Happy Summer!

Dear everyone,

Well, here we are at the end of the school year. For most, if not all, of the children in our class this year, it was their first pre-school experience. And what a foundational year this can be for kids. Since August your children have learned how to be away from home without a parent, transferred trust to teachers, developed skills to navigate our classroom and the materials in it, and also become part of our community. We have seen growth in height, language and social abilities. Some families have even grown! Kids have become accustomed to the routines and schedule of school, and next year they will be ready for more days and more hours (although it will be pretty tiring at first!). We feel so lucky to have shared this beginning with them and shared it with you as well. Thank you for all the helping you did in the classroom and the time you have put in on your respective committees. School wouldn’t be school without your children or without you!

We know some of you will be returning to Park West in the fall, and we look forward to seeing you then. Some of you will be moving on to other schools, and we will miss you. To all of you, thank you for sharing your children with us, entrusting us with them on this important journey of learning how to do school. And thank you for the end-of-the-year gifts. We are grateful for your generosity and kindness.

We wish you wonderful summers filled with ice cream, bikes and scooters, water play, picnics and neighborhood walks!

All the best,

Shauna, Katrina and Anna

Scenes from School

We’re cherishing these final days with your wonderful children and thought we’d share some scenes from recent days at school.

Making calendars:

Sand play:

Water play:

Vehicle play, chatting on the phone, family pages:

Sponge painting:

Puzzles:

Running and chatting in the gym:

Looking forward to more fun next week!

Talking About the End of School and Summer Break

It’s hard to believe we’re nearing the end of May! As the weather warms up and the end of the year approaches, we wanted to share with you how we will approach this change with children. We have begun talking about the change in seasons and children have identified things they have noticed as the weather warms up. We are reading books about summer and talking about the things that kids like to do during summer when it is warm outside.

As you probably know, we have a simple calendar on which we mark days that we do and do not have school. We use green dots to indicate days we have school and red dots for days that we don’t. On Friday, we filled in the rest of our calendar, showing kids how many school days are left and then filled in an additional page with red dots to represent how long the summer is. We will count how many green dots we have left, and with each day that kids come to school, we will cross off that day and then recount and watch that number get smaller. Many kids will know about their summer plans and we will invite them to share about that. While some will refer to family trips or summer camp, others will be more focused on simple routines and activities that they enjoy, such as eating ice cream or playing at the beach.

These discussions can give rise to a range of emotions, from excitement about beloved summer activities, to sadness about saying goodbye or concern about not knowing exactly what to expect. For many, any excitement about upcoming events can be tinged with a bit of worry. There are so many unknowns for young children and a big transition like this can be anxiety provoking. In the coming days, we will provide time to talk about what will happen and how kids are feeling. In these discussions, we will reassure children without dwelling too much on any worry or sadness about saying goodbye.

Inevitably, kids will ask about coming back to school. While some kids will be returning to Park West and others will not, we will tell kids that no one will be coming back to be in this classroom with all of the same kids and teachers next year. Some will know that there will be school again in the fall, and we will acknowledge that while emphasizing that it won’t happen for a very long time. It can be hard for children to comprehend just how long the summer is. When you’re three, a stretch of more than a month represents a pretty large percentage of your life. This is a long time for kids to live with uncertainty about the fall. We recommend that you start talking about the new school year with your child at the end of the summer, when the start of school is imminent. At this time, you might make a simple calendar with them to keep track of the days before school starts to help them anticipate when it will begin. For those who worry about a new classroom, you can remind them that before they came to this room, they didn’t know any of the teachers or the kids, but now they do. So it will be in a new classroom or school. They will come to know the people, the routines and the materials.

As we wind down the year, we will revisit familiar classroom activities that children have enjoyed this year. We will discuss what we remember and sing familiar songs at grouptime. During the last week, we will pare down the toys that are out in preparation for summer. We will talk about the toys being put away until next year and will invite children to wash toys in the water table. These preparations help children to be active participants in the upcoming changes and provide opportunities for discussion about them.

It's always interesting to hear the variety of things kids remember about this school year. As much as we look forward to seeing how each child approaches this transition, we, too, have mixed emotions. We are so grateful to have had this time with your children at school. We are thrilled to have witnessed their tremendous growth and are excited for their next steps, but also sad to see them go. We wish all of you well and hope you have many wonderful experiences this summer. Whether you are coming back to us in the fall or moving on to a new place, we look forward to seeing you again in the future and wish you and your families well.

Executive Functions

For kids in 2-Day, this is often their first school experience. Because of this, we talk a lot with families about the social and emotional development taking place in the classroom as kids make their way through separation and manage their feelings of being away from home without a parent. Kids are also navigating their peers, learning how to be with them and voicing their likes and dislikes to each other or through the support of a teacher. We thought we’d use this week’s newsletter to tell a bit about the cognitive development that we see at school as well, specifically executive function skills, a group of skills that can help us throughout our lives. As adults we use executive function skills on a daily basis. These skills help us hold a grocery list in our head, focus on an email amidst background distraction, and change our route home if a street is closed. Executive function skills can begin to develop in children through play in settings that promote social relationships, varied experiences, and safe and stable environments. School can be that kind of setting, and we’re certainly noticing the early development of executive functioning in the classroom. 

Executive function skills can be broken into three categories: working memory, inhibitory control, and mental flexibility. Following the rules of a game is calling upon working memory - knowing the different steps to take and which order to do them in is working memory in action. As we described in last week’s newsletter, we’ve been playing a game called Feed My Dog at school. By introducing games that require a multi-step process to play, kids can start to develop working memory by holding those steps in their head and then carrying them out through the process of the game. We’ve used eye droppers throughout the school year in the water table and also when we colored the rice in the sand table. Now we are using basters in the water table, tools that require the same kind of multi-step process as the eye droppers. We’ve been using the basters to empty and fill tubes in the water table. Similar to using eye droppers, using basters calls upon kids to 1) put the baster in the water 2) squeeze the top 3) stop squeezing 4) take the baster out 5) squeeze the water into the tube (or into the water table). This multi-step process, as in the Feed My Dog game, is another way kids begin to develop their working memory in the classroom.

We know we ask a lot of kids while they’re at school: drive the truck instead of crashing it, stir the bubbles instead of splashing them. Sometimes what kids want to do impulsively isn’t what’s best for the materials or the kids around them. Asking kids to inhibit some of these behaviors can feel challenging. Through play, however, kids can practice inhibitory control, another one of the executive function skills, without feeling the challenge or the demand they may feel outside of play. This week we started acting out the story Pete’s a Pizza in which Pete’s dad pretends to turn Pete into a pizza. Kids who want to be pizza dough lay down, and the pizza makers - teachers and sometimes kids - put the ingredients on. When the pizza maker says it’s time to put the pizzas in the oven, the pizzas run away and the pizza makers chase them. When kids lay down and keep still while pretending to have cheese and pepperoni sprinkled on them, they are practicing inhibitory control. Many kids are excited by the chasing part of the game, but by staying on the mat until it’s time to “go in the oven” they are developing their inhibitory control. Pretending to be a pizza helps suppress the impulse to get up and run. 

Finally, the practice and development of mental flexibility is a daily occurrence at school. Using toys in different ways (a wrench as a mustache or a block for cat food), turning a puzzle piece around and around until it fits, hearing how another kid is using the blocks on the block rug and then changing your idea so you can fit into their play - those are all ways that kids are exercising their mental flexibility. Having exposure to new ideas, just realizing there are other ideas out there other than your own, is a way for kids to develop mental flexibility. That exposure can be a big part of group time. Kids get to hear other kids’ ideas about what body part gets stuck with bubble gum or what food to add to the soup, and they get to see what kids act out when it’s their turn to go in the middle. Each kid might have a different idea which means everyone is getting experience with how others think differently from them. 

So much is happening at school everyday, from washing hands upon arrival to singing songs just before dismissal and everything in between. We certainly continue to enjoy all the parts of the day with your children and delight in seeing the growth that’s been taking place throughout the year.

Games with Rules

In the spring, when children have a firm understanding of what happens at school and have developed some independence in the classroom, we begin to introduce games with rules in the 2-Day class. The first game we typically introduce is teddy bear bingo. First, we offer just a selection of colored bears with a board covered with dots of corresponding colors. Children are charmed by the bears and enjoy matching the bears to dots of the same color. Placing one bear on one circle helps children to develop one-to-one correspondence, a precursor skill that is required for counting. 

After children have some experience with the bears, we add a spinner. Children are then encouraged to use the spinner to determine which color bear they will place on their boards. Since there is only one spinner and four boards, children must take turns to use the spinner and this inspires a lot of conversation and negotiation. Using the spinner takes a degree of fine-motor control that children are just developing. It can be tricky and children might have to try multiple times before they figure out that they must have their fingers out of the way in order for the spinner to move. In addition, many children are attached to the idea of choosing which colors to put on their boards and begin by moving the spinner manually to the color they are most interested in. This is all part of the learning process and, with some exposure and practice, most children who play this game are now using the spinner in the traditional way.

After children had some experience with this simple game, we introduced  feed my dog, which requires counting. In this game, children roll a die with either 1, 2 or 3 dots on each side. They then take that number of plastic chips and place them in the dog bowl on the game board. We limit the quantities to just 1, 2 and 3 because we know that children need a lot of experience with these smaller quantities in order to have a deep understanding of them. Number knowledge builds, so having a firm grasp of small quantities helps children to eventually comprehend larger numbers. Children enjoy rolling the die, counting if they need to and then taking the correct number of chips and then filling up the dog’s bowl. Some even put the chips right up to the dog’s mouth as if actually feeding him.

Hammering

This week we introduced hammering in the classroom. We offered foam blocks with hammers and tees. Children were pretty excited to see the hammers. While some kids said they were familiar with them, many had never used a hammer before. With this group, we like to use foam blocks that have some pre-existing holes that children can insert the tees into before they hammer. This means that they can concentrate on aiming the hammer and not worry about accidentally hammering a finger. Most needed to be shown how to position a tee in a hole and aim the hammer. It takes children some time to figure out just how much force is needed to make the tee move and they worked diligently at hammering until they saw movement. Once they were able to successfully pound a tee in, kids were thrilled with their accomplishment! Here are a few quotes from kids as they worked:

I did it!

It’s going down!

It’s not working… I did it!

I did TWO!

I need so many! (while reaching into the container of tees)

I did this white one.

I did this for (my babysitter)!

I’ve got mommy’s favorite color!

Blue is my favorite color.

I like all the colors.

Once they hammered in all of the tees, children faced another challenge: removing the tees. Teachers demonstrated that the tees could be pulled out, either with the claw or with fingers and children set out to remove their tees in order to start over again. There is some variability in how much force is needed to remove different pegs. Some slide out easily while some really need to be pulled hard. The claws on the hammer head can make this job easier, but they only work on the largest tees and their use is not intuitive. Children must be shown how to hook the claw on the tee head and then rock the hammer in order to remove the tee. Some are able to remove a tee by just pulling up, but it can still be a challenge to get the claw positioned on the head of the tee. Children were highly invested in this activity and worked through these challenges, occasionally asking for adult help. It is exciting to watch each child’s sense of competence grow as they master the challenges of this new activity. Here are a few more quotes from children as they removed their tees:

This one’s easy.

This one’s hard.

I got it!

It’s stuck.

Can you help me?

Marble Painting

We introduced marble painting to the classroom this week. This is a multi-step activity that incorporates fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills. First, kids use a spoon to lift marbles out of small cups filled with paint. Then they transfer the marbles into a box with a piece of paper lining the bottom. After returning the spoons, kids can pick up the box and tip it side-to-side or back-and-forth to help the marble move across the paper making lines of paint as they roll. Similar to watching the balls roll across the sand table during paddle ball painting, kids can see the path the marbles take across the paper as evidenced by the paint trails left behind. 

During the activity, some kids left the box on the table and just jiggled it making wiggly lines with the marbles. Some kids liked using a spoon to move the marbles around. If the marbles rolled off all their paint, kids could spoon them back into the paint cups and then return the marbles to the box to do more tilting and jiggling to create new lines of paint across the paper. We will be displaying the paintings in the classroom and eventually sending them home.

Welcome Back to 2-Day!

After all those red dot days, we were happy to be back in the classroom again with the 2-Day kids! Here’s a peak at our day on Tuesday.

There were goodbyes from the window, a lot of building on the rug, a garbage truck to view on the street, reading and doll house playing too.

Kids used moon sand to do some baking: cupcakes, doughnuts and loaves of bread.

The rice we used with funnels a while ago turned a new color! Kids used large droppers and watercolor to help the rice go from white to blue. 

Kids took turns using a spinner to determine which color bear to pick and then matched it to the same color dot on the playing mat.

There were a lot of new things to discover in the gym: 

More crash pads and a new place to jump.

Bowling!

There was an obstacle course to try that started with some balancing and ended with sliding or jumping and had crawling and climbing in between.

We now have some colorful dots and a die in the gym. Kids took turns rolling the die, counting how many dots on the die and then jumping on the colorful dots the same number of times as the number they rolled on the die.

There’s always a place to draw if kids want to.

We hope you enjoyed some extra family time during spring break. And we hope you enjoyed a glimpse of kids settling back into the activities and routines of school.

Boundary Setting and Consent

At our staff meeting last week we discussed a recent document released by the Chicago Public Health Department that focuses on boundary setting and consent for children of all ages including those in their early childhood years. We found that the language and approach described in the document reflects the way we communicate and work with students at Park West. We thought it would be informative and helpful to share the document with you. Please find it here.

In our 2-Day and 3-Day classes we know that for most kids, this is their first school experience, perhaps their first time being with other kids their age without a parent or caregiver with them. In the beginning of the year at the Parent Orientation, we talked about the transference of trust that takes place during the Separation process. Not only do we want children to feel safe with teachers, we also want to provide students with the tools to make their own environment a safe and comfortable one for themselves by setting boundaries and advocating for themselves. Teaching children the words they can use when they want another kid's action to stop, whether it’s a classmate taking a toy, offering a hug or hitting, is one way we help students advocate for themselves and set boundaries with others. We might say to a child You can say No or Stop if you don’t like what ______ is doing. Sometimes children aren’t ready to use those words on their own. In those situations, a teacher can help in a variety of ways depending on what actually happened including modeling the language and saying the words for the child.

 Teachers can also help seek consent from a child during play. It looks like ______ wants to put their car on the road you built. Is that ok? Or It looks like ______ wants to touch the sparkles on your shirt. Can they do that? We also prompt kids who are seeking the interaction to do the asking as well. You can ask _____ if you can put your car on the road they built. Throughout these back and forths, we hope to normalize setting boundaries as well as giving children the tools for how to do it.

As teachers we are mindful of the power differential between us and the students we teach. We want children to feel as safe as possible and to be able to practice as much autonomy as they are able. When a child needs to use the bathroom, for example, we have a number of questions we may ask a child: Do you need help? A child may let us know what kind of help they need in the bathroom, and if they don’t, we’ll ask. Do you want me to help pull your pants down? If they don’t respond, and they don’t pull their own pants down, we’ll let them know we will help. It looks like you need help with your pants. I can help you. We want to make sure children know what to anticipate from an adult and give them opportunities to voice what they need from us.

We also pay attention to what comforts children. There are some children who do respond well to a hug if they’re missing a parent or if they got a bump or hurt in some way. There are also children who just need a quiet moment to recover and don’t want physical comfort. We take note of those children and make sure they have a book to look at if they’re sad or a quiet spot to sit until they feel better.

If there are times, and there are, when a teacher needs to help a child stop an action after asking them to stop, we will let that child know I’m going to help you now and remove them from the situation. Again, it’s helping children anticipate a teacher’s behavior in our effort to both keep that child safe as well as those around them, depending on the circumstance. 

Our main goal is to help children begin to understand how to set boundaries with others and seek consent as well. In the 2-Day and 3-Day classes, we introduce these ideas in ways that are simple and age appropriate. It’s a first step in building a foundation for these children’s ability to communicate clearly as a means of self-advocacy. 

We were reassured by the approach taken by the Chicago Public Health Department. We hope you have a chance to take a look at the document they released this month as this is an important topic for families to address with children throughout their lives. 

Calendar

This week we introduced a simple calendar during group time. On it we record days that we have school with green dots and days that we don’t with red dots. Each school day we cross out the days that have happened and draw in our next green dot day plus any red dot days that come before it. Temporal concepts are elusive to kids this young and although we don’t expect them to fully grasp how the calendar works, we do want to help kids anticipate what is happening in their lives. The simple pattern of red and green dots provides a visual to aid them in this. 

Kids are interested in the calendar and are enjoying the new routine of talking about the days we come to school and the days we don’t and watching us make those red and green dots. Since teachers are the ones making the dots on the class calendar, we will provide blank calendars during playtime for kids to fill in however they wish. Though we know some children will use red and green dots as we do on our calendar, we don’t expect that everyone will. Some will experiment with other colors or types of marks or even scribble all over the paper. However children choose to use this paper, we know it will provide opportunities for them to express their understanding of the calendar and practice using writing tools in a way that is meaningful to them. Here is a link to a blank calendar page in case you’d like to offer one to your child at home. 

One reason we decided to introduce calendars now is that we have some changes coming up that we want kids to be able to anticipate. One is parents day. We will mark this special day on the calendar ahead of time and then cross it off once it is over. After that, we will have spring break. At this point in the year, we feel most children are ready to attend to the calendar routine when we gather and that it will help them to understand that we will have many red dot days in a row, but then we will come back and have more school. 

A reminder about using Remini at dismissal:

We’ve noticed that not all kids are getting checked out at dismissal. When picking up your child or when another caregiver is picking up your child, please use the QR codes on the fence along the sidewalk to do so. Please make sure you have the Remini App downloaded and/or have shared your caregiver’s Approved Pickup Code with them so they can check your child out from school. Here are the instructions from the portal.

What's happening in 2-Day

Here’s a look at a few of our school days over the last two weeks. Some things are the same and some things are different! Kids have been trying new activities that we’ve recently introduced as well as enjoying activities that have been available most of the school year.

Car painting! Kids rolled cars, trucks and motorcycles in paint and got to see what happened when they drove them around the paper.

Kids continue to enjoy drawing at the art table and have really taken an interest in the scissors we brought out last month.

We took the sand out of the water table, so now it’s just water again. Plus some fish, nets, shells and bowls. 

We added some colorful bears to our shelves. Kids can do color matching with them using the corresponding circle mats.

We took the rice out of the sand table, and now it has balls, tongs, buckets and tubes.

We’re still playing music at clean up time, and some days we get bigger circles of dancers than others.

Nets, hockey sticks and pucks are new for our gym time.

Mats and crash pads aren’t new, but the mats are stacked higher than they have been on previous days. Kids figured out new ways to make their way down onto the pads.

Kids are really figuring out the climbing wall as well as standing in line to wait for a turn to go down the slide.

We have putty in our class for the first time. Kids have used the colorful people and cats in other sensory materials before, but now they’re using them in the putty.

Clean up time isn’t the only time we hear music in our day. During play kids are often playing on thumb pianos and making music of their own.

Rice with Funnels and Tubes

Remember our last newsletter about sensory materials? Recently, we introduced rice to our sand table. Aside from providing a different tactile experience, rice has different physical properties than sand does and therefore behaves in different ways. We offered the rice with funnels, clear tubes, spoons, cups and jars with lids. We also included pvc stands that allow the funnels to be at eye level, allowing children to better observe the rice as it travels through funnels and tubes. Additional funnels and tubes were included for children to use without the stands. 

Children have been engaged in pouring rice into the funnels, experimenting with attaching various tubes and figuring out how to help the rice through funnels and tubes when it gets stuck. Some enjoy filling vessels with rice while others are content to bury their hands in the rice or listen to the sound it makes as it falls into the table. Each child approached this activity in unique ways, exploring their own questions and making their own observations. Here are some photos of kids exploring and observing:

Sensory Play

Sensory play is something that we value so much that we always incorporate it into our school days. Sensory play refers to any activity that can be explored through the five senses. Most of the sensory materials we offer at school have a very strong tactile component, but also involve sight, sound and even smell. A few of the sensory activities we have explored in the classroom this year include dry sand, wet sand, water, play dough, floam, rice and cornmeal. Exploring and experimenting with these materials encourages the development of sensory processing abilities, language usage, motor skills, scientific concepts and mathematical thinking. 

The sensory system helps us to be aware of danger. If you put your hand on a hot stove, you will sense it and know to move your hand.  But not all signals are so clear. Something too hot is dangerous to touch, but how hot is too hot? Have you ever met a kid who insists on washing their hands in ice cold water? This is someone who understands that hot things can hurt, but hasn’t fine-tuned their responses to temperature. In order to accurately interpret the signals we receive, we need a lot of experience with them. Each experience stimulates neural connections, and repeated experiences deepen those connections. Eventually, through repeated and varied experiences, children are able to better process and respond to sensory information. They are able to understand which sensory information can be filtered out and which you must pay attention to. Water that’s boiling on the stove is too hot to touch, but it’s ok to wash your hands in warm water. If you are sitting at your desk in middle school and the fire bell rings, you need to react. But if you’re in that same school room and someone giggles or taps their pencil, there’s no need to react. If you are good at processing auditory signals, you will be able to tune those sounds out and finish your work. So it is with each of our senses. It takes many experiences for the brain to develop it’s processing capacities. Sensory play provides some of this much-needed experience. Because kids are in control of their play, they can interact with materials in ways that are just right - that encourage their sensory system to grow without overwhelming it. 

In addition, playing with sensory materials stimulates language development, as children describe their feelings, observations and actions. Playing next to children with these materials provides opportunities for adults to model language usage in context. 

Sensory play also encourages the development of motor skills as kids use their hands to manipulate objects, knead dough, scoop and pour water. 

Providing open ended sensory materials provides opportunities for kids to develop an understanding of the physical world. As kids explore a substance, they observe what happens when they act upon it. Understanding how substances act in different circumstances provides the basis for important scientific concepts. What happens when I pour water into a container that’s already full? What happens when I drop a toy into the water? What happens when I push down on play dough? Once they develop some solid understandings about how things act, they might start asking questions about why, which might lead to a hypothesis that can be tested. Exploring and observing is especially important, though, because if you don’t play with things this way, it’s hard to know what to expect. Before you can have an idea about why water spills over the top of a full container, you have to know that it does that. 

On top of all of this, sensory play can be very soothing. Burying your hands in a pan full of corn meal or smooshing play dough is very calming. It seems fitting that the system designed to alert us to danger also provides avenues to soothe and calm us. Think about how reassuring it is when someone pats you on the shoulder or how a massage can help you relax. Tactile materials can have a similar effect. You might consider offering your child these materials when they are feeling stressed or even giving them a try yourself. 

Sand Table

Has your child mentioned that we no longer have sand in the sand table? A few weeks ago, the kids from the 3-Day class transferred the sand from the sand table into the water table on a Monday. The next day when 2-Day kids arrived at school they found a thin layer of sand in the sand table along with red and yellow condiment bottles full of sand and some brushes. It was interesting to watch the sand pour out of the bottles and make patterns on the mostly bare sand table. Children also found it interesting to draw in the sand with a finger or create patterns with a brush.

Offering a familiar material in a novel way is a way that we spark children’s thinking and build their awareness of the world around them at school. When you have just a small amount of sand, you use it in different ways and notice new things about it. It also provides a different sensory experience. Children notice the different feeling as they drag a finger through the sand or pour sand out of a bottle onto their hands or fingers.

Now, our water table has wet sand in it. Children are engaged in experimenting with how sand behaves when it is wet. We have provided a variety of sand molds, buckets, shovels and other tools for exploration. Children have experimented with using buckets to create sand castles, molding scoops of pretend ice cream out of sand and making big mounds of wet sand. Some children love the texture and feel of wet sand. For others, tolerating the way it can stick to your skin is a challenge. For those who find it more challenging, we provide tools so that they can interact with the wet sand without touching it, if they prefer. Engaging in such sensory experiences helps to build a child’s ability to process and organize sensory input. When they are done, we show children how to rub the sand off of their hands and refer them to towels or the sink if necessary.

Valentine's Day and Extended Class Time

Hi Everyone, 

We wanted to let you know that we will not be celebrating Valentines Day with the 2am class this year. For children in this age range, we find that maintaining a consistent, reliable schedule is important to helping them feel secure and confident at school. Please do not send cards or treats to school with children. We hope you enjoy any celebrations you may have at home and look forward to sharing a regular day at school with children on February 14th. 

Also, please note that we will be extending our class time to 10:45am starting Tuesday, February 14th. Pick-up procedures will otherwise remain the same. We are excited to have more time in class with the children!

Gluing

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For the past two weeks we’ve had a few different gluing projects for kids to try. We started off with the glue in small cups and small brushes kids could use to apply the glue. Trays were set up with a piece of cardboard, a glue cup and a brush. In the middle of the table there were cotton balls, slices of paper towel tubes and wood pieces kids could choose from to put on top of the glue. Some kids enjoyed brushing the glue on the cardboard and then feeling done once the cardboard was fully brushed. Other kids spread the cotton balls, tube slices and wood pieces on the cardboard and then carefully carried their finished product over to the drying rack by the easel. Still others discovered they could layer the pieces, even fit the tubes slices around the cotton balls, and added some height to their project. This activity took some planning for kids who wanted to use the materials available to them from the middle of the table. Without the glue, those different materials wouldn’t stick, so kids had to make sure they first had glue on the cardboard before adding something on top.

On one of the days we did the gluing we added a side project in preparation for the auction. As you may have seen in the Friday Bulletin, Park West kids have been busy making soon-to-be platters using different kinds of glass materials and gluing them on a glass base. Two kids at a time took turns sitting at one tray to decorate a large square of glass. They used the same cups and brushes that they were using for the cardboard projects and then could apply glass “sprinkles” and squares on top of the glue. Kids were excited by these new materials, and we’re excited to see the finished product which will be part of the live auction at the Gala!

For our second week of gluing we used bottles of glue (with blue and pink glue), cardstock as the base instead of cardboard, wood pieces, cotton balls and cut up fabric. Just as some kids were most focused on applying the glue with the brushes, there were kids whose main interest in this new gluing project was squeezing the bottles and watching the glue come out. Other kids enjoyed the layering of the glue and materials. This was kids’ first time using glue at school, and it was a great opportunity for us to observe how they explored the different ways to apply the glue as well as the ways they utilized the materials to be glued.

We’re going to enjoy these glue creations for a while on our classroom bulletin boards, so kids can admire their work and the work of their classmates (plus the work of the 3am class!). We’ll be sure to send them home, though, so you can admire them too!

Headphones

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One new item we have added to the gym is noise-canceling headphones. Despite our soundproofing, the gym can be a noisy place, as children run, jump and exuberantly shout. Many young children exhibit sensitivity to loud noises or can only tolerate them for so long. This is common and to be expected as children develop their ability to recognize and process sounds. On top of that, there is a lot to process in the gym. Children are not only processing sounds, which are harder to distinguish and filter over background noise, but there is constant movement. Having some power and control over noises can help sensitive children to better tolerate them. Our headphones lower the decibel level of background noise, but still allow for children to hear conversations. While some choose to wear them to give them a break from background noise, others enjoy hearing the difference between wearing headphones and not wearing them. Several children have experimented with making loud noises themselves when the headphones are on while others pull them off their ears in order to better hear language. Having these tools available for all to explore allows those that might become overwhelmed by noise levels to have a sensory break and others to explore how the headphones change sounds.

We are also offering a few enclosed spaces in the gym where children can retreat if they’d like. We have had a tent up for much of the school year, which children enjoy huddling inside. Some prefer to crowd in together while others like to be in the tent alone. We now also have a “dark den” in the gym, which blocks light. There is a flap in the front to enter and on a window, but when they are closed, it is very dark inside. Children have enjoyed retreating to the dark den and marveling at how dark the space is before popping a head out of the window to again see the light.

These materials offer children the opportunity to take a break from the sensory stimulation at school and explore physical properties in a new way. We look forward to continuing our exploration of these materials in the coming days at school. 

Ready to Return to School

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It was wonderful to see kids back in the classroom this week! Even though they had been gone for more than 2 weeks, they settled back easily into activities, the schedule and the routines of school. They remembered about washing hands and going to their cubbies to hang their coats upon arrival. They were ready to begin play recalling where their favorite spots are throughout the classroom - in the playhouse cooking or tending to babies, on the rug with vehicles, near a teacher at the sand table, with a crowd of kids scooping cornmeal, at a table puzzling over a puzzle. They didn’t need much, if any, reminding about wearing a smock at the water table and could navigate, sometimes with some support, hanging the smock back up when they were finished. They knew gym followed play time and probably wished that snack followed gym, but they remained focused as they came up the stairs back into the classroom and to the rug for a story rather than to the tables where snack was waiting. They almost know school better now than right before break having had the chance to refresh and refuel from time away and time with family these past two weeks. It is clear to see that your children have a strong foundation of how to be at school under their small but growing feet. And that foundation will continue to develop and strengthen in the coming months. We look forward to being part of that journey!

Here are some photos from our first day back this week:

Scooping and spreading and swirling the cornmeal

Block and vehicle play

The start of a drawing

Magna tile binoculars and disc stacking

Easel painting

The finishing pour into a cylinder

Farm play in the sand

Dancing to the clean up music

Peek-a-boo!

Extensive track and vehicle play

Trying out headphones in the gym

Taking turns jumping into the crashpads

We hope you enjoyed the break and feel refreshed and refueled as well. Thank you again for your generous gifts last month. We feel fortunate to be your children’s teachers and grateful to be part of this school community with you.

Winter Break

Hi Everybody,

Thanksgiving feels like a week ago, but here we are at winter break! 

As we approach our winter break, we know that our school routines will be put on hold for a few weeks. However, we hope that amidst the excitement and possible busy-ness of the holiday season, you can help maintain some routines for your children at home. Routines help kids know what to expect, and that can feel reassuring to them. We know school breaks and holidays can bring some change to regular schedules, but finding places in the day where kids can feel some mastery through a routine (dressing, preparing for a meal, getting ready for bed) can help them feel secure. It’s also helpful to talk ahead of time about changes in schedules or new activities so children can anticipate events that may be confusing for them. 

As you near the end of winter break, you can help your children anticipate the return to school in January. Pull out the face page of kids in their class. Review the schedule. Even if kids are excited about coming back to school, they may have a hard time saying goodbye when they’re dropped off that first day back. We ask that you follow your child’s lead in what they need and what will help ease them back into the school routine. Although kids might need some extra reassurance when entering school after being away for the break, we know that they have internalized our schedule and routines and have established trusting relationships with teachers at school. You might remind them that they really do know what happens at school and that, as always, teachers will help children when they need it. 

Enjoy the upcoming family time! We hope you find time to take a breath as well. Ask your child about picking a flower and breathing in the sweet scent and then blowing off the petals. It can help slow down a moment if things are feeling too fast. 

Thank you for the holiday gifts. We appreciate your generosity and your thoughtfulness. We also thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us. We look forward to seeing them in the new year and continuing our time together.

Q-tip Painting

In our classroom, we continue to explore paint in various ways. Most recently, we offered q-tips with a variety of paint colors. Although children have some familiarity with paint, using q-tips to spread the paint onto the paper requires some thinking. Since q-tips are quite small, children must use their fingertips to grasp the stick, whereas many typically use a whole-hand grasp to hold a paintbrush. One can use different techniques to apply paint with a q-tip: the paint can be dabbed on with the tip, resulting in circular shaped dots or it can be spread, typically resulting in lines or swirls. We challenged children to return each q-tip back to its original paint pot in order to keep the colors from mixing. Once the paint was on the paper, however, many children were interested in watching the colors blend.

Children approach these activities in a variety of ways. Some are focused on a particular color or combination of colors. Some experiment with changing the colors by mixing them. Some experiment with different ways of applying the paint, while others spend a long time applying paint in one specific way.

We see tremendous value in allowing children the freedom to explore materials in their own way. It helps children develop an understanding of physical properties, as they explore how each material acts and reacts. Children build their ability to problem solve as they adjust their strategies in response to the new tools and materials.  It stimulates language development, as children discuss their observations, answer questions about what they’re doing and talk about what it reminds them of. These experiences provide important sensory input that stimulates the development of the nervous system. Perhaps most importantly, they help build a child’s confidence, initiative, creativity and sense of self as they generate their own ideas and explore their own unique questions.