Hello marbles!

Hello parents,
Blue Room's interest in their own country has finally waned...They did select Dhruv I as their king (age and wisdom were the reasons). Alana was selected to be the Queen, and everyone else took the roles of prince and princess.
The country idea, though, still has them interested in maps and we have maps galore in classroom. There is lot of discussions around states and cities. The country project also piqued their interest in anything sports-related, so they have been playing cricket a lot. Thanks to Satvik and Dhruv for bringing their cricket sets. For sharing, Connor is going to bring his karate belt, so sharing for September can be sports related.Who knows where they will lead us next?

We had the Branham High School marching band visit us last week and their performance was a wonderful experience for all ages. Last week we talked a lot about different musical instruments and we had our own marching band. Branham students promised to return next month.















New interests emerging have been construction related. After talking about building cities from cardboard boxes in their own country, they have been exploring different carpentry tools and materials.
Teacher Aimee got nails and other carpentry tools for kids to try..



















Our kids have also been very interested in marbles. It almost seemed they were scared to play with them when they first took them out of the jars. Hesitation and dilemma from last week has blossomed into the children making their own marble runs.

Last week they made them with blocks; now they are building larger runs with foam and cardboard. They are also experimenting with different balls: glass marbles, plastic ping pong balls, etc. So construction has been a theme emerging in more ways than one!























If you have any resources related to
Maps
Sports
Musical instruments
Marble runs
Carpentry...let us know. In September we have invited James Green a local artist who will lead classes called Drumming and Drawing for our preschoolers.

Candyland: Going Deeper

Hello parents,
Blue room is still fascinated by flags, countries, names, currency...












They have been identifying flags and copying them from a chart or book. The consensus was that the Australian flag is hard, so lets not copy that......however Palau's flag is the easiest: just a blue rectangle with yellow dot. (I didn't even know that there is a country by that name, but since it is so simple, almost every child has Palau flag in their journal :)




India's Independence Day is tomorrow, we will make that connection and I will try to bring an Indian flag for our kids and share the significance with them.




Our children voted last week to name their country Candyland. The Candyland flag is as follows with a contact number (their idea!)....




Thanks to our parents for sending different things for sharing rather than toys only. It has been a bit of a struggle for some children to break the "toy habit" and bring other things for sharing, but they are figuring it out. The things they have brought instead -- books, travel souvenirs, photos-have opened much richer discussions and enhanced our topic exploration.




Someone shared a book about cricket and one of the kids brought a cricket bat to share with the classroom and now children are interested in sports from different countries. You are welcome to volunteer to come and play cricket in our grassy area with kids! Emergent curriculum and parent involvement go hand in hand. We would love if you have any sports-related memorabilia or equipment (especially from more unusual or international sports) to share with our kids and keep their interest going in this area.








Another area of interest has been the post office. This developed as discussions of maps and other places evolved into discussions about our home addresses, and writing activities began focusing on letter-writing. Teachers set up "mailboxes" on one shelf during our inservice days earlier this month. Kids are writing letters to friends and parents, and some of our kids who have graduated are writing back to them. Yeah! We will keep our post office going:)








Authentic work....
Thanks to Dhruv I.'s mom for donating beautiful cards made in India. We are putting them to great use! Children wrote letters to their parents and to children who are no longer at our school. They talked about stamps and mailing real letters. These will go out in the mail today:





Growing families...
Victor had a baby brother yesterday and that has sparked everyone's interest in names... How did I get my name? What does it mean? Some of these questions had started with the reading of " all about me" and the the interest peaked with Victor's conversation about baby names. Your kids will probably be asking these questions or feel free to share any information with the teachers.



Friday will be day when we get to say good bye to few more of our friends and some of our new friends will start visiting too. We have hired a new lead teacher, Kristina, who will start after Labor Day. (See future blog entry for more about her.) Thanks a lot to Blue Room teaching staff for holding down the fort while we were interviewing, and to the parents who helped in our search for the perfect candidate!
We have marching band coming to school tomorrow at 10am..parents welcome:)

Blue room update

Hello Blue Room Parents,

Even though we are early into August it has been a busy month....
Our teachers visited GeoKids for our training on Reggio & emergent curriculum and visited their facility. Needless to say, all of us came back charged to make changes in our environment. Our overflowing trash bins and our deliveries to the junk yard say it all! Everyone worked really hard in making the classroom environment the "third teacher" in the program.

Teachers in Blue Room changed their soft squishy rug to a more flat block-friendly rug and it seems like everyone this morning is into block play.









The natural elements table ("nature library") created lot of excitement too..kudos to Teacher Romina! (This table is her brain child.)



Kids spent a lot of time with shells, talking about them... "This is flat, pointy, rough, smooth..." and explored the materials while sorting them.

Another change teachers mentioned that in the past, the light table was more of a building area and today it seemed like kids would bring stuff to the light table to examine them in the light. :) We've seen a lot more curiosity and deep exploration exhibited by children in this newly cleared-off space.

Their topic of building their own country is still going on. In terms of government, they voted on king and queen....stay posted.




Blue Room teachers have requested the shares to be pertinent to their project of country, fort, flag, currency, etc., rather than cars, My Little Pony or Disney theme since it will allow for deeper exploration and will give children a chance to talk about their authentic experiences. For example, a postcard from travels, sand from a campground, pictures from the beach, or a book about another country would be a great share. Thank you parents for all your help in deepening our projects!

Interviews are still going on, probably another week and a half before we set up second-round interviews. Please refer any candidates you know!

Another major discussion we had this week was our afternoon program for full-day kids. Teacher Karen has been the afternoon teacher for some time and has done a Pre-K program with kids who are going to kindergarten the next year. This is expected to continue this fall, so watch for our next newsletter for more details.





I know last week they were doing sunflowers and are continuing with that this week. The afternoon children are also continuing their work on morning projects. Karen will continue with her Pre-K program in a Reggio spirit, although it will be a little bit more skill-based and structured than the rest of the day. From now till January, you will not see much difference between mornings and afternoons, since our kids are still a lot younger.

As the school year goes on, Teacher Karen will very gradually guide the Pre-K children into longer table activities and more kindergarten-like expectations during their brief "Pre-K" time in the afternoons. The goal is not to turn ours into an academic program at all, but to make sure that our children are confidently prepared for their new adventures. This is based on the feedback we have gotten from past families who have made the transition to kindergarten. Our children have always been socially and emotionally prepared, but as kindergarten today is more like first grade was when we were in school, we do also want to make sure they are ready for the academic expectations as well.

Naturally we approach this in a hands-on, developmentally appropriate way, consistent with the rest of our program. The Pre-K time is like a "booster shot" of the skills they will need at the start of kindergarten. Doing it in the afternoon allows us to maintain the flow of our Reggio theme projects in the morning, which is a longer block of time, and help our oldest children to take advantage of the more mellow afternoon time to enhance their kindergarten readiness.