Letter weeks - N, M, T, D, W, and C

Hello Purple Room Families,

Our letter of the week as usual is being weaved into the Reggio curriculum according to the interests of the children. We covered letters N, M, T, D, W, and C during the months of November and December. It was amazing to see how children connected the letter they were learning with other current ideas in the classroom, making the flow coherent and interesting to learn.

For letter N, children collaged it by writing Numbers on their letter N. Friends who couldn't write numbers yet at least tried forming the number as closely as possible through observing their older peers or trying to copy from the number chart.



Doing a cooking project most weeks has been an ongoing trend of our preschool too. For letter N, friends loved making Nachos where they followed the recipe and stacked the toppings one after the other.



For letter M, friends decorated the letter using Markers! Later they thoroughly enjoyed making and eating Mac and Cheese. Mmmmmm!






During that week very modern and complex structures were put together by friends using MagnaTiles. Now this was was super cool, where the boys balanced a house over a thin tower. Fascinating!



More different and unique constructions...



For Letter M, friends also explored marble runs and various magnetic constructions!

During letter T week, friends were talking all about metal since we were building the Polar Express train. As a result, we used tin foil and tape to give our collage a metallic look...






We also made turkeys as centerpieces for the Thanksgiving holiday! Friends poked feathers in play-dough, used a thick pipe cleaner to make the neck, and gave their pieces some finishing touches with eyes and beaks.






Finally, they put their turkeys in foil bowls and friends suggested to get tanbark piecess and hay from outside in the yard to make a cozy nest in the bowl!



Later, we tried tasting different kinds of tortillas like white flour, whole wheat, corn, and tortilla chips. Friends explored the textures, taste, and smells of each kind!






Playing with trains, our own Polar Express train project, and talking and making tickets were some activities friends were deeply involved during the T week!

For letter D, friends decorated it using dinosaurs and decoration stamps.



The also loved counting the numbers in the letter D activity and filling it up with dot art!







For letter W, friends made the letter look like water using blue and green and a little gold to represent the ocean...






We also enjoyed cooking waffles together and eating them fresh and warm right off the waffle maker!






We ended the month of December with letter C with focus on Christmas/winter holidays. It seemed almost everything related to holidays -- candy canes, cookies, snowmen, gingerbread, snowy pine trees, Christmas flowers, and lots of winter scenes.

That week we also celebrated the CRAZY WEEK with five days of craziness - crazy dress day, crazy hair day, crazy sock day, and crazy hat day!

M being a hairstylist making crazy hair for N :)



Our crazy socks...



On the letter C collage, friends choose to do a candy cane pattern. They also used actual candycanes to look at the pattern and tried to follow the same!



Making snowmen with modeling clay...









Friends glued sticks on a cardboard frame...






Next they sprayed the SNOW paint to make it look like a winter forest...



Finally they glued their choice of Christmasy decor to go up on their pictures frames...



Making gingerbread ornaments...









Making gingerbread to eat...






We talked about the famous Christmas flower, aka the Star flower - Poinsettias!
Friends enjoyed learning all about the flower. We even watched the short video clip of the legend of the poinsettia. Later we painted our own flower using acrylic paints and real artists' brushes!



Friends made fun holiday jewelry for themselves and their families...



It was interesting to see how friends problem-solved the issue of beads falling off the other end as they strung their bracelets. Some friends got very frustrated and in the end came up with an idea to hold one end of the string with their mouths. This let them easily nail down the project :) All the other friends loved the idea and applied the same...


Gravity kept the beads far from their mouths, but of course we watched and talked about being safe with this method. They made symmetrical patterns just like in real jewelry and enjoyed wearing them or packing them as a gift for their family members...



We also decorated cookies while enjoying Christmas carols with our families...






We ended our 2015 year by creating winter scenes and wishing each other a happy vacation!



Voila! :)



Happy new year!

Keep seeing you'll around,

Hugs,
Teacher Rashida.

Welcome new teachers!

Happy new year to everyone and I hope that everyone enjoyed and rested in the holiday season. We are so excited for 2016!

I love the following quote. We try to tell our kids this and it is great for us to follow these ideas too:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something.

By Neil Gaiman

2016 is off to a wonderful start for us, including some exciting changes. As most of you know, we have been interviewing for a while in our quest to find the right people to join our team. We were looking for a full-time person for Purple Room because Teacher Rosemary needed to reduce her hours, and for one teacher each for Rose Room and Green Room as their enrollments have grown.

We deeply appreciate your patience during the hiring process, and especially those of you who helped refer candidates to us. We are very happy to announce that we are now fully staffed (yay!!!!) and ask you to join us in welcoming our new teachers to the team!

Welcome to Teacher Vianna in Purple Room

Teacher Vianna started substituting for us the last week of December and is now officially the co-teacher with Teacher Rashida in Purple Room. Her hours are 9:30-6:00 daily, so those of you with later pick-ups will get to consistently see her in the evenings. Vianna has a degree in ECE and several years of teaching experience. We are excited to welcome her to the preschool team!

But what about Teacher Rosemary?

Teacher Rosemary has begun phasing out of Purple Room as Vianna phases in, but rest assured, she will still be with us every day. Starting February 1, Teacher Rosemary will become our "Art & Science Teacher in Residence," meaning that she will be rotating through each classroom (probably one day/week in each room) to work on special art and science projects with all of the children. This has always been one of her greatest strengths, so now all the rooms will get to benefit from her curriculum talent!

Welcome to Teacher Kayleigh in Rose Room (and helping preschool and Green Room)

Teacher Kayleigh joined us full-time in mid-October. She is the assistant teacher in Rose Room in the mornings, helps Green Room with their lunches, and then supports preschool in the afternoons. Talk about multi-tasking! We appreciate her flexibility and willingness to serve as the "bridge" or familiar face for children who are transitioning between classrooms. Kayleigh is new to this field professionally but grew up with younger siblings and has worked with young children for a long time in other settings. She is Teacher Ramona's daughter and Teacher Julia's big sister. Welcome, Kayleigh!

Welcome to Teacher Katie (Green Room)

Teacher Katie joined Green Room in mid-November. Her hours are 9:00-3:00 Monday through Friday. Katie has a degree in music and is currently a part-time student working toward her Master's in clinical psychology. She has experience working with toddlers in a summer program and is continuing to take classes in child development as well. She has a specific interest in (and talent for!) working with young children. We are so glad she joined our team!

Referrals are still welcome.

We don't have any more full-time or part-time regular staff openings, but we are always open to substitutes, student teachers, or volunteers. If you know anyone who needs or wants experience with young children, we are always happy to share what we do with the next generation of teachers.

I am very excited to welcome Teachers Vianna, Kayleigh, and Katie to our Creative Minds family!

Richa Kapur

Do you travel without a ticket?

Hello Purple Room Families,

Our classroom's imaginary play grew deeper as they visited many fictional places and had imaginary journeys and experiences to bring back and share. The 'All Aboard' was a phrase in everybody's talk. Friends worked very cooperatively in taking turns being a conductor, or a polar express kitchen chef or traveling on the train. We learned that some friends didn't board the train when it was overcrowded, while for some it didn't matter. We talked about respecting each other and the train, as well as being prepared for small pushes and accidents because of the space constraint.

Some of the activities we did around their train interests:

Friends brought their different train track sets to share with the classroom and we learned to put them together. Here we got involved in reading the instruction booklet step-by-step to finish a model and each friend got a turn to come forward and place their chosen pieces!



They built trains with foam blocks, wooden blocks, magnatiles and always enjoyed playing with the wooden train set...






Fine motor practice tracing letters and pictures of trains...















Friends decided to open an official train station and a ticket counter. In order for customers to know where it was, they created 'ticket sign boards' and welcome boards and decorated them!









Soon, the concept of money crept in when friends proclaimed that they needed money to buy tickets...
They came up with the idea of collecting donations from friends and families and as a result cre.ated a small creative donation box. Thank you to everyone for contributing to this activity...



There they set the ticket counter while exploring the ticket printing machine...



Customers came from all around to buy tickets with pennies and friends got involved in a lot of math by collecting money, counting, giving out the change, using addition and subtraction. Punching numbers on the ticket machine enhanced their knowledge of number recognition, big and small numbers...



Soon we ended up designing our own tickets. Here we worked on the letters in the word 'ticket' and learning to write and recognize the dollar sign -$. They together brainstormed different things like time, date, words, symbols, pictures that can be seen on real tickets (print knowledge). Finally, friends put their creative open ended thoughts on paper and told us all about their design, where the ticket is going to take them and how much it costs. The documentation for the same can be seen on the classroom's purple wall!









A few examples...



Talking of friends imaginary journeys - Here M landed on the North Pole and said that he came here just to ski with his friend Polar and he even bought his ski shoes that he made out of cardboard!



The crew here said they are going to 'Marshmallow Land' since they can pretend that the white snow at the North Pole is white marshmallows. They also said that when you walk on the marshmallow land your feet might sink in a little since the road will be too soft :)



Another crew was visiting the library and thus getting in character with all the reading on their way...



Hot chocolate!!!!
We watched the clip of the hot chocolate dance in the polar express while sipping hot chocolate ourselves...



After the hot chocolate party, we heared a loud thud on our classroom door and when friends rushed to open it, they say a big red parcel with a note from Santa that read "Special delivery for Purple Room! All the way from the North Pole! Happy Holidays!"

Some even said that they saw the edge of Santa's sled when they quickly opened the door :)
We got beautiful silver bells from Santa's reindeer harness...in order to not lose them like the boy in "Polar Express" did, friends immediately wore them around their necks and made many wonderful wishes...


There were many such unforgettable journeys on and around our polar express. Friends had pretend lunches and tea parties, they used the kitchen to make hot chocolate and many other delicacies, they even brought their pillows in the gingerbread house caboose for sleepovers and play dates, a friend wanted to have his birthday party in the polar express. The train sure holds a lot of our emotions!

Gak
One of the activities that friends loved was playing with gak. We put gak in a basket and hung it up on the ceiling to observe what would happen...



Observing and keeping a note of the time...it took almost 25 minutes for the gak to reach at this position...



Friends collected it in cones like ice cream...



They even observed and found that it was hollow in the middle like a tube or pipe...






Something like this...



Thanksgiving and Christmas activities which were equally fun and busy will be posted soon.

Until then, keep seeing you around!

Hugs,
Teacher Rashida