Tuesday News

During our early morning arrival time, some of our friends in Jeanne Calloway's second grade  class visited with us to read aloud to children in small groups. Our children were familiar with this process which mirrored the visit from Sandy Scott-Mraz's class yesterday.  The children were delighted to see Lilly's brother Elias and welcomed all the readers into our Cardinal classroom. Sharing experiences such as these for those children that have siblings in our school is very special . Developing a sense of community in a way that our younger children can relate too is supported though these types of experiences.

The children enjoy moving into the library on the days that we are scheduled with Gwen to listen to books read aloud in our very beautiful library space. On her rug, Gwen shared with us a story called The Alphabet Tree, a story that explored what might happen if letters grew on trees. 

The children enjoyed spotting letters they all recognized as well as watching the letters grow over the pages and come together to form words, and eventually sentences. In the story, the letters eventually become a meaningful sentence about peace which a friendly caterpillar decides is important enough to take to share with the President! The story was a wonderful artistic representation of how letters can be combined in a meaningful way and make a difference in the world. This story resonated wonderfully with our Cardinals, many of whom are beginning to work on creating words and sentences to represent their own meaningful thoughts!

After listening to the story, Gwen allowed all the children to pick books to borrow and bring back to the Cardinal classroom. While this was happening, some children also took turns at a large white board where Gwen had drawn us a tree onto which the children could draw their own letters, just like the tree in the story.

Choice Time Activities

Kate's Birthday Party and Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss

The children loved listening to one of Kate's favorite  books that Erin read to us in honor of Kate's 4th birthday. The children are developing wonderful listening skills and are so attentive during read alouds.  Their love of books is clearly observed and their growing abilities to listen to stories are all important pre-reading skills that are fostered through read alouds.  

We played outdoors and with many of our friends in the Early Childhood program and had lots of fun in our outdoor classroom! The children were eager to read a few of the books they are borrowed from the Library today and we were able to fit them in right before lunch.  We read Swimmy in Frederick's Fables - A Leo Lionni Treasury of Favorite Stories and My Mama Says  There aren't Any Zombies,Ghosts, Vampires, Creatures, Demons, monster, Fiends, Goblins, or Things.

Wednesday is Pajama Day!
Wednesday , February 27th is Pajama Day for all Early Childhood Kids and teachers!  The children are so excited to come to school in their pajamas and we welcome you to send in slippers and a favorite cuddle buddy to share the day. Please be sure to have their regular outdoor shoes worn to school as we will be going outside and will be wearing them for all outdoor activities. If you feel it is a bit chilly for PJ's, we suggest layering the children with turtlenecks or long sleeve tee shirts   to keep warm and comfortable. We are excited and are looking forward to a fun day! We will have special breakfast foods for morning snack and will promise to capture the day with lots of pictures!