October Week Four Review

This was our first full week back to school after a two week vacation!  Monday was a great day as the children seemed eager to get back to “their” space.  The children were working so peacefully that we could hear our classical music playing softly in the background.  We added many new works this week reflecting the torah portion for the week, which is Noah.   We had many animal matching lessons (pairs)!

Here is YS matching animals:

 

We also had a sorting work that had the children placing different object on each level of the teiva (ark):

 

Here, SP admires the large puzzle he completed with CN:

Rainbows were also a theme this week and we created a few works with matching.  Here, EH sorts the colored disks and places them on the rainbow:

Here is DG doing a similar work but with only three colors:

Rainbow crafts for the week:

     

This week I attempted to catch up with my sensorial works and I presented the knobless cylinders with templates to match:

    

I overheard a couple of the children telling themselves to “make the steps”, which I thought was interesting. 

This week we continued our work with the visual arts curriculum.  We introduced watercolor painting and the children were very interested in this:

This week we also introduced pouring liquids (two pitchers with handles):

Outside highlights from this week:

   

Review of Current Room Design

We have been is session for five weeks, and the initial room design has been working very well. I agonized over table placement and how many tables to keep in the classroom. Since we eat in the classroom and I did not want more than two friends eating lunch together, I decided to put 6 tables in our room. (Our maximum legal group size is twelve, which is quite a small group). One of our tables is permanently designated as the "snack" table during the work period, so I felt that 5 tables remaining would be ok. Many children are working on rugs around the room, so crowding at tables has not been a problem.

The only change I made since the start of the year is the addition of a double wash basin for the children to place their dirty dishes into. Space in our classroom is at such a premium, but we were able to find a place. The first weeks of class we used plastic and disposable dishes, and it feels much better to use real dishes!

In this picture you can see the "snack table" with two friends enjoying pancakes and fruit and to the left side of the frame you can see where we tucked the wash basin. When the children finish, the scrape their scraps into the trash and gently place their dirty dishes in the tubs.

Outdoor Space

Our play yard is very spacious and we have started to set up distinct areas for different kinds of work and play. Right now we have just the basics, but we are working toward more individual stations such as filling a birdfeeder, raking leaves, hammer and nails into a tree stump, scrubbing tables, etc.


Here is our largest sand table that can accommodate four friends at a time:





















Here is a peek into the children's garden which has not been planted or cultivated for a couple of years. We will be planting this spring, but in the meantime the children are exploring the dirt by digging, raking, and searching for living things.














Here is one of our pieces of climbing equipment:




















Here is our cooperative airplane - it tips side to side and the kids work together to set it in motion:

Language Work

Today SP expressed interest in letter sounds/symbols!  We have been playing lots of oral language games and many children have started to show interest in the SP letter sounds. 

Our classroom is a dual language classroom, as we are learning Hebrew as well as English.  Here, RM is matching initial Hebrew letter sounds to the CVC pictures we use for our English work.  She has mastered most beginning sounds and will now move on to adding vowels, which are presented in a different way than English.

Our Third Week

Our third week of school has gotten off to a great start!  The children are adjusting to the new routines very well, and each morning we have had a peaceful and fairly long work period.

RM has continued her work with the MA.  She began work with puzzle words last week and two word phrases.  On Monday I gave her a lesson with sentences using CVC words and puzzle words.  Here she is hard at work:

 

The younger students are very comfortable with the “transitional” type works and select them first each day.  They have been walking carefully and holding the trays and containers in the manner that we presented.  I noticed today that many of the children are not pushing in their chairs when leaving the table.  We will need to emphasize this in our presentations more this week, or have another lesson just for sitting in a chair at the table.

 

On Tuesday we did our first craft type project for Rosh Hashanah.  We made plates to hold our apples that will be dipped in honey for a sweet new year.  The children worked in pairs and were given a plate coated with mod podge (glue).  They selected tissue paper squares to creat their own design.  When finished a second clear plate was placed on top sealing their design inside.

On Wednesday I gave CN a lesson on how to build a tower with the knobless cylinders.  He was very interested with this material last week and spent a quite a bit of time placing them in order.  He was enthusiastic about seeing another way to work with the material and he concentrated for a long time in order to complete the tower:

 

Today I gave a group lesson with the land, air, water materials and sorting cards.  Here, NM has selected the work on her own and is correctly placing the cards in the proper categories:

Suffie the Rabbit

Today we introduced the children to caring for our classroom rabbit while outside.  On warm days, we are able to put Suffie in a special harness and take him for walks in our play yard.  Today’s lesson was observing Suffie, and petting him softly from head to tail.  Here, two girls are showing their understanding of the lesson by gently stroking Suffie.  As the children become more comfortable and capable with Suffie, they will be able to hold his leash while he hops around the yard.

Adjusting

One of our youngest students, YMB, is in school for the first time.  He is just over two and a half and he is working hard to adjust.  Mom and I decided that half days will be bet for the first few weeks until he is feeling more confident in the classroom.  Today he chose the knobbed cylinder puzzle all by himself and worked with it for a little while on his own.  This was a big step since the first day of school.  Here he is putting it away:

 

It was a beautiful day today so we spent most of the afternoon in our play yard learning how to use all of the different pieces of equipment: