SHOW AND TELL
Bring a thing that delights you.
Topic: Music
Music is called the universal language
The value is joy. An important part of joy is being grateful.
For science we’ll talk about how sound works.
Outside we’ll have a homemade instruments band, play Simon says, and practice clapping games.
The songs we’ll be singing are Singing in the Rain, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, Do-re-mi, 76 Trombones, Rock Around the Clock, and Day-O.
Our art activities are drum, soda can shakers, kazoo, rhythm blocks, and paint to music.
Creative dramatics will be to practice being a conductor.
For motor development we’ll build coordination with ribbon dancing and music freeze. For body development, we’ll work on motor planning with listen and act, find the sound, blowing games, and walking tricks.
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 twelve that the school is open each day. If rain is not actually falling from the sky (and if we have on bathing suits, even if it is), we are outside that day. Our staff are there to share cold and hot, wet and sunny. The children can do things at the school like dig in the dirt, move equipment around, and share with their friends. Our staff only keep a watchful eye while the children are given the opportunity to learn to construct their own worlds.
Coming Up
What About Delight? – The show-and-tell might stretch your imagination a little, but our children know many things that delight them. It might be a song, a favorite lovey, or a pretty feather or rock. It’s important that we know what delights us. Our Music theme value is about joy. Work with your child to treasure this feeling.
Carnival – The children get really excited about Halloween and costumes. We’ll have our carnival on Thursday October 31. There’ll be no masks or full face paint, and no weapons, but we will have a haunting good time with games and prizes. We’ll need trinkets for prizes. Party favors work well. You’ll know other small things children love to collect. Please plan ahead we will need your trinkets by Tuesday, Oct. 29.
classroom news
In the toddler class Christian works with the pouring work. He stays focused has he pours water into the funnel. Jocelyn is learning size discrimination while working with the nesting boxes she likes to organize them by color. In the primary class Anderson is becoming familiar with numbers, as he works with the spindle box, numbers and counters and sandpaper numbers. Each work offers a unique experience with numbers.
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