Books we loved this week…

Little Blue Truck’s Christmas
Ten Gingerbread Men
Pete the Cat Out of This World
Have You Seen My Dragon?
Twenty Big Trucks in the Middle of the Street
I Stink

Specialists

Diane helped us make a really yummy salad filled with: chickpeas, red peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We then dressed it with olive oil, oregano and basil.
Ernestina continued teaching us new songs in Spanish; we sent out the summary the other day.
Coach Jojo had us practice using our feet for soccer and next week is going to set up some obstacle courses for us!
We made a tropical fruit salad with the ingredients Manuela brought in for us this week- papaya, mango, cantaloupe, and pineapple with lemon juice
Emily came to play music with us and we especially enjoyed “Wheels on the Bus.”

Activities

We made a different kind of slime, which was a lot slimier and stickier than the last one we made!
Purple playdough with cloves and peppermint oil
We used white air dry clay with collage materials to make mosaic tiles
We sailed our cork boats in the water table
We washed our babies and squeezed sponges in the water table
Our structures in the block center have been evolving and becoming a lot more complex
We did a group painting on the light table with fingerpaints - it was super messy, but it was really great to see everyone experimenting with line, shape, and blocking/uncovering the light
We painted with pinecones as our brush