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:)
