"Are you okay?"

A big focus of our time in pre-k this week was around making mistakes. We read a great book called Down the Road, about a girl who goes to the store by herself for the first time, only to drop and break all of the eggs she was tasked to buy. The messaging is clear: we all make mistakes, all the time! And sometimes our mistakes hurt other people. In pre-k we give kids a bit of a script to use if they mistakenly hurt someone else (physically or emotionally). Instead of forcing an apology, which can be insincere, we say "I didn't mean it, are you okay?" We sometimes follow that up with "What do you need?" This approach encourages more engagement than the quick sorry! 

Enjoy some pictures from the week, and ask your child about our biosphere project!

A nest! Found on the forest floor. 

These pumpkins just keep on giving.

And they're especially delicious to the local animals. We're having a LOT of fun thinking about 

who dunnit!

more and more and more potions

We did some story writing this week. You can check out the great work on our "Authors Wall".

One way we practice saying "I didn't mean it, are you okay?" is with a circle time game. We pass an egg around the circle, using just spoons. When it drops we have a chance to say "I didn't mean it..."

Disappearing in the leaves

A great cooking project on Thursday - ranch dip!

Dip is a GREAT way to get your kiddos to eat veggies. This group loved their homemade ranch. 

We turned our kitchen area into a Fix-It Shop. So fun!

We did a lot of thinking about ways to support the lives of tiny critters in our terrarium. Check out their interesting thoughts on the bulletin board in the classroom!

Before putting the animals into their biosphere we did some more close observation. 

Ta da! All of the "ingredients" we need to support tiny lives, we hope. We'll open up the biosphere in a couple of weeks to see if they're still living. 

Have a great weekend!