Friday, September 7, 2012

Cardinals' Second Day...

It was remarkable to observe how much more relaxed and comfortable the children were entering the classroom on the second full day of school.  The flow of the morning and the hum of children actively engaging with each other was a true joy to see.  We began with an earlier morning meeting where we greeted one another , listened to a favorite story ( Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too by Eric Carle) and discussed our plans for the day.  It is most important to us that the children no not feel rushed and that we create an environment where our thoughts and ideas can be respected and expressed.  Morning Meeting is a treasured time of our day and we discovered that gathering the children on the earlier side of the morning was a much more meaningful way to support this goal.

The children were involved in all areas of the classroom and their comfort level was clearly observed as they moved from one learning center to another. Collaboration and cooperation in play was also more noticeable on the 2nd day of school.  We have introduced  Open Snack to the children where they can choose to enjoy snack during the morning Choice Time when they feel they are hungry.  We believe this process supports independence and the joy of sharing meals together with friends.














 The pictures reflect a glimpse of our day in our classroom this morning....enjoy!


We decided to continue our walking adventure that we had begun yesterday and started with a walk  towards the cafeteria grounds and soccer fields. The children loved running in the open space even though it was quite hot!  We realized that we needed to be in a more shaded area and ventured over towards the Meeting House .  On our walk we noticed really cool equipment near the Meeting House and were lucky enough to meet Dave, the grounds keeper of our beautiful campus. We even met one of Dave's cats, Kitty.


















 Walking back to our classroom we ventured through Middle and Upper School. We stopped by Rich Nourie's office and had an unexpected fun visit with Nancy and Rich!

 Walking back through Lower School we bumped into our music teacher Jason.  He invited us into his amazing music room and the children absolutely loved this impromptu experience!

 Our walk towards our Cardinal classroom included a glimpse of our Lower School Library and Gwen, our Lower School librarian graciously invited us to visit with her too!  What a day and what a wonderful unexpected adventure!

1 comment:

  1. Looks like a WONDERFUL first week - we are excited to see more! thanks for the great pictures! -subha

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