Wow, what an incredible first week of school! Each child is adapting and transitioning so beautifully into the classroom - thank you so much for your support! We are very excited by all of the possibilities opening up as we observe and document moments with your children. We have already seen a strong desire to build and create, a lot of interest in cooking and matching foods together, and a true passion for books and reading (in fact, it’s hard to stop reading because children run up to us with another book as soon as we finish the last book!). As everyone becomes more comfortable, we’ll only learn more about their interests and we will be able to build project work based on these expressed interests.
Each week, in addition to our on-going projects, we will also be focusing a little bit of our time on: Music, Movement and Literacy, Science, Cooking, Clay, and Math & Building.
Our first cooking related project was a taste test: what’s best, a red apple, a green apple, or a green and red apple? Only three friends were ready to taste, and each had his own opinion. Luca preferred the green apple. John enjoyed the red. And Roger liked the green and red best! It is great to learn that we can all like something and have our own preferences.
On Thursday we took out a big block of clay to investigate. We didn’t give any instructions or clues as to how to approach or use the clay. We wanted to see what would happen! Eloise immediately started to pull out little bits and lumps of the clay. Isabelle, sitting directly across from Eloise, did the same but collected the pieces together to create a ball. Luca was fascinated by the transference of clay from the block to his fingers. Roger and Kennedy approached cautiously and slowly built up the courage to really sink their fingers in to the cool and soft clay block. Finn wasn’t super interested in touching the clay himself, and instead decided to use a column block to roll the clay - much like a rolling pin. Barak liked the idea of using the roller, but twisted the idea a little bit to place the clay onto the block instead. Everyone had their own agenda, and worked intently without really talking about what they were doing.
Clay is one of my favorite materials. It really enhances each developmental area. There is the socialization and “scaffolding” by observing and learning from peers. Then there’s the gross motor and fine motor strengthening that is provided by the resistance of the clay. It’s harder to manipulate than playdough, so it’s really better for little fingers to get used to. We want it to be a little tricky. It’s also great for math (heavy, large, little pieces). Clay work is perfect for learning language and story telling as well. And it provides children with an open ended way to translate ideas into two or three dimensions! We will definitely be using clay each week!
For our math project this week, we started measuring our bodies. We each took a turn standing up against the wall and marked a line for each child’s height. Once a few friends return next week we will finish this initial step, and then use various objects around the classroom to measure with (ie- Barak is six blocks tall).
Other explorations this week:
Getting used to the upstairs gym
A lot of block building, magna-tile creations, building with pegs, and bristle block towers
Train tracks and roads being created all around the classroom
Sand and water play
Circle time - learning to sit together, and sing with each other
Puzzles
So much work in the kitchen!
Doctor play and giving medicine to the babies
Self portraits & taking portrait photos
Some of our favorite books this week include: Five Little Pumpkins, Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?, I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean, Five Green and Speckled Frogs, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, Pete the Cat books, You are My Sunshine . . . and a whole lot more!
Spanish - we started with a good morning song (Buenos Dias), then listened to Bebe Tiburon (baby shark), and this morning we added Un Pequeno Dedo (One Little Finger), and finished up with Hasta Manana.
Next week we also hope to take our first adventure outside, and continue bonding with one another!
Have a fantastic weekend!