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!

Monday News

This morning the children settled back into their classroom routine. Choice time was quiet, but busy with many small groups working together in the magnet tiles and block area. After a little while, some of our second grade reader friends stopped by with books they asked to share with us. So we paused our activities and split into different groups to listen to our second grade friends as they read to us from books they had picked out just for us.

The children in both the 2nd grade class and the Cardinal class truly enjoyed and grew from this experience.  Building community and making connections is such an important goal we hold for all of our children at AFS and this time together certainly facilitates this purpose. Our 2nd graders had the opportunity to practice oral reading skills and our children aspire to someday be able to visit a younger classroom and read aloud to younger children. Children teaching children is a value that we feel is so meaningful for children of all ages.

Sculpture work continues to evolve in our Studio.  Today Evan shared at morning a robot /straw sculpture he created at home this weekend.  He described how he used straws to create the body of the robot and how he used tape to connect the straws. The children were very interested in the straw component of this project and we invited children to use straws at the studio today.  Donny used the straws to create a bed and then Kate decided she wanted to make a bed for her doll. Ideas emerging and our Studio is in motion!

When our second grade friends left us, we headed outside with our hats and gloves to enjoy some of the gloriously sunny weather. There were many different explorations happening on this bright day. In the outside building area was an elaborate house coming together, on the play structure, another classroom had brought out some large pieces of cloth which were spread over some of the structure's railings to create a fun tent that all the classes enjoyed playing under.

After a long time stretching our legs out in the fresh air, we settled back into our classroom for a story from the Rainbow Fish series. After listening quietly, we spent some time recalling themes and events from the story to make sure our memory and listening skills got a good stretch inside, like our legs had outside.