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We will begin offering Parent Visits in JK starting in February. This will be a chance for you to sign up to spend the day, or a portion of the day, with your child in JK. We’ll be sending an email with more details early next week.
We also wanted to let you know that our JK group will have a Valentine exchange this year. While we don’t generally observe holidays at Park West, we really like to share the literacy and community building aspects of exchanging Valentines with kids. If you want your child to participate, they should bring one card for each child on February 14, with each child’s name marked on the outside. These can be simple store-bought cards or hand made, but please don’t include treats or candies. If your child is interested in doing some or all of the writing, that’s great. Some kids are really motivated to write their friends’ names. Others may not want to write any of the names, or may want to just write one or some of the names.
Any approach is fine. We want this to be an enjoyable experience for kids, and don’t want them to feel pressured to do more writing than they are ready for. We thought it might be helpful to let you know now, so you have time to spread out the task in a manageable way for kids. Some may like to work on all of them at once, but others will benefit from spreading it out over more days. See what works for your child.
We are excited to share some pictures of our Class Project in progress. Last week, we explained to kids that we would be creating a “decoration” for a party the grownups would be having soon. (We didn’t tell them that one family would ultimately take it home, but focused on the idea that we would all make it together, and all the parents would see it.)
We have been using glue sticks often throughout the year, and recently had collage items out at a table. Teachers explained that we would be using some glass pieces for collage. A teacher showed the supplies at a group time, including some gloves kids could wear to protect their hands. We explained that the glass was not very sharp, but if they wanted the gloves they would be available. Most kids wanted to try them, but many found it difficult to pick up the small pieces while wearing them, so opted to be “extra careful” with the glass. They signed up for turns, and worked two at a time, with a teacher nearby. Over a couple days, every kid who was here last week was offered a turn to work on the project. As each child added to the design, it was fun to see how beautifully their ideas meshed. It’s now ready to send to the Glass Collective to be made into a platter.
