Settling In

Now that we have completed a bit more than three weeks of school, the children are getting used to the daily routine and the teachers are getting to know your children and their individual personalities. Earlier in the year, a page of photos of all of the children went home and today (Friday) a page of all the teachers went home in the orange folders. I encourage you to review these with your children. Talking about all the children helps to give them a sense of belonging to the group. Our group of children in the Orange Classroom are still getting to know each other and we encourage them to consider all of them friends to each other. Please remember to look in the Orange Folder and school bag every day.

It was a busy week, mostly spent on reinforcing classroom expectations and trying new activities. Many of the children are very ‘busy’, moving quickly from one activity to another. Other children sit for long periods of time at an activity and work on it till completion, i.e., puzzles, stringing, matching. And some children need some encouragement from the teachers to move to try a new activity.

Everyone is making the daily project. Often the project is an exercise to try a new painting tool, learn to manipulate glue brushes and materials, or piece something together. These projects don’t always have a representational end project - rather mastering the process is the goal. With apple and fall projects on the horizon, you may see projects with recognizable outcomes. But do not underestimate the value of learning be comfortable with dirty or painty or gluey hands, because this is developmentally important.

We had a new friend visit our class this week. After reading the story “Biscuit”, he came to Circle Time and has been with us every day. Did you know that at the start of our Circle Time we sing our ‘Hello’ song to all the children and teachers? I bet your child is able to sing this song to you, especially because we sing it as many times as there are children and teachers. However, Biscuit is a dog and doesn’t understand English. We sing to him in dog talk.

I have included here an audio of me singing the Hello song with my name as the example and the way we sing to Biscuit.

During the course of the year, many friends will visit our Circle Time and we will have to sing our Hello song in their language.