It was our first full week, and our first week of full days. I bet your children are feeling tired; this group loves to play! We are still settling into our routines, slowly introducing more materials and projects while building relationships with your children. In these early weeks we spend a lot of time helping children develop friendships and social connections. So much of the pre-k curriculum is about learning friendship skills. Turn taking, sharing, including others in play, and expressing emotions is big work!
One very targeted way that we teach social emotional skills is through a mindfulness curriculum called The Kindness Curriculum. This year we are teaming up with the kindergarteners twice a week to deliver the short lessons. Ms. Maira (k teacher) and I are co-teaching the small groups, and are really looking forward to forming connections between our two classes. The Kindness Curriculum is a mindfulness curriculum that focuses on emotion recognition, how we express our feelings, how we take care of strong emotions, and how we work through social problems. We'll keep you posted each week about our progress.
Some housekeeping:
*Thank you for sending your children to school dressed for outdoor success! Our transitions inside for rest time have been fantastic, though we're tracking in a good bit of mud. If you could send a pair of inside shoes (preferably sneakers that could be used during gym time in the future) that would be great.
*Wondering about ways you can support and/or donate to the classroom? Our wish list is a bit unusual, but if you happen to have the skills and time to help we won't say no! We're looking for:
- Help with some carpentry projects in the woods (updating our tables/benches etc. All materials provided)
- Firewood baby dolls (Do you have wood carving tools and some cordwood? We'd love a couple of simple figures that our children could take care of)
And we always need:
- Gallon and half gallon ziplock bags
- Hand warmers (we use them A LOT in the winter)
Don't forget school pictures are on Wednesday the 22nd! Order forms were handed to you or went home in your child's backpack today!
Enjoy some pictures from the week :)
We had the craziest ant explosion on our stump early in the week. There were thousands of them, and most had wings, and then they were gone after about an hour. Any entomologists out there who can help explain what happened?
The children said "We need to get them away from the stump!" and attempted to collect the insects in baskets.
Our last rogue caterpillar was found making it's chrysalis under the table on Thursday.
We had fun reading and re-telling The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. It felt particularly relevant this year as four monarch chrysalis' hung under the table by the children's knees.
A new table and tarp means storage space for ongoing projects and a spot for all of our collecting baskets.
We try to cook most weeks. For our first project we harvested some apples from our apple tree and chopped them up to make applesauce. These crinkle-cut knives are perfect for small hands.
Apple harvester
After the applesauce had cooked we cranked it through the food mill.
Butterflies hiding in their fort.
A nice lineup of animals
We did our first self-portraits this week. We'll do them every month and send them home to you at the end of the year. :)
Look closely - this guy found a chrysalis on our playground in the most unlikely of places!
Play time! This crew loves playing "family." Here Kristine supports them in deciding their roles.
Look closely in this picture - Chippy is on top of the Beaver Lodge checking out these kids!
We're doing a joint circle time with pre-k and k on Wednesday and Friday mornings.
We had our first joint pre-k and k small mindfulness groups. Ask your child about their feathers.
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