Literacy Week (One of Many)!

This week we worked on a number of things, though literacy in various forms took front and center.

3B is making the transition from signing in in the sign-in book from their names with the dotted lines to their names without the dotted lines. Now that they have gained quite a lot of confidence tracing the letters, it is time to test the waters of signing in by copying the letters instead of tracing them. This was met by trepidation by many of the children, but with some gentle encouragement and some hands-on help with letter formation, those who made the transition this week were very proud of their accomplishment! By next week, we hope to have all of the children working on their letters without dotted lines, though this is a process they must be ready for, so it may take a little more time with some children than others.

Another activity we took part in regarding letter-names was filling in the letter blanks of each child’s first name. The 3B friends all helped me to spell their name when I was stumped after the first letter and needed their help to figure out all the rest of the letters. This activity brought out quite a bit of pride in the group as, together, we came up with all the letters and they confirmed to me that it was spelled correctly.

Lastly, we spent time this week creating pig puppets for acting out our own version of the Three Little Pigs. We have been reading various forms of the story these past couple of weeks and the children are really enjoying it. They especially took to the story The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, which we read over a couple of days. Comparing and contrasting the different versions of the classic Three Little Pigs tale is a great way to show 3B how a single story can be shaped and reshaped in countless ways.

The Science of Bubbles!

With the freezing winter outside, what better time than now to explore bubble science, usually a summer activity, inside? The first step in our bubble exploration was making three different types of bubble solutions. We mixed all of them with soap and water, while adding corn syrup to one and sugar to another to see which makes the strongest bubbles. Participating in this experiment shows 3B that, just like so many things they do, there can be multiple ways to achieve a goal, and that even though they are different, all can be the “right” way. Like cooking, putting together bubble recipes also reinforces the ability to follow directions, measure out ingredients, develop motor skills, and more.

The next task we undertook was to make our own bubble wands. Each of the 3B friends chose the colors of their pipe cleaners and, after the teachers attached them, beaded the wand handles (a special fine motor skill) any way they chose. From her we tested the bubble solutions we made! The jury is still out on which solution works best for blowing bubbles.

Lastly, we tested out a very small sampling of bouncing bubbles on felts of various softness. In our small sample, we learned that bubbles bounced on each of the types of felt, so we added more materials to continue our science experiment. The children will have the opportunity to predict, observe, and discuss which materials the bubbles will bounce on, and why, or why not, the bubbles bounce. We are looking forward to a lot of fun bubble science in the weeks ahead!

Have a wonderful weekend. See you on Tuesday!

It’s Been A Fun Week of Math Exploration!

Subitizing – Subitizing is a math activity that is also a guessing game. It’s fun for the children to see how close they can come to guessing how many beads are in the metal container without counting. To them it’s simply a game. While it is a fun activity, it also helps to build foundational math skills that will help them with larger math problems in the future.

The math benefits of building with blocks – Using the wooden blocks of various shapes and sizes helps the children to navigate building structures in ways that they envision. Through trial and error, each child is building engineering skills through the exploration of not only broad shape, but also weight, curvature, and size. The more a child explores building, the more their confidence grows and the more complex their structures grow, too. Plus, all of this is happening while having fun and developing cognitive skills!

Magna-Tile puzzles – The Magna-Tile puzzles we did in 3B this week are a fun way for the children to utilize their cognitive skills to determine which sizes and shapes of Magna-Tiles are needed to create the pictures on the puzzle page in front of them. This is another engaging way, outside of the benefits of building, to use these building materials as teaching tools.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year 3B Families!

Letter Bird – This week we have been feeding the letter bird as a way to practice our letter recognition. The way we have been playing thus far is by having each child pick out a letter familiar to them, saying the letter name and sharing it with their friends to see if they agree. Then, it’s time to feed the ever-hungry letter bird. When we play next, we’ll have a teacher or friends say a letter and the children will take turns picking out that letter and feeding the bird.

Letter Bingo – Another game that we have started this week in Letter Bingo. The 3B friends helped to make the bingo cards by painting them with watercolors. Once they were dry and ready, we played our first round and it was fun! This will be a great way for the class to have fun while further developing their letter recognition skills.

Name-Letter Practice and Counting – As we continue to practice our letters even more  – focusing mainly on name-letters to start as they hold personal importance for each child – the class is quickly picking up on more and more letter names. As the recognition of letters grows, so does the confidence with which they learn and share that recognition with others.

Debbie and I would like to thank you for the kind gifts we received this week, and also for the very wonderful schoolyear we have shared thus far. Happy holidays and New Year! We will see you all very soon!

So Many Literacy and Math Activities This Week!

Letter/word puzzles: This week we engaged in some fun activities centered on literacy and letter recognition. One such activity is word puzzles with illustrations. When children see that there are certain letter combinations (words) which mean the same thing as a picture, it helps them to understand how letters, written words, and language all function together.

One fun activity that all the children enjoyed taking part in was acting out the book Creepy Carrots. We brought out our carrot costumes that we made for Halloween, Adam put on his bunny ears, and Debbie read the story as we acted it out from cover to cover. This was a great way to explore a book that we really love in an entirely new way.

Math/shape challenge: Shapes are an important early step in math literacy. This week we took some time to further develop our shape and size recognition skills as we picked squares, rectangles, and triangles of different sizes from a group of blocks. Then, each child placed their block on the shape board and figured out which traced shape their block fit snugly into.

Another math game the children enjoyed this week, one that we will certainly be playing a number of times in the future, is the die rolling game we played on Thursday. For this version, the child rolls the die, and whichever colors comes up the child takes a card of that color. Aiden’s card read: Find two orange items. Off Aiden went to find two orange things he could find in the room. This game is very fun for many children, while also enhancing counting skills, color recognition, listening skills, and following directions.

Science and Math and Clay!

We had a great week in 3B!

We started the week by playing a math game to see if we could figure out the next color tile that goes in the sequence. We do this to practice our pattern recognition. This is a great game for developing cognitive thinking. 

During the week we also enjoyed a science experiment:

Day 1- They predicted what would happen if we submerged beads previously glued to construction paper in jars filled with plain water, water with soap, and water with vinegar. Prior to pouring in the soap and vinegar, we used our senses of smell and sight to see if we could tell what the liquids were.

Day 2: The group observed that some beads were “floating” and some were “sinking”, while others noticed that the water in different jars was different colors. Why? “Because we poured different things (vinegar and soap) into the water,” and because “the (construction) paper is different colors!”  Very nice observations, indeed!

Day 3: Monday we will examine what has happened since we submerged the beads and see if we can reuse them.

Clay Day: While working with clay is usually a very fun way for children to spend time, it also has many benefits. Working with clay is a great way for children to creatively express their ideas and make things like “skeleton pasta”. It also a way for children to challenge themselves as they work to mold the clay in specific ways. Clay can be very hard to shape and tear, providing a great opportunity for children to use their hands and other tools to model the clay as they intend.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving 3B families! We had a fun-filled week of preparing food, eating food, talking about what being thankful means, and some of the things that we are thankful for. In 3B we are thankful for such good friends, so many laughs throughout our days together, and so many wonderful 3B families. You are all appreciated! Here is wishing you all the best this Thanksgiving weekend and far beyond.

Photography, Mapmaking, and Our First Curriculum Breakfast

We would like to thank you so much for your participation, in person or long distance, for our first Curriculum Breakfast today! It is always so wonderful for the children when they have loved ones in the room (or providing support in any kind of way) to spend time with us. Buckle My Shoe is their world away from you, and they are always delighted when you come into it. Technical hiccups aside, today was a lot of fun, so thank you all! (There are more pictures than usual this week, as they show the whole process of 3B making their map through all the steps.)

Many of you may have noticed the new “photography gallery” outside the classroom. If you have yet to see it, please take note the next time you are walking the ramp alongside the 3B classroom. The photos on the wall were all taken independently by each of the members i the 3B class. On Monday our class will be looking at them and discussing them as a group. The children take so much pride when their work I displayed, and when they are in pictures taken by friends. We feel that displaying 3B’s photographs will help to further ignite the curiosity and exploring minds around the art of photography in our classroom.

Why and How: Photography in 3B

Since our very first day of school, the 3B class has shown tremendous interest in many kinds of creative, artistic activities. Many of them seek out the art activities first thing upon arrival, test out the materials, create their artistic vision, and proudly show their artwork to teachers and friends. The creative process is a way for children to explore self-expression, the emotions and feelings they are experiencing internally, as well as providing the children with opportunities to approach varied materials through new ways of thinking and problem-solving. The benefits of creative art exploration are many, however, to the children this exploration is just plain old – often messy – fun! Photography is a new medium the 3B class has been exploring. We are hoping that as the class sees their photography posted in our new “gallery”, that they will be excited to continue taking photographs at school and out in the world.

3B has shown interest in photography since the first week of school. Many of the children wanted to take the teacher’s camera to capture shots of their own and show the world from their perspective. When we came into possession of a couple cameras, most of the class was excited to try them out. These are some of the results that have come from our initial camera and photography exploration. We expect that there will be much more to come, and we are very excited to see what our little shutterbugs produce!

Signing In, Clay, and More Mapping!

         These past couple of weeks we have been starting our days by signing in more frequently. The children are taking a lot of pride in both how well they are able to stay on the lines, and, for many of them, the increase in their name-letter knowledge. It is very impressive to see how much their fine motor skills are progressing in just the past month! Many of you commented on this today while looking through your child’s portfolios. We are so proud of our 3B friends!

         This week we brought out clay to explore for the second time. Already the class is demonstrating their creativity and clay-working skills. This week the children had free reign to make anything and everything. We saw skeleton pasta, flowers, bird nests, and more. As we move ahead, we will begin provide some broad guidelines as ideas (e.g. create an animal of your choice), so the children can create with intention. Oftentimes, as children create, they will notice their creation resembles something (a bunny, for instance) and then call it that. With some guidance, they will be able to create their bunnies intentionally, rather than by chance. We will be using clay throughout the school year and look forward to seeing where the explorations in this medium take 3B.

         Lastly, this week we continued our map exploration and creation. 3B is enjoying the many steps we are participating in as the map comes together. This week, as tape was added, the class was somewhat awed by the transformation happening. While not all of the group took part in the mapmaking this week, we think that most/al of them will be eager to take part next week. This is especially true because they will all be adding representations of their homes, which they have already created. We shall see!

Reminders:

·      Please remember to send up to three pictures of some of your child’s favorite places in your neighborhood. These can be any places he/she finds special (restaurants, parks, movie theaters, anything). We will print these out and discuss them in the classroom as part of our ongoing map project. Thank you, we appreciate your participation!

·      We are having our Curriculum Breakfast a week from today, November 22, from 10-11 a.m. The breakfast will be a potluck meal, which will be spearheaded by William’s mom, Tereza. She will be reaching out with the sign-up list very soon. Thanks everyone. Thank you, Tereza!

Thank you to everybody who has already been in for parent-teacher conferences. Today was a great day! For those yet to have conferences, Debbie and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Maps! Letters! Numbers! Shapes!

This week we worked more on the map we are making as a class. We looked at maps for ideas that we could add to ours, after we put on the buildings that we live in. In addition to looking at map examples, we took a walk around the neighborhood by school to see what ideas we could come up with by exploring the neighborhood. As we engaged with these two activities, the 3B class came up with a lot of great ideas to put on the map. We are very excited to see how our map comes together as we continue to explore maps and create this one all ourselves.

            In addition to maps, 3B engaged in many activities involving recognition of shapes, letters and numbers. The class is excited to both show off what they may know already, and that they are eager to learn about these things. There have been many smiles and “aha” moments as we have visited and revisited some of these concepts this week. These ideas are sinking in quickly and we are excited to keep the explorations going to see what ideas the children will bring into their free play regarding the use of numbers, letters, and shapes.

            Most families have signed up, though if you have yet to do so, please see the parent-teacher conference sign-up sheet outside the classroom door. Thank you!

            Mark your calendars! On November 22, we will be having a Curriculum Breakfast in the classroom so that you can see the map that we have been working on in 3B. This will be special day to come in and share in our classroom activities with your special youngsters and see what we have been working on. It will be the morning of Friday, November 22. I’ll soon be sending an email with all the necessary information. Thank you 3B families.

            Reminder: Buckle My Shoe will be closed this Monday, November 11, for Veteran’s Day. Enjoy the weekend everybody!

We had a great Halloween week!

Once again, we had a bus and wonderful week in the classroom! To start the week, we explored our second pumpkin, after the first started going bad very quickly, and it was just as much fun to explore as the first one. So many of the 3B friends pulled up their sleeves and got their hands dirty as they pulled out the “tickling”, “sticky”, “sharp”, seeds and “slippery” insides.

Next we will be finding some fun activities that we can engage with as we use the seeds. We have already put some in water to see what happens, which was one idea the children had. We will also be using some to make jewelry, which was another of their ideas. We will see what other great ideas come brewing up as we spend time using the seeds in various ways.

We are so proud of 3B for all the hard work each of the children put into making their Creepy Carrot costumes for Halloween this year! It was a long process with many steps, and all of the 3B friends happily engaged in each step to create their costumes from start to finish. It is nice for them to participate in projects like these which demonstrate that while some outcomes that we are working for will happen very quickly, other projects may take days to complete, and require patience to complete the project at hand. We hope that all of the children are so proud of their costumes this year. They did such a great job as they put them together bit by bit.

Lastly, thank you so much, everybody, for a successful and fun Halloween! 3B had such a nice day. It was wonderful to see all the smiles on their faces and watch how excited they were for this event. It always means so much to the children when the special grownups in their lives can make some time to join them in the classroom too. When they see how much the adults in their lives appreciate the classroom and their school, it helps them to appreciate it more as well. Please remember, our door is always open when you want to come and read or share in a special project of some kind with the class. This is true for parents, extended family members, and nannies and other caregivers also. Just let us know what day is good for you and we will accommodate as best as we can. Thanks again for all that you do!

Halloween Costumes, our 3B Map, and Classroom Jobs!

This has been another busy week in 3B, and we are working on some great projects! Throughout the week we spent time creating our Creepy Carrots costumes for Halloween on Thursday. They have turned out great, and we are so excited to wear them next week. There has been a lot of talk about candy this week, too, which is where the bigger excitement probably comes from, but for the adults, seeing these costumes come to life is very fun! The 3B friends showed great focus, creativity, and persistence as the Creepy Carrots came together.

Reminder: The Halloween parade and party will be taking place on Thursday, October 31. The parade begins at 9:30 and will last about 45 minutes to an hour. Please remember to let Adam or Debbie know who will have special grownups that day, and who will need to be partnered up with a chaperone. Also, we will be having a pizza party after the parade. Please remember to contribute $6 to the pizza fund prior to Halloween day. Lastly, we are still in need of volunteers to bring Halloween treats and vegetable sticks for the party. Please, let us know if you are interested. Thank you very much everyone, this is going to be a great day!

Another project that we have been working on for the past number of weeks has been our class map. The map came about organically from the children, after we made paint and used it to paint a sheet brought in from Debbie’s home. When the children saw it after they painted it for the first time it was established to be a map. All the children found places on it to put their homes. Now they have created homes to put on the map as well. Plus, there will be more to come. We are looking forward to seeing where this project goes as we move ahead.

3B is beginning to take pride in their classroom jobs. They love having the responsibility that comes with the jobs, and they are oftentimes very eager to do their part. More and more, we will be establishing the routines of jobs in the classroom, and hopefully this will overlap to other places, such as home. It is exciting to watch the group as they develop leadership skills and begin to take their roles seriously. It will take some time for everything to come together fully, but we are already seeing strides as the children take ownership of their roles.

3B Jobs, Pumpkin Picking and Pre-K!

What a busy week for 3B! To begin the week, our class took on a few of the classroom jobs that we will be participating in throughout the school year. Children often love the responsibility and sense of classroom ownership that comes with having a daily job. Having the jobs also helps the children to feel like they are contributing something specific to how our classroom runs as a whole. This week our jobs included: Line leader and Caboose, and Timekeeper. Eventually, each of the children will have a daily job to take pride in and enjoy the responsibility of. We are looking forward to seeing how all the children take on their important roles!

The pumpkin patch trip was so much for us! It was wonderful to see how much the children enjoyed feeding and observing the animals, exploring all the pumpkins that were everywhere, in all shapes and sizes, and of course, the excitement the children had in picking out their very own pumpkins to take home. It was a very fun, very exhausting field trip, as half the bus was asleep on the way back to the city. We are looking forward to some very fun upcoming pumpkin activities in 3B!

We were so lucky to get to spend two days in the Pre-K classroom this week! We very much enjoyed exploring all the different activities and games they have, sharing in their Morning Meetings, and taking part in various activities with them. Most of all, it was great to see how many new friendships began to form over these past two mornings. At first, there was some shyness and trepidation at being in such a big room with so many new people and things. By the end our time in there, most of the children’s comfort levels were high, and we definitely saw some of the 3B friends laughing and playing their new Pre-K friends. We will continue to spend time with Pre-K as the school year continues, so we look forward to seeing these friendships continue to grow too.

Halloween Costume Vote, Sign-In Book, Newspaper Observation, and More!

This has been a busy week in 3B! The children are getting very excited as Halloween approaches! Of course, they are excited for costumes, candy and trick-or-treating with their families, and we are hoping that they continue to get excited for our upcoming celebration as a class too. Next week we will begin the process of decorating and making our costumes. While there will be a general theme to all of our costumes, each child will, of course, get to make their costume their own as they create it in their own special way. This year, the 3B class is going to be Creepy Carrots for the Halloween Parade. We voted on this idea as class because we love reading books so much! Creepy Carrots won the vote over two of our other favorite books; Rex Wrecks It and Color Monster. This is going to be so fun! (Please remember to send in an extra adult, size small, white or orange t-shirt by Monday. We will begin working on the costumes next week. Thank you!)

In addition to figuring out our Halloween costumes, 3B is so excited to have started signing in on their very own! After most of the group has done it twice, it is already very evident that the students in 3B are very proud of their new ability to trace their name letters. Many of them take a moment to celebrate when they have completed tracing the last letter of their name. Also, many friends are interested enough to closely watch as their friends sign in. As much as the class loves books and words, it is unsurprising to see how much they are enjoying signing in, though it still very exciting for all of us. We look forward to watching the development of letter recognition, fine motor skills, and increasing pride as the group gets more and more familiar with signing in.

We are again putting our scientist hats on, too! Now that we are settling into the schoolyear and a month has passed, the class is becoming used to feeding the worms and helping with composting. Many of them are eager to participate in the blending of organic food scraps and mixing in strips of newspaper for the worms to eat. Many of the friends are even eager to handle the worms, often exclaiming how squishy and slippery they are, how fast or slow they move, and how much they tickle their hands. This week, as we prepared to feed the worms, we took some time to notice various aspects of the newspaper that we were putting in the compost bin for the worms. We commonly observe the food scraps we use, though this was the first time we noticed the newspaper itself. The various aspects we noticed included smell, texture, color, and sound when crumpled or rubbed together. Next week we will continue to explore the newspaper we put in this week and see if what we noticed today will still be true next week.

A Short, Yet Full Week!

Hello 3B families! Even though we had a short week at school, we still had a very full week. In addition to all the books we read, art projects and amazing structures we created, we also started enjoying time with three specialists. On Wednesday, during Cooking with Diane, we got to explore a variety of apples and discover their various tastes, colors, and textures. Who knew the same kind of fruit could have so many little differences? We are very excited to learn about many new foods throughout the schoolyear, as well as discover a number of new foods that we like to eat.

On Thursday, we had our first day with Super Soccer Stars with Coach C. 3B jumped right in and showed us how good they are at following directions, using their listening ears, and scoring goals. They did so well at the challenges utilizing balancing, kicking, dribbling, and more, that it feels like we have been doing our Super Soccer Stars activities for weeks already. 3B was comfortable and laughed a lot as we dusted off our soccer skills for the first time together.

Today we enjoyed our first music session with Mr. Andrew. Mr. Andrew had us dancing and clapping and hopping the whole twenty minutes we were with him. We shared in this experience with pre-k, and we went to visit them in their classroom. This was a fun experience for the group, though some of were a bit cautious as we experienced this new specialist with our new friends in pre-k in a new classroom. This, of course, is natural. We know that our comfort levels during music will be on the rise very soon, the songs will be familiar, and we will be singing and dancing like crazy!

Request: 3B families, as Halloween approaches, we would like you to please send one used, adult size small t-shirt which we will be turning into our Halloween costumes for the annual Buckle My Shoe Halloween Parade that we will be participating in on Halloween day. We will be using these t-shirts to create our Halloween costumes from repurposed/reused materials. The theme is yet to be determined, though we expect to know by next week sometime. As Halloween is only a few weeks away, please send the t-shirts as soon as possible. Thank you!

Reminders:

Pumpkin Picking Field Trip – Please fill out the Pumpkin Picking field trip permission slip if you are planning on attending. The trip is Wednesday October 16th, 2019, and we will be taking a bus from Buckle My Shoe at 8:30 a.m. The attached permission slip will provide you with further details. Please submit these as soon as possible in order for us to have a proper head count and plan accordingly. (Please, disregard the October 2, deadline in the link) Thanks a lot!

 Link: https://permission.click/GLMD0/us

Nurish App – In an attempt to make communication easier for our 3B (and Buckle My Shoe) community. We will begin communicating through the Nurish App very soon. This will be in addition to email but may make things easier for 3B families to communicate with one another directly if/when need be. Additionally, this is a great platform for planning for upcoming events, etc. Thank you for your participation!

The website can be found here: https://www.nurishapp.com/?utm_source=Tribeca+Parents+%2B+Staff+2018-2019&utm_campaign=91f3a6bf3f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_06_05_02_43&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb3787cf4b-91f3a6bf3f-446270025

Reusing and Repurposing Everyday Materials

At the beginning of this week in 3B we continued our focus on feelings and what they mean to us. As the children continue to explore and name their feelings through discussion and art, they more and more come to understand themselves and the other individuals around them. Recognizing what it feels like when one’s own feelings are hurt helps the children to understand what it must feel like when they accidentally hurt someone else’s feelings. More and more often we are witnessing the children in the 3B classroom show empathy when a friend is hurt, and (often with adult guidance) try to figure out ways to help others feel better when they are upset. We will be continuing our exploration of feelings as year continues, though, now we will be spending time on other projects too. Social-emotional development will be a major focus in 3B the entire year. As time moves forward, however, much of our focus on SED will take place during the course of our days and be interwoven into all the projects and activities we are engaged during our time together.

Reusing, repurposing, and creating our own materials is coming into focus in 3B! In our classroom we are engaging in projects that use materials that might otherwise simply thrown away or purchased without any thought given to where these things go or originate from. We live in a consumer society where we can get nearly anything at any time and simply dispose of it when we are finished using it. In an attempt to instill more environmental consciousness into 3B, we are making use of materials that would otherwise be disposed of and, likely, find their way to the landfill.

The first project that we have started is taking care of the worms in the compost bin. This project will take place throughout the entire school year, and will lead us into future, related projects such as spring planting. By engaging in composting, the children are able to experience some of the workings of nature closeup. By taking certain organic food scraps and blending them up for the worms, and by supplying the worms with strips of newspaper, we will see soil accumulate in the worm bin little by little. How does this happen? Where do the food scraps go? What happens to the newspaper? What can we feed the worms, and what must we avoid feeding them? There are so many questions to ask, the best of which will come from the children as we continue to explore the worms and composting in more and more detail throughout the schoolyear.

The second project we are working on right now is a large art project that will be using repurposed and homemade materials as much as possible. This week, Debbie brought in a sheet from home that she is no longer using. What can we do with sheet other than use it for sleeping or resting? In the gym, the children enthusiastically took to the idea of using it to make a house. They also thought it could be used for superhero capes and costumes. The next day, that same sheet became a canvas that we painted with paints that we made the day before as a class. We wanted to use these instead of paints that were purchased from a store or online to show the class that we can sometimes make what we want or need, instead of always buying it. This large project is giving the 3B students hands-on experience using and making things in ways that are unique and original. We are hoping that the more we participate in activities that promote repurposing and reusing materials in creative ways, that the children will soon be commonly coming up with their own ideas like these. We are very excited to see where these projects can lead!

Our second week in 3B has been full of emotion!

 This week in 3B we had a strong focus on people’s feelings in general, and how each child in 3B was feeling specifically. As the week progressed, we began to hear the 3B friends often mentioning their feelings to others. This was especially true when a friend was being too rough, not sharing, or not listening to another friend’s words. We also saw many instances in which friends were hugging one another, both in times of pure joy and affection, and in times when they were comforting a friend who may have gotten a little bump in gym or had their feelings hurt or “broken”. 3B is really responding to the concept of feelings in themselves and those around them. Empathy is growing every day in our classroom and we are so impressed. We are also emphasizing to the children how proud they should be of themselves when they pay attention to their own feelings, as well as the feelings of those around them. Because of these open interactions, we feel the friendships in 3B are only going to get stronger. Already we are seeing friends spending time together with many different friends throughout our days together.

One point we’ve emphasized this week is that it is natural to feel all different kinds of emotions, from happiness to anger to feeling temporarily shy to happy again. We are learning too, that even if we are upset now, in a few minutes we may feel silly again, because our emotions can continually change throughout the day.

In addition to 3B’s budding awareness of emotions, we are hearing friends use polite words more often during our time together. When children are asking for help, or to use a toy or camera, the word “please” is being used more commonly. During snack or lunch, we are beginning to hear, “Can you read a book, please?” instead of “Read a book!” We hope that these new kinder habits are showing up at home too.

3B had our first guest reader this week! We were so excited to have Mario’s dad, Arturo, join us on Friday to read to the class. The children had such a good time with him as he read two Pete the Cat books. Mario very much enjoyed having his dad in the room to share in some of his school day with him. All the children love these types experiences so much. Special grown-ups, please remember that we have an open-door policy and that we want all of you to come and read books, do art projects, cook; anything you would like to do, we can work out a plan. Just let us know if, or when, this is possible and we will set up a date and time that works.

First Week Recap!

Congratulations on a great first week of school!

What a great first week! Everyone has been readily smiling and laughing and exploring all week. Drop off has been very smooth and we are so excited to see how well 3B is taking to the classroom, and the school overall, to start off this brand-new schoolyear. It’s as though we are already a month into the new year. It is so nice to watch the children come in and find stations to enjoy right away. We are seeing many new friendships with strong bonds forming already, as well as many friendships that are very strong from previous schoolyears at Buckle My Shoe together. This is going to be a great year!

We know that sharing is somewhat of a concern for some as we begin our time in 3B, however, we are proud to inform you that we are already seeing sharing and turn taking happen more readily than even a couple days ago. We are also hearing “please” much more than even at the beginning of the week too. The 3B classroom is so polite!

There are so many young artists in our classroom who have a passion for painting and will often paint two, or even three, paintings in the morning. Also, the markers and crayons have been very busy as the 3B friends mix and match the colors in a flurry of scribbles, while the scissors have been getting a lot of use from the children also. We will be participating in many types of art projects throughout the year and are very excited to see all of the creations to be made.

3B loves to look read books! We’ll often read stories during morning meeting and sometimes at snack. Every day we read books at lunch, and even still the class will ask if we can read more books. Oftentimes, when the children are free to choose their own activities, groups of friends will sit down and share in reading a book together. Sometimes these readings happen with just one or two friends, and sometimes it’s a group of five or six. We hope that books will be a very popular choice all year long in 3B! It looks like they will be. Families, please remember that you are always welcome to come into the classroom and read stories to us. These can be impromptu readings the morning for whomever wants to listen, or on a day that we schedule a special reading in advance for the whole class. As teachers, we really love it when special grownups come visit the classroom.  The children, they love it so much when you come in. Your visits are very special to them and, also, when you show them how much you love spending time in school, it helps to further enhance their own love for school. So, please, feel free to stay long or set up a visit anytime!