Flowers, pumpkins, gourds, and more!
The Dandelion families contributed so many wonderful items to our classroom this week! It is really looking like Fall in our indoor and outdoor spaces with all of the flowers, pumpkins, gourds, wheat stalks, seed pods, etc. Thank you to Arya’s and Oona’s families for the flowers and Spencer’s, Zoe’s, Cary’s and Olivia’s families for the gourds, pumpkins, and other autumnal natural materials.
Partaking in decorating and flower arrangements is a significant contribution where children feel they are a valued member of their community.
Here’s the link to our SignUpGenius for classroom flowers: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0449afa629a02-flower
Conference sign-ups
West Wing Zoom conferences started this week, and they will continue through mid-November. If you haven’t signed up yet, or if you need to change your sign up, please use this link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0449afa629a02-west16
The West Wing teachers would appreciate at least 72 hours advance notice for the sign-ups to make sure that we have all of the necessary materials prepared.
West Wing Parent Zooms
Thanks to everyone who could join us for our Wednesday Parent Zooms! If you missed it, or would like to revisit it, here are the relevant links:
Cilantro Meeting:http:// Comment end https://vimeo.com/470805607/f297248d62
Dandelion Meeting Slide Deck (sorry tech issues on the recording!): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vZ3LisZ1bMsocljOIx45boN3f3U9aqLrduglw2cY6nM/edit?usp=sharing
Dandelion Environment Tour: https://vimeo.com/468730159/fc834057b1
Halloween Party
Our West Wing Halloween Celebration will be on Thursday, October 29th, to accommodate for all of the children in the West Wing. Children are invited to come to school in costume. We will also be providing a pizza lunch that day. Katy will be picking up cheese pizzas from Costco and the West Wing teachers will be wearing gloves and using tongs to serve it to their groups on disposable paper plates. (Remember to still pack a snack and a water bottle!)
Please send a lunch from home that day if your family would like to opt out of the pizza lunch or if your child has any dietary restrictions. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
New School-West BOO(k) Fair
Join us for a remote BOO(k) fair this Sunday, October 25th, 11 to 11:45am (but maybe we’ll go to noon!!).! While we can’t gather in person for our annual NSW book fair, we will meet on Zoom to share Halloween story time and songs, with special guest, Roleen! Be sure to wear your costumes!
The NSW library depends on your donations! Please consider donating to the library and/or purchasing the Halloween story time book for your home library. CLICK HERE or on the link in the attached event flyer. The BOO(k) fair is free and open to all current NSW families.
Group updates
Cilantro
The Cilantros have been aware of colors everywhere. They are part of our language and our culture and they are a big part of how we learn. Similar to a color wheel, markers are organized in warm and cool colors to show their relationship to each other. The children are discovering each other’s favorite colors and intentionally using them in their representations when making a drawing for a friend. Color is an energy, having wavelength and frequency. We’ve observed children grouping objects by color and using that as a visual guide to locate and organize when cleaning and making a space beautiful for the next friend. The children have told us they would like to continue exploring paints by blending colors. Pumpkins and persimmons were set up in the Middle Courtyard to inspire color mixing that was added to our paint palette. After the children drew pumpkin shapes, some children filled their whole paper with paint. Color everywhere!
Talking hands! “ASL (american sign language) is a viѕuаl, gеѕturаl lаnguаgе, which means that it iѕ еxрrеѕѕеd via thе hands and face, аnd реrсеivеd thrоugh thе еуеѕ. However, it is much more than simply waving one’s hands through the air. When you furrow your brоwѕ, tilt your hеаd, look in a particular direction, оr orient your body in a number of other ways, уоu аrе adding оr changing mеаning in ASL.” (NIDCD-The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders). With masks covering part of our faces, “talking hands,” (ASL), has been another means of receptive communication in the children’s play. Each child is greeted and welcomed with a wave by a peer. Children will pretend to be a street light and sign “stop” and “go” to the other children using the scooters and bike. You can feel the joy and harmony when we sing songs that involve finger play and clapping.
Here are links to a couple of our favorites
Hello Hello! Can you clap your hands?
The World Is A Rainbow
Dandelion
The Dandelions have been creating lots of spooky spaces in our environments in preparation for Halloween. Evelyn and a small group of children stretched out lots of spiderwebs across the mud pit area, adding some spiders to the dinosaurs who already lived there. She and some other children also decorated our “spooky” doll house in the front yard with webbing and spiders. In addition, Dana added some cobwebs and dark fabrics inside to the Exploration Room along with projections of pumpkins and spiderwebs on the walls. The children had a lot of fun adding their own shadows to the mix with the use of some flashlights. The Indoor Mini-Studio table featured an arrangement of pumpkins and gourds, which groups of children continued to use as inspiration for colors for tempera paint mixing. We later used these pumpkins and gourds for observational drawing with black felt-tipped flair pens. The House Area had pumpkins and acorns added to the baskets and the light table next to the rug had some dinosaur skeleton figurines ready to play.
Other experiences that were offered included note-making at the Composition table; large body building outside in the front yard; the Wood Chip Area on Tuesday and Thursday. On our alternate days (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) the children outside continue to work on developing relationships with each other and the environment. This week we introduced sandpaper blocks to help us sand off splinters from our large pieces of wood then carry them to the platform to pretend to build “castles, fire trucks, houses, and even working on an electric saw.” They also enter each space feeling more familiarized with the function of each area and the comfort to see each other on a new day. They are creating the areas a place of their own.
One book that the children have been requesting for story times is The Little Old Lady Who Wasn’t Afraid of Anything. We’ve been practicing the sound effects (in pairs of two!) that go along with the story. Here’s a link to a reading of the book on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jaEAVxl5Rk