Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving break everyone! The way that we teach about Thanksgiving in school has likely changed a lot since you were kids. We no longer teach about the "First Thanksgiving," a myth that many scholars have debunked over the years. Instead, in pre-k we've read some regional Native American stories and tried to introduce the fact that long before white settlers came to North America there were native people living here, and that there are still native people living here. We've also focused on gratitude, using stories, conversations, and artwork. 

Thanksgiving this year will likely look different for many of us this year! Thank you for reading and following the new travel guidance - it's really hard!

Finally, please put on your calendars that on Friday December 11 there will be no school for pre-k. Our entire school staff is participating in a full day professional development course on nature-based education through Antioch University, something that will benefit your children for years to come!

Enjoy some pictures from the last few days:  

Bread on a stick was a success last Friday!

Whittling a stick to get it ready for cooking.

The cooking takes much longer than marshmellows, and required some perseverance! 

But the results were delicious. 

We collected some sticks to make a new mobile, and worked together to line them up by height. 

Then we noticed that there were thousands of snow fleas all around us! It was so interesting to watch them jump around. 

Stump beautification.

Emily Hartz from Bonnyvale Environmental Ed Center joins us on Tuesday to do a little activity. Here students are hiding sunflower seeds in trees just like chickadees and blue jays. 

Firewood helpers. 

We had an interesting adventure trying to figure out what made these squiggles in this log. One child said "worm writing!"

So we went to the garden to find a worm and put it on the log to see what it would do. It didn't write, but it did try to squeeze into a little hole. 

Kids were worried that the worm was dead in the hole! So we tried to pull it out. It didn't end well. 

Making mud on a rainy Monday. 

Our new level balance scale is a fun addition to the block area!