Self Expression

Journal Writing

As journal writing has easily become a part of our morning routine, the teachers have noticed how the Cardinals are becoming immersed in their work. They display great concentration and patience while drawing and creating images of stories that are in their minds. The children enjoy visiting the journal table and take their time dictating their thoughts to a teacher as she writes their own words down. Today, Lilly even allowed Paula the opportunity to share her journal story with the group at Morning Meeting! This led to a discussion of the people and animals in the story and we learned that they are called characters. We counted and identified the four characters in Lilly's story that were all part of a bug family.

We noticed during journal writing how influenced the children are from each other.  The children are stopping and paying attention to the stories that their classmates are dictating and it is amazing to observe how this process inspires the children in their own work.  Today's journal entries were much more elaborate and descriptive .  The joy that the children glean when listening to their words read back to them is such an important aspect of this process.

Self-Portraits 

The intent and focus of the children was clearly evident as we began a new activity in the classroom. We started putting together our self portraits by drawing with colored pencils and multicultural crayons. At this center, we started by looking into a mirror at all the features of our faces. Individually, each child identified the parts that they saw and explained which color they thought would be best to use for the different aspects of the face. It was wonderful to hear the children's words as their emerging ideas about geometry came through. They stated, "My face is a circle", or "I think my mouth is a line". The children also shared their beginning ideas about diversity as they mentioned the colors of their skin, or different colors of eyes and hair among themselves and that of their friends. 

We finished our morning with a walk around campus.   The Cardinals' interest in nature is growing and growing!  They loved exploring our beautiful campus and were fascinated  and curious with each new area.  We collected lots and lots of things from nature on our adventure today and the children had lots of questions about the items we found.  We will add these questions to our I Was Wondering board and it will be both interesting and exciting to see where these interests may lead us.  The days are flying by so quickly and we are so happy to observe friendships developing and a clear sense of community evolving.