SHOW AND TELL
Bring something that was made from using a needle and thread
Topic: Clothing
Clothes protect, cover, and adorn us.
The value we’ll be studying is compassion, which is to understand how others are feeling.
For manners, we’ll learn how important it is to stay cheerful and to help others.
Outside, we’ll play Simon Says.
The songs we’ll be singing are Ten in a Bed, We Shall Overcome, Let There Be Peace on Earth, Circle of Life, High Hopes, and Say, Say, Oh, Playmate.
For creative dramatics, we’ll practice good manners
Our art activities will be hats, sew a shirt, laundry, and cardboard looms.
For motor development we’ll work on flexibility with yoga postures. For proprioceptive skills, we’ll play push apart, statue walk, tug-of-war, and leg push.
ABOUT THE PLAYGROUND
The playground sometimes seems to be an in-between holding place for when we really don’t have other things going on in the school. In fact, play is what children do to learn about their worlds and to construct their own worlds. The playground is an integral part of our children’s experience. They need physical challenge from a playground; the opportunity to literally reach new heights and to run free. They need the stimulus of risk. They need choices in climbing, sliding, and swinging so they can determine the excitement and challenge for which they are ready. Structures are necessary that allow derring-do with which to build self-esteem. Equally important are break away places for those who change their minds or need time to act – alternate routes up and down, graduated challenge, and a range of opportunities to build self-esteem without pressure.
American children with their sterile playgrounds are tremendously behind European and Japanese children physically. Children in Europe have more extensive experiences in climbing, jumping, swinging, balancing, judging, perceiving, and in risk-taking than our children, who typically have 20 to 30 minutes on the playground at a time on fixed, uninteresting equipment. In Tokyo, Japanese children three- to five-year-olds engage successfully in unusually challenging climbing activities involving ropes, ladders, and climbing platforms at heights forbidden on American playgrounds.
The other advantage of playground time is the opportunity to be out of the air conditioning and the things people control into the world of varying temperatures, humidity, animals, and light. Our children need to learn how to adapt to lots of conditions, and more than to adapt, to enjoy. Learning for adults and for children is not something to be poured into them. It is an active, intellectual, and hands-on process. Our children need to learn that there are very few, if any, right ways to do things, but that there are lots of ways that work. On the playground, they get a chance to try some of those ways in a noisy, sometimes push and shove way.
We really work to have our children on the playground at least four hours out of the eleven that the school is open each day. The children can do things at the school like dig in the dirt, move equipment around, and share with their friends.
For Your Information
Birthday Celebration – If you would like to send a special snack for a birthday celebration you should coordinate your plans with the teacher. We prefer a low sugar snack cupcakes without icing or a muffin works well. We also find that a party favor last longer and brings more appreciation from the children than a snack. When we have a birthday we celebrate the child by having a “birthday circle” in which the child goes around the circle for each year of his life. We stop to talk about special events that happened during each year and perhaps show a picture of the child when he was that old. This information comes from the parent and it can be in the form of a story along with some pictures that will be returned at the end of the day.
Stone Snack – On January 24, allow your child to bring a hand full of something to contribute to morning snack.
Did You Know? - Our students are taught to clean up when they finish eating. Even the infants drink from glass glasses. They are taught to resolve conflicts among themselves as much as possible. As soon as they show an interest, we teach them how to do it, whether it’s how to read the letter “a” or how to use real scissors.
CLASSROOM NEWS
On the playground students find ways to have fun. When asking “what are you playing?” Jonathan, Evan, and Zane said they were making a house and outside the house was a camp fire and doggie treats. Inside the playhouse Sam and Woojin played cat and dog, Sam was the cat. Sitting on the cement in front of the door, Caleb, Jad, Isabella, Austin, Jack, and Kalyee played a rock game and Jad made up all the rules and explained how the game is played. Rhone and Asher filled up small pails with soil and rocks they dug up with shovel. Kennedy works on strengthening her vestibular system as she found her enjoyment on the swings and she played on the swings for a long time.
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