Monday News

April 15, 2013

This morning the Cardinal classroom took some time to reconnect with our classroom routine after a long week of intense Art Show and Science Night preparations. One aspect of our routine the children find extremely exciting is our Job Chart, and Monday mornings are our time to change jobs and review our responsibilities. The children take immense pride in caring for their classroom and the changing of the jobs is an event everyone looks forward to each Monday.

Journals are another aspect of our classroom routine that has brought a lot of creative joy into the school day over the course of this year.  In morning meeting, we highlighted what we like about journaling, and the functions it can serve, especially the way a journal entry can save your ideas within the pages of a journal. This allows one person to share a story or experience as if they had taken a picture with a camera fitted with a personal perspective lens. We continue to enjoy the entries shared by the children who have interesting and creative views and thoughts on everything that happens in the world around them.

After morning meeting, we gathered to celebrate our friend Kendall who brought in a special treat for her birthday! The Cardinals crowded around their friend to sing Happy Birthday and then we took our special Rice Krispie treat and oranges snack provided by Kendall and her family and found areas around the room to enjoy snack.

When we arrived at Jason's music classroom today, he greeted us at the door with a special challenge. He asked us to notice that the red dots that are usually set up in a circle on his floor to help us form our musical ring were not there. Jason knew that our Cardinals were ready and able to create a careful, respectful circle on our own for our greeting songs today. After successfully rising to this challenge, the children listened attentively while Jason reviewed a song he had begun teaching us the week before. Then, knowing he could rely on the Cardinal class' exceptional musical abilities, Jason gave us another verse to this new song to learn. As always, the children picked it up in no time and were rewarded with a request to have our song recorded! Lining up in front of the piano, the children did their best musical work singing this beautiful new song complete with hand motions, and then listening to their own voices sing the song back to them. Our new recording artists loved hearing their own voices in this way, like artists on the radio!

After an extremely productive Monday morning, the Cardinals headed outside to play in the fresh air!