Ever onward! This week our adventures in the woods have taken us on many expeditions with small groups (5-6 kids at a time) with a focused scientists eye. We’ve been working on observation, using our sense of sight and hearing to search for animals or evidence of animals, and boy are our woods a good place to look. Our tree bulletin board in the classroom has been a perfect place to post some of our drawings, questions, and observations, as is a newly started “floor book” for our Animals in Winter theme. Of course, expeditions and explorations always take on a life of their own, as we’re never sure what we’ll find. This week some kids had fun exploring a new see-saw, a giant dead tree, and a “bear’s den.” Play and imagination is at the heart of everything these kiddos do!
Our Diversity and Equity Committee hosted a nice meeting for families on Tuesday morning, updating people about the work that’s happening, and the book we’re reading called Raising White Kids. As teachers (and parents) of young children, we have a great opportunity to capitalize on kids’ natural inclination to notice difference. In pre-k we talk frequently about skin color, noticing both slight and large differences in shades. We teach kids that light skin has less melanin, while dark skin has more melanin, and we work hard to make sure our books and play materials have a wide array of diverse characters. It can be daunting, but talking openly with your child about race is so important. A great resource to help you get started is embracerace.org. I’d love to talk more with families about this any time!
Apologies for the scheduling conflict for next Thursday’s cook out. We are going to go ahead with the 13th at 5:00 as our date because of other conflicts. We’ll have another get together around the fire later in the spring!
Valentines Day
Feel free (but not obligated) to send in valentine cards for your child to share with the class, but please leave the candy at home. We’ll cook a treat over the fire and celebrate KINDNESS. There are 15 children in our class - let me know if you need a list!
Helping to repair a broken basket
Friends gathering sticks
Sanding down the rough spots
Setting up some experiments
Who's been here?
We found snow fleas!
A great discovery! What a fun new see-saw to experiment and play with.
Treasures
"Bring it in!"
Afternoon project time - working on animal shelters.
"Can I see the wolf you made?"
Working on his manta ray
These little bunnies were hiding from a sneaky fox.
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