Birthdays
This week the Dandelions celebrated Spencer’s 4th birthday. Happy birthday, Spencer! Spencer’s parents, Barbara and Justin, as well as Spencer’s baby brother, Skyler, joined the group on Zoom to read Spencer’s birthday book: Winnie the Pooh. The children loved hearing the story of how Pooh got stuck and then unstuck from the hole in the tree! They also loved seeing the illustrations of Pooh on top of a balloon. After finishing the book, we all sang “Happy Birthday.” Thank you to Barbara and Justin for reading us the story — and for the delicious popcorn that we enjoyed at snack as a special treat.
The celebration of Spencer’s birthday continued on Wednesday when the children shared some of their favorite memories of him at our Reflection Meeting:
Ana: I play with him with balloons.
Arya: Spencer loves cotton candy trees.
Cary: I remember when we were dressed in our costumes.
Eddie: I like playing tag with him.
Emma: We play tag.
Evyn: I like to play tag with [Spencer] too.
Marcel: He likes pasta and cotton candy.
Zoe: Tag with Spencer.
Dana: I remember when Spencer built an obstacle course for the other Dandelions to use!
Evelyn: I remember when he came into school after his baby brother was born, and he was so proud to be a big brother!
Flora: My favorite memory of playing with Spencer is seeing his face light up when I say Buenas Noches at naptime.
Lunar New Year
On Thursday, the Dandelions had the opportunity to learn from Eddie’s Nai Nai and Ye Ye, Yvonne and Pei-Chuen, about Lunar New Year and the ways that families celebrate this holiday. The Kaos shared a video where they talked about traditions such as gathering for a family meal, decorating the house, giving out hongbao (red envelopes), and celebrating with firecrackers or fireworks. We also learned about the Chinese Zodiac calendar; this new year is the year of the Ox, and the Dandelion children were born either in the year of the Monkey (February 8, 2016-January 27, 2017) or Rooster (January 28, 2017-February 15, 2018). The video ended with a short Dragon Dance performance, featuring some of the characters from Sesame Street.
Eddie brought in organic mandarin oranges for snack time and passed out hongbao filled with alphabet and shape foam stickers for the other Dandelions to take home. Thank you, Kao family!
Meet Brayden
Teacher Cindy is a Grandma!! Brayden Devine Kelly arrived February 10th, 6lbs, 11oz, and 20 inches. Mom and baby are recovering well and the family are all crazy in love with the cuddliest family member.
Valentine’s Day
The children’s excitement carries on as they make their love tangible through card making! The West Wing teachers are planning to continue facilitating more card making and note sending at school after Valentine’s Day. We will keep exploring as a group the ways that we can send messages (including messages of affection!) to each other. Through this work, we celebrate love and our deepening connections with one another every day!
We recognize that the concept of Valentine’s Day might still be very abstract for many children at this age, so there will not be an expectation of a focused Valentine exchange at school. However, if your child would like to share cards from home, we ask that you send one for each member of your child’s group. (The teachers emailed home updated rosters on 1/29.) The teachers will support your child in exchanging the cards with his or her peers throughout the month of February.
PRAGMATICS OF LANGUAGE: PARENT ZOOM WITH CILANTROS, DANDELIONS, AND MINTS ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17th FROM 3:00-3:30
An afternoon with Roleen, parents and teachers talking together about Pragmatics of Language. What does it mean (and how do we feel?) when our child says, “I have no friends.” Let’s talk about what children are really saying so we can support their language for social and emotional development. Together we can explore ways to support our responses in those moments when children say things that catch us off guard. Collect your scenarios and questions and post them in our comment section on our blog. Hope you can join us in what is sure to be an informative meeting together! The meeting will be recorded for later viewing.
Other Upcoming Calendar Reminders
Monday, February 15th: SCHOOL CLOSED for Presidents’ Day
Wednesday, February 17th: Whole West Wing Parent Zoom 3:00-3:30 (Cilantros, Dandelions and Mints together) We hope you can join us!
Friday, March 5th & Monday, March 8th: SCHOOL CLOSED for West Coast Collaborative Reggio Conference with Teachers
Monday, March 29th through Friday, April 2nd: SCHOOL CLOSED for Spring Break
Flowers
Thank you to Leo’s family for the beautiful festive flowers and to Jack’s family for the Valentine’s Party embellishments that made our week sweeter. Here’s the link to our SignUpGenius for classroom flowers: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0449afa629a02-flower
Cilantro
Valentine’s Day is a special day that captures the hearts of our children, and has encouraged beginning writing to their first loves- their parents! Children asked how to write mom and daddy and have begun to connect phonetic sounds to letters of the alphabet. To nurture their interest in emergent writing, each child was encouraged to write their name on a bag to collect Valentines and notes. At the Communication Center, the children were determined to learn how to cut out hearts! Initial steps were modeled to the children. As half a heart was being drawn on a folded piece of paper, Aminata shared that the line reminded her of a candy cane. Candy cane lines were drawn as a guide for scissors to cut and pure joy was felt as hearts made from their capable hands were unveiled. The children were so proud! The next step was to glue a picture of the friend to whom the Valentine was going and dictate a sweet sentiment. Then came the fun part. Glitter glue! They were super excited to put their creative skills to work in designing their Valentines with glitter glue, sparkly gel pens, stamps, and sticker embellishments.
In the beginning of the week the children worked on collaborative paintings in the Middle Courtyard. The interest in mixing colors emerged in the painting experiences and teacher Julia offered the children artist palettes to mix different hues of color. The paintings were used to make cards and added to our community card collection. The Middle Courtyard was decorated with love thanks to donations from families, a gift of strung heart shaped balloons from the Basil group, and floral centerpieces made by the children. The children also took part in making “love loopty loops” (paper chains) to decorate inside the classroom.
We want to take this opportunity to express our appreciation for all your trust and heartfelt messages of encouragement in a year like no other. We feel the love and thank you for filling our hearts and tummies!
Dandelion
This week was another one full of connections for the Dandelions! One way that we were able to connect with families and loved ones was through Zoom. We pulled down our projector screen on our wall by the Mini Studio, and we hooked up our projector to a laptop. We dimmed the lights and settled into our chairs around the rug. Our first Zoom on Tuesday was with Spencer’s family — Barbara, Justin, and baby Skyler — and we listened to Spencer’s mom read to us all from Spencer’s Winnie the Pooh book. Then we were lucky enough to have a second virtual visit with Eddie’s Nai Nai and Ye Ye, who shared with us how their family celebrates Lunar New Year. We are really thankful for the technology that allows us to celebrate together in these times of physical distancing.
In the Paper House and the Mini Studio, the Dandelions continued to make connections with others by making each other cards, notes, and signs. We gathered in the Paper House on Monday thinking about Leon and Olivia. Flora asked the group: What is something you know Leon and Olivia like? Can you draw that idea on the card/poster? By asking these questions, we are encouraging the children to think beyond themselves. In other words we are working on instilling perspective taking on our children. Ellen Galinski author of Mind in the Making writes: “Perspective taking calls on so many of the executive functions of the brain. It requires inhibitory control, or inhibiting our own thoughts and feelings to consider the perspective of others; cognitive flexibility to see a situation in different ways; and reflection, of the ability to consider someone else’s thinking alongside our own.” Card making and message writing seems to be one language this group is responding to as our path to relate, communicate and connect with old and new friends, close or afar. We will continue to embrace this language that is beginning to carry and deliver feelings of gratitude, friendship, curiosity and more. It is a language that would support the weaving of children’s relationships using materials and tools as our mediums of engagement and expression. We get to witness how children develop the comfort to share ideas with each other building confidence when they feel their ideas are being heard and valued. Here are some of this group’s insights while working on the cards and welcome back posters. (It’s more than just ‘Hello’!)
Olivia
By, Cary, Eddie, Emma, and Zoe:
She likes red
She likes blue
She likes to play with Evyn, Spencer, Arya, Ana, and Marcel
She likes running around the tree
Leon
By Ana, Arya, Evyn, Marcel, and Spencer,
Leon likes Spencer, Evyn, Marcel, Ana, Cary, Zoe, Akash, Emma, Eddie, bikes…
It’s so beautiful (welcome poster)
Leon is going to love it!
Leon is going to love the crocodile.
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, small groups of Dandelions worked in the Mini Studio to cut out heart shapes. The teachers prepared a few starter pieces: a small sheet of origami paper folded in half, with the shape of half of a heart drawn in black sharpie. The children practiced following the line with their scissors, giving them a chance to strengthen their hand-eye coordination and their fine motor skills. Once they got the hang of things, the children practiced folding the paper, drawing the line themselves, and then following the line that they drew with their scissors. In addition to hearts, the groups practiced cutting circles, ovals, squares, and rectangles. The next step was using the glue sticks to affix their photos — and maybe their friend’s photo if the Valentine was for someone at New School-West — and using the paint pens or the markers to add some additional decoration. Some of the hearts were strung together as a gift for the Basils, who delivered to us a bouquet of red, white, and pink balloons. Another string of hearts was prepared for the Mints, when they come to pick up their supplies in the next couple of weeks. We love seeing all of the love that is spread!
The children are getting more familiar with the multiple materials that we have available in the Paper House and the Mini Studio, and as their comfort grows, they start to recognize new possibilities in the different materials. They are also starting to see where certain materials might have limitations for the feelings or ideas that they want to express. For example, in the Mini Studio this week, we’ve also been exploring with oil pastels and watercolor paints. The children discovered that there can be a lot of sensory feedback with the oil pastels: the lines get heavier or lighter depending on how much pressure you put on the textured paper, and the colors can be blended with fingers and hands. The thin watercolor brushes and the watercolor paints require a gentler hand to keep the brush bristles from breaking. Part of understanding how to care for materials involves understanding how your body needs to move that day; if your energy is bigger, a sturdier material like oil pastels (or clay or charcoals or etc) can match your body movements. If your energy is quieter, a more delicate material like a thin watercolor brush (or line tools or etc) can support your focus.
