What an incredible first week of school! We are so happy to get to know our students. And the students have been busy exploring our classroom and learning our routine. We are really excited for this year! At this age, often, children won’t be able to tell you what they did at school when asked. Sometimes, they don’t want to, but they may be unable to remember at that moment or on cue. You can talk about the day during a comfortable time of the evening, like dinner, bath time, storytime, or before bedtime. You can always show them the photos we send by the end of the week to help them remember. Don’t worry, they will begin to tell you soon!
During classroom exploration, the students are free to move around the room to interact with each other. Early in the year, some will prefer to play solo at first, and that is okay. They will slowly start establishing friendships and initiate games together.
The art area has been a big hit. This week, they worked with paint, crayons, watercolors, and dot markers. In our room, we strive for independence, so each child is learning to set themselves up for painting anytime they want to without waiting for the teacher’s help. We have an easel where they can work with paint, dry-erase markers, and chalk. They can also paint on the table with various tools and lots and lots of paint. The playhouse has proven to be very popular, and the students have expanded it throughout the room as they use dolls and soft toys there. Students dressed and role-played entertainers in the dramatic area on the “big” stage. It has been pure joy for us to listen to the rich conversations that have taken place amongst them! And the fun conversations between all of us. Our building materials consist of different types of blocks and other materials, such as magnatiles, blocks, cubes of different materials, and Duplo Legos, which bring different structures. The students have built tall towers and buildings. They experimented with balance and strength to make what they wanted. Again, whether they were building together or beside each other, there were many conversations about what they would build, how, and what materials they’d use. The rug area is a place for gathering, having family meetings, songs, music and movement, books and stories, and other toys and objects to exercise their fine motor skills. There are also puzzles and games that they can play on the carpet or at tables. As the first experiment of the year, we made play dough. When making it, we use math skills by measuring the ingredients to have a successful product. We use our observational skills to see how the dry ingredients blend with the liquid ingredients to get the consistency we need to make cookies, hotdogs, or pizza. Students use the small muscles in their hands and arms to manipulate the play dough to make what they want. Tools are shared and used during their time at the table. On the water table, they got to splash, scoop, pour, empty, and repeat. They may scrub an object with a brush, pour water into a sieve and watch it flow through, or pour water through a tube/pipe and observe it come out of the other end(Not always back into the table!) Towels are always available for drying hands, floors, and clothes. During clean-up, we experience sorting things into groups (bears with bears, cubes with cubes, magnets with magnets, and so on,) which helps young learners better observe how things are alike and different—essential early literacy and math skills. We also learned responsibility; each student is responsible for cleaning an area of the room. Thank you for enforcing this skill at home as well.
The students are learning our daily routine. They have met their special teachers and told us that class time has been fun. Coach Jim (our gym teacher) even mentioned that we are the best listeners in the whole school! Yay us!
Bathroom breaks are often, and we are so proud that most of them have shown good self-help skills! Accidents do happen and are expected early on. We handle them on a positive note and move forward. Thank you for letting them practice independently at home. Remember, practice makes perfect! One of our favorite activities this week has been reading our “family album .”We are reading one student a day and still have many left. We discussed details about a student, like how many members are in their families, their favorite activities together, favorite colors, favorite food, favorite toys, and if they have any pets. We are getting to know each other and can see how similar and different we are.
We also talked about the meaning of Kindness. We discussed how important it is to treat each other with Kindness and respect and tried to give examples of how we can show Kindness to each other. (Ask your child how they can show Kindness to their classmates and teachers.)
We are already becoming a family.

Soraya and Efi