Concept Web

 In our classroom we have noticed that several key ideas have emerged, mostly surrounding the idea of "change" and how the children can control change around them. This makes sense for so many reasons, especially this year with everything going on. 

We have noticed this specifically in the areas of motion and movement in how the children can change and manipulate the movement of cars, trains, marbles, and anything else that will roll. We have been talking a lot about obstacle courses and how this can alter the motion of something. We have also been using ramps to manipulate how things move.

The children are also interested in paint and mixing the colors. We have discussed what happens when two primary colors are mixed, and come up with charts for the children to refer back to as they paint. We have also been looking at shades of colors, what happens when white or black are mixed with a color. 

Dramatic play has also been a vey popular part of our classroom so far this year. The children are very interested in playing pretend, and the type of prop presented to them completely alters their play which is neat to see.

We have started to create a web of our thinking and the provocations we have been working with in the classroom. We would like to create something very similar for the children to refer to with photos from the classroom. 

One Month In!

 It is hard to believe we are a month into school already!  Things are moving fast in our classroom and the children are very comfortable now with each other and the routine of our day.

We have noticed several areas of interest so far this year.  One area specifically is painting.  The children this year are very interested in experimenting with different paints.  We want to foster this interest while working on different skills.  We are thinking that using different provocations with the children as they paint may inspire them to paint in different ways.  We also want to work on specific skills like color mixing and brush strokes. 

We have also noticed a large interest in building and movement with the children - specifically with cars and trains in the block area.  Right now the children are figuring out different ways they can make cars and trains move.  We also want to continue to foster this with the children and possibly introduce some concepts like angle and rate of speed.

Dramatic play has also been very busy this school year.  The children like to pretend to cook for themselves and others.  Most recently, introducing different props like clipboards and a cash register has helped to expand their pretend play.  We are going to continue to think about how we can scaffold this play and what might be meaningful to the children to add to this area. 

We are excited to see how these interest areas develop over time!

The First Few Days

 We had a wonderful first week of school!  There were a couple of bumps along the way but the children did so well with the transition to the classroom we were blown away!  They all seem very comfortable with the "new normal" drop off routine.  We have had a few conversations as a group about masks, hand washing, making sure materials are clean, the new plexy glass on the tables, and how the playground is divided up/rotated.  The children are responding well to all of these concepts and don't seem to have many questions - they are understanding this is just how things are right now.

They are getting a chance to get to know each other, learn each other's names, and figure out interests.  We have already noticed that the children are very interested in pretend play, sensory exploration, and taking care of people/plants/animals.  It will be neat to see how these concepts continue to unfold as the weeks go on. 

We are also going to be starting a program in our classroom called, "Second-Step."  Since our children are going to Kindergarten next school year, this year is a perfect time to introduce this program to them.  Second-Step is a program with weekly activities and resources related to Social/Emotional Development in older preschoolers.  We will be doing activities with puppets, looking at picture prompts, and singing songs.  Each week builds on the next - we will start off by talking about how we introduce ourselves to new children, and eventually talk about things like conflict resolution in a way that is easily understood by the children. 

September is also a pretty tricky month as far as weather goes.  We have had high heat, big winds, and massive rain so far this week!  If you are ever unsure, please dress your child in layers and we can help them determine if layers need to come on or off depending on the weather.  

Hopefully everyone is doing well and getting into a routine as the days go on.  If you ever have any questions/comments/concerns please don't hesitate to ask!

September

 Dear Families,

My name is Catie Stone and I am the Lead Teacher of Room 7 - Toni Addington is the Assistant Teacher for Room 7 this year! We are excited to have your child with us!

We are going to send along an Orientation Packet for our classroom this year for you to read through. Later this week, we will be making some introduction videos for our classroom and show you a virtual tour of the room! We will be talking about our room and share things we think you should know before the school year gets underway. As you can imagine, things are going to look a bit different this year, but we have gotten our feet wet (so to speak) over the summer and have found some great routines and strategies that work for our room to ensure the day runs smoothly with our new sanitizing and health procedures.

After you get a chance to look at our videos, let us know if you have any questions! You are welcome to send an email, or we can set up a Zoom call for a few minutes on Monday, August 31st, if that would be easier for you. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible with the way things are going to look this fall.

Over the summer we sent out videos before we began the semester and the children and families loved them - it really helped everyone see how things would look and helped the children know what to expect.

We will be setting up a ClassDojo account for our room which you will be able to message us with and view photos and videos from our classroom on. As you can imagine, our days are sometimes very busy so we aren’t always able to update right away or see messages immediately; however, this is a great way for families to be able to see what happens throughout the day and the children love to use this as a way to reflect on their school day/week. I will invite each family with the email addresses provided to me from the front desk. If you would prefer another, just let me know!

Some of our families inquire about a classroom WishList at the beginning of the year. We have an Amazon account that I will link below. We also always love donations of matchbox cars, dry erase markers, trains, houseplants, restaurant menus, and cardboard tubes! As we get to know the children more and how our classroom is going to work, we will update you as well. Our Amazon link is:

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1IBGOPQTH0PU0?ref_=wl_share


Keep an eye out over the next few days for our videos and let us know if you have any questions. We are very excited to begin the school year and know there are going to be lots of great things in store for us.

Have a wonderful day!

Catie Stone & Toni Addington

Construction Begins

For the past few weeks we have worked with the children on planning for our train diorama.  The children have decided what parts of it will look like and how they will help to contribute.

Last week we began construction.  We got a box and decided what colors to paint it.  The children decided that brown would make sense for the bottom part because the ground has dirt and dirt is brown. On the side of the box inside, the children decided on light blue.  They decided that when they look out of the window they see blue so blue would be a good color for the sides of the inside.

The children also designed trees for the background.  They drew the trees and I was able to make them bigger and smaller by scanning them into the computer.  This helped us to create our forest in the background.

The outside of the box is painted red.  The children held a vote and most of them decided that red was their favorite color, and also the color of lava which they like a lot.  

This week we are going to look more at train stations, think about designing train tracks, and construct a bridge or tunnel for our diorama.  We are very excited to see how the next few weeks bring all of our ideas together!

Creating groups

Often the individual children in our classroom are interested in different types of activities and material explorations. As the school year has progressed, the children are now more confident in the types of lessons and materials we use in the classroom.

In thinking about our future diorama, we wanted to see what type of contribution might interest them the most. Different actions were listed and we talked about how each might contribute to the diorama.   I asked the children what type of activity they liked the most, or knew the most about, because when we start creating I will need some experts to help with different things. The children took a minute to think and then I asked them to come make their choices. We still have some children to speak with but they each seemed confident as they made their choices.

Thinking about Dioramas

Over the past few months the children have been exploring teeny tiny things.  We have done everything from creating with different building materials, to thinking about tiny details as we draw and paint, to finding special tiny things on the playground.  

The interest seems to have continued with the children after winter break from school.  This week we started to brainstorm ways to incorporate the interest and ideas of all the children in a way that combined the ideas we want to continue exploring.

I printed out photos of dioramas for the children to see.  I explained that dioramas are a small way to represent a space.  Typically we make them out of a box and it is a way to use tiny materials in another way.

We looked at 5 photos of scenes that I thought might be of interest to the children.  We looked at a train station, the desert, a winter scene, an ocean, and a neighborhood.  The children each had the opportunity to vote for a scene that interested them.  They took turns putting their name under a photo to cast their vote, and then we looked at the results together.

We talked about which diorama idea had the most votes, which had the least amount of votes, and what they thought that meant.  Everyone concluded that the train station looked the most interesting and had the most votes, so that will be the scene we will start with.  In the days and weeks ahead, we will begin the planning and constructing process.

I'm excited because this idea really seems to combine the interest area of trains, with the ideas of constructing and drawing tiny details to add so that all of the children will be able to contribute to the process. It will be neat to see how the plans unfold!