Flowers
Here’s the link to our SignUpGenius for classroom flowers: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0449afa629a02-flower
Parent Zoom Meetings
Our last Parent Zooms of 2020 will be on Wednesday, December 16 at 3:00 (Cilantro) and 3:30pm (Dandelion). We hope you can join us!
Winter Break Info
Just a reminder that New School-West closes for Winter Break at the end of the day on Thursday, December 17. We will reopen on Wednesday, January 6th.
Roleen sent out an email on Sunday, December 6th with some updated information about our policies and best practices over the next few weeks:
- All public and private gatherings and events with people from more than one household are not permitted. This means we have to think absolutely about the possibilities of added exposure when we are with people outside our own household (not just 3 or more households, anymore). That means, redefining your “bubble” for now, refraining from celebrating birthday parties and holidays in traditional ways, and putting a pause on play dates and extracurricular activities, etc.
- If you choose to travel out of state, you are required to quarantine for 14 days (test or no test) starting from the day after your return before coming back to school
- If you travel within the state, you are required to get a PCR test on the 7th day (counting from the day after your arrival home). You can return to school after a negative test.
Please make sure to let your classroom teachers know of any planned absences for the days leading up to break and the days after break. Thank you so much in advance for all that you do to keep the West Wing and the entire New School-West community healthy.
Group Updates
Cilantro
This week we welcomed the skills and talents of educators Mary and Michelle to support the Cilantros. These two slipped in smoothly and became part of the Cilantro group within seconds. This is a talent that naturally comes to only skilled authentic people. We are so grateful for their time with us. During our morning physical activity time, Mary guided us in new stretching exercises. We took a journey from land to sea acting as imaginary animals combined with yoga moves. Inside the classroom, Michelle co-navigated through “worlds” alongside the children. In the Building Space, dragon movements were controlled by computer keys in Dragon World. Compositions of worlds were designed with treasures on canvases at the loose material table.
The children were excited to share some of their natural material findings from our zoom focus time last week. They began sorting through the collection and putting them into sets. Some spent time looking closer with magnifying lenses and others began to use the materials to create compositions of people and other scenes. Please bring in the children’s nature findings to expand our collection!
A big investment of the children’s time was in building a variety of ramps. Small groups combined logs and woodworking materials to test which ramps would be most fun to roll down our rubber balls. They found out that during construction, it is important to communicate with each other on the placement of wood pieces. One person’s idea may not be obvious until they have had the opportunity to explain their thought or theory.
In the sand area, the sand kitchen was a busy space to cook up meals and bake birthday cakes. The children took on the roles of different family members (mom, dad, baby), similar to the ongoing play in the classroom house area. The children were especially eager to challenge their gross motor abilities on the slide and the monkey bars, many practicing how to reach for the bars from the middle platform and then jump down into the sand and land on their feet.
Dandelion
This week, we introduced another tool to the building space — a ladder — along with the question, “How high can we build?” The children started the building process by drawing up a plan on a piece of paper with one of our “thinking pens” (black flair-tips). Then they worked collaboratively to build vertically. Once the tower got so tall that even the tallest child could no longer reach the top, we brought out the step ladder. We ended up creating a tower so high that we couldn’t reach the top even with the step ladder on the platform. (We also had to return back to our originally drawn plan and add additional height to the drawing!) We now have three very tall towers in that space. We are curious to see what will happen when the towers fall? When the Dandelions need blocks that are already being used as part of an existing tower? When the Dandelions want to build something new (or engage with the space in a new way)?
Indoors, we also continue to paint our alphabet letters with acrylic paints, take on new roles in dramatic play in the house areas, write notes back and forth with the Cilantros, build magnatile houses and apartments for all of the Dandelion figurines, dance to Animal Action, and play with the flannel board stories that Flora has created for us.
In our outdoor spaces the children continue to work on their tape as a resistance project by adding final touches to their piece of art. This activity involves revisiting skills using scissors and handling the “sticky” tape in combination with droppers to “splash” watercolor paint on their large canvas. The goal is to create their family holiday cards from this large painting they are all collaborating together.
Our days in the wood chip area continue to fill the children with joy and energy to run, climb, and play their games. Also, this week’s walk was full of adventures. The children predicted they would see: “Santa, a big tree, a car on the road, a bird, and a skeleton.” One of these adventures was noticing that the moon was still up and they said: “The moon thinks it is already night time?” Their biggest surprise was that the moon “[kept] following us!” Then they thought: “The moon is going on a walk with us!”