Back In Action....

October 31, 2012

Today we had our second visit from Alicia for Spanish. She rolled in her cart full of exciting objects and we sat down to go over our Welcome Song with her. As a part of the song, we learned how to say "he" and "she" in Spanish and we tried out our new knowledge taking turns around the circle identifying each of our friends as a "he" or a "she".

We then prepared for takeoff to travel to our Spanish speaking land. Today we decided to fly to Mexico so we took out our wings and flew around the classroom to land back on our rug. Once there we talked about how to greet friends in Spanish and how to answer greetings. So we sang some songs to go over "hello" and "good bye" using musical repetition to learn these new ideas. Then we each took a turn hearing a greeting and answering with how we each felt this morning.

Fall Festival Cardinal Tee-Shirts
The children were so excited to see the final touches to our Cardinal tee shirts.  Cristina personalized each tee for each child in the class and the joy in the children's faces when she displayed each shirt was such a special moment. This entire process of creating  'class tee shirts' has so beautifully supported one of our most important goals of developing a deep sense of community within our class.  Connecting to each other and as a group has been evolving over the first few months of school and we all are truly feeling at this time like a family.

Building Continues...
The interest in building continued today as the children initiated a construction project with the pieces of wood brought to us by Marty and his crew. They began by connecting long pieces of ply wood together to create a strong base. After the bottom seemed set, the group began to build upwards, adding different shaped and sized blocks of wood. This structure required the children to figure out placement determining how each piece might work in the overall layout. Noticing all this, the teachers are wondering where this interest in construction might take us. The children are so excited about their building and often ask that we keep it up during clean-up time. Today, we even added a note that asked visitors and friends to be watchful as they explored around the structure. We are exploring ideas of bringing in wood glue, or other tools that will allow us to create stable permanent structures that can truly display the children's hard work and persistence in a visual way!

Outdoor Play

In the outdoor classroom, we continued our connection with nature as we traveled to different areas. We noticed slight effects of the hurricane as we saw some uprooted plants and bent trees. This helps to create a strong relationship with nature, encouraging questions and comments about what the children see. They share their time outside and bond with each other and their environment in various ways.

Sharing Stories

After the hurricane, the wondering and eagerness to share individual experiences was filling the children up as they gathered on the rug with excitement. We talked about losing electricity and all the special memories with our families such as snuggling together in different places by candlelight to read stories. We shared how the wind may have scared us and how the weather affected the trees and other areas around our home. 

We had a wonderful day at school and the children immediately reconnected with their friends, teachers and classroom.  We look forward to continuing our bonding as a community. Our Fall Festival has been postponed to Friday! We cannot wait to spend some time together at this fall event and all families are invited to join us during this special morning. 

A reminder to dress your children in warm clothing as we go outdoors everyday.  The mornings are often cooler and having clothing to layer such as sweaters or sweatshirts is helpful during this time of year.