Spring is coming!

Spring is coming as our little crocus flowers announce new beginnings on the front lawn....
Our story focus for the next three weeks will be Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joosse.
This is a very tender and sweet tale of a child testing the love of her mother which proves to be unconditional. The setting for the story is also quite captivating as it revolves around life in the Arctic regions. We will be talking about all of the different animals in the book, the interesting clothing we see, the weather in the region, and of course, parent and child relationships.
A personal book for each child is being put together as well that will be a special keepsake and memory of all the stories that we are reading together. The pages will have a simple drawing or other creative artistic expression related to each story.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

We will be celebrating Valentine's Day this Monday and Tuesday. Our days will include sharing Valentine's Day cards with friends, going on a heart hunt, making pictures with our "finds", and reading stories about love. Please make very simple Valentine cards with your child to bring for their friends here on Monday or Tuesday, depending on which day your child is here.

Sunshine today!!

Thankful for the sunny day today!!
We got outside for a little bit and collected snow for our clear bag activity. I had everyone try to predict what would happen to the snow and how long it would take for the snow to melt in various places. Some snow melted faster than others and some ended up all over the table to be played in by little animals....

In the story of The Snowy Day, Peter drags his feet through the snow and makes various tracks. We acted out parts of the story by dragging our feet, dragging a stick, and climbing a mountain.
Peter also tries to save a piece of winter by putting a snowball in his pocket. He takes this into his warm house only to discover a while later that the snowball is gone. So we talked about what the children thought happened to the snowball.

We are not done with this story and will be working with it through next week as well.
Part of our activities will include making our own collection book of all the stories that we will be reading together.

Some questions to talk about with your child (especially the older ones):
How did the snow get piled up along the street?
Where do you think Peter lives?
Peter knew he wasn't old enough to join the snowball fight. How do you think he felt?
What is something you will do when you are older?
Peter put a snowball in his pocket. When he looked for it later, it was gone. What happened to it?
What do you think Peter and his friend will do in the snow?

We made banana bread together and added lots of raisins to it.....delicious!!

Snow, Love, and Soup Days

This week we are beginning to work with the story called The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. You may want to purchase this book or check it out from the library to reinforce the story and concepts we are learning together. It's also a fun way to talk with your child about what we are doing here and create a stronger connection between home and school.
The pictures are a combination of watercolor and collage. We will be making pictures with watercolors and colored tissue paper just like Keats.
We will be discussing types of weather: snowy, sunny, foggy, rainy, hail, and sleet.
Snowflakes have six main points which we will also be closely observing.

A song we have been singing goes like this:
Yellow is the sun
Six is five and one
Why is the sky so blue?
Seven is five and two.
Salty is the sea
Eight is five and three.
Hear the thunder roar
Nine is five and four.
Ducks will swim and dive
Ten is five and five.

Other stories we are reading include a book of poetry called Animal Crackers,
Mama Do you Love Me?
Baby I Love You
The Day it Rained Hearts

Our winter circle time includes the following poems and action rhymes:

Little light snowflakes
Whirl around
Little light snowflakes
Fall to the ground
Fall on the tree
And fall on me
Make the earth white
Make the earth bright

Let's put on our mittens
And button up our coat
Wrap a scarf snugly
Around our throat
Pull on our boots
Fasten the straps
And tie on tightly
Our warm winter caps
Then open the door...
And out we go
Into the soft and feathery snow

Mark your steps
with your feet
On the white snow
Little holes
Bigger holes
Look, where you go

We will work with the above with motions and lots of gestures and full body movement for a week and then add a few more verses until the winter circle time is complete and fully ingrained in the children's hearts.

Our menu for the week looks like this:
Monday: Black bean soup
Tuesday: Brown basmati rice with teriyaki tofu
Wednesday: Homemade bread with almond butter
Thursday: Sweet potato soup
Friday: Millet squares topped with fruit

Of course there will be a variety of snacks throughout the day as well.

Handouts this week include The Wisdom of Waldorf, which is a great introduction to the Waldorf method of early childhood education and beyond, and an article about inspiring play at home with your child.
As many of you know, I am considering the early childhood Waldorf teacher training at Sunbridge College in New York. This is a part time program that consists of three weeks in June, one week in October, one week in March of 2011, and a final three weeks in June of 2011. Miss Meghan, Audrey, and Tesa will all be here to help during this time.

Thank you for your continued support, encouragement, and love!!

Latest adventures

This has been a full week of joyful discoveries.
We had a park day on Wednesday morning, yoga and lavendar massages with Miss Meghan on Tuesday and Thursday, and lots of play with a variety of objects on the light table. The children have been enjoying playing in our many indoor "forts". They are presently listening to a sweet and tender story about a mouse who comes out of the ground to discover the snow and explores the journey of a particular snowflake and its continued journey into various forms from stream, cloud, fog, and rain. Circle times include nursery rhymes and a song about tea time after which they transition to getting ready for snack time and going outside to play. Our daily schedule usually follows this routine:

8 - 8:30 Arrival and free play
8:30 - 9 Planned learning activity related to the current story of the week
9:15 Circle Time ( very important time to get all children and teacher connected for the day)
9:30 Snack Time/Story
9:50 Outside Play
11:30 Lunch
11:50 Quiet songs with the lyre/kinderharp/Story
12 Rest/sleep
3 Snack
3:30 Outside Play/ Art activity
5 Clean up and preparations for going home/Story

Did you know that by the time most children go to kindergarten, they have spent more than 5,000 hours in front of a TV? Enough time to earn a college degree. Be Out There is National Wildlife Federation's initiative to inspire families across America to open the door and get outside. To start the new year off right take the 2010 Be Out There Resolution to Know, Go, and Grow. www.nwf.org/Get-Outside/Be-Out-There.aspx

Have a happy and peaceful weekend!

Sloshy Day

Mud, snow, slosh, slush, splash, jump, laugh.....
It felt like the first day of spring today.
We set up a sensory table out in the grass and scooped up the snow with big shells. Then we gathered small twigs and other items to help us make little snow houses. A variety of shapes were explored as we discovered the prints that objects made in the snow. We made squares, circles, stars, crescents, and some original designs, and worked on patterns.

The children are hearing a winter story about a little boy named Henry who gets lost in the woods and stumbles upon a little house tucked away inside of a tall tree. An old forest gnome eagerly invites Henry in. Fortunately he has arrived just in time to join the gnome for some delicious hot lentil soup....

One of our current circle time activities that goes along with the story is to sing a little song that goes like this:
Hack, hack, the rocks we crack
To find some crystals for our sack
Hack, hack, the rocks we crack
To find some crystals for our sack

We "chop" and "hack" with little wooden blocks and find sparkling, shiny crystals for our sacks...

Books we have read this week include:

Little Kitten's First Full Moon
Ollie's Ski Trip
Any Room For Me?
Hush. A Thai Lullaby
Winter

Our menu has included:
Veggie burgers
Hummus and pita bread
sliced vegetables
red lentil soup
homemade bread
tacos

Today Miss Meghan came in for a visit which all the children enjoyed. She did yoga with us and helped everyone make handprint art with fingerpaints.

Please make sure your child has a full change of clothes here to stay and that they come properly dressed for the weather. We go outside most every day and everyone needs waterproof boots, gloves, waterproof pants, beanies, etc. It is no fun when little hands, feet, and legs are wet and muddy....it shortens the time we are able to be outside.
Your help with this is appreciated.

Thanks so much for all your help, encouragement, and support of our work!
With love and peace

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone!
As you are planning for the week, please remember to dress your child in layers starting with a full onesie or bodysuit that provides a full covering of chest, stomach, and trunk. We also need a full change of clothes for each child that can stay here which includes the bodysuit, long sleeve shirt, pants, socks, and jacket. Have your child's name on all clothing as well. Please also make sure your child has waterproof snowboots, snowpants, and waterproof gloves as we play outside in the snow every day...2 times.

School starts at 8:30 a.m. and your little one will get the greatest benefit out of our preschool program when they arrive on time and this will lessen the interruption to our scheduled activities.

Please be careful as you walk down the driveway to the back playroom as it can be slippery and also coming up the two steps.

In the winter garden, through the falling snow
Stars are gleaming, streaming, gleaming
Down to earth below
Deep snow, deep snow,
Through the woods we'll go

Hope you are all enjoying the freshly fallen snow with your family.