Another fun week in the books! Thank you for sending warm clothes with your children - our mornings in the woods can be chilly. If you're ever wondering how to dress your child, look at a weather report for the overnight low. Chances are the temperature in Wildwood Forest first thing in the morning will be about that.
Some of you may have read information in our beginning of year school paperwork about PBIS. PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) is a behavior framework that our school uses to promote positive reinforcement and teaching of desired behaviors. In kindergarten through 6th grade students can earn "eagle awards" for displaying positive behavior. When the students have collectively earned a certain number of awards there is an all school celebration, like pajama day! In pre-k many of our behavior support practices are informed and inspired by the Pyramid Model, which is similar to PBIS but more targeted to younger children. Regardless, we find that pre-k students are excited to participate in the dress-up days that are occasionally a PBIS reward, hence pajama day!
A quick laniard/mask update - are the laniards working? After some experimentation we have come to the conclusion that...it depends. If your child is enjoying the laniard with their mask feel free to keep sending it. If it's challenging to keep track of, or if we notice that it's not working for your kiddo don't worry about sending one. As with most things in pre-k we're try to do what's best for each individual child.
And before some pictures from the week, please take a minute to read this important message from our principal Mr. G.
Dear PreK families,
As you may be aware of, there is a local and national shortage of substitute teachers. With PreK, the situation is even more dire, given that staff must meet specific early education requirements, as well as our standard district qualifications to substitute teach. Because of these conditions, there may be times when we need to close our PreK for a day or more if one of our PreK staff members becomes ill. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience if this scenario does occur and I ask for your understanding of the situation. Feel free to contact Emma or me (jgagnon@wsesdvt.org) with questions.
Here's what we've been up to this week:
A HUGE thanks to Olive's mom Kitsie and our Farm to School Coordinator Sarah who put in some awesome new nature-scape elements in our field last weekend. Pre-k loved exploring and climbing this week.
This is a really tricky balancing log!
It's a beautiful time of year to start collecting leaves.
After collecting we sorted the leaves into different categories. We'll continue to sort based on different attributes in coming days.
A new "dog house"
Our mud kitchen has turned into a restaurant! These two are working on the menus.
More menu work
We strung beads on pipe cleaners to decorate our boundary markers.
We decided that our forest friends needed a little decoration too.
Cut up apples and leaves made some fun stamps for this art project.
These kiddos are eagerly counting how many kindness seeds we have in our kindness garden. Look at them all!
Our Wednesday mindfulness lesson was all about paying attention and finding a quiet calm place inside our bodies. Here children lie on their backs with a "Belly Buddy" on their tummy, feeling it rise up and down as they breathe.
Getting some wood prepped to make our "All Are Welcome" sign, an idea that came straight from the kids! Stay tuned for a finished product soon...
We introduced our "Inquiry Basket" this week, and children got a chance to explore the tools inside. The Inquiry Basket includes measuring tapes, thermometers, hand lenses,
binoculars,
nets, and other scientific inquiry materials like field guides, notebooks, and collecting containers. As you can imagine using the inquiry basket becomes a popular activity for these curious little thinkers!
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