Beginning of the Year-Family Check In
We want to thank everyone for taking the time to meet with your children's teachers and share what is important from your family perspective for us to incorporate into our classroom learning. Below is the list generated from the individual family meetings. Our hope is to have families come into the classroom and share your talents, interests and family culture.
-Environmentally Friendly
-Music-Dancing-Instruments-Art
-Siblings
-Feelings-Identifying and Expressing
-Potty Training
-Science-Nature-Outdoors
-Body Parts
-Diversity
-Differences in Families
-Respect
-Manners
-Listening to each other
-Inquisitiveness
-Non-Commercialism
-Girl Power
-Conflict Resolution
Languages
-French
-Spanish
-Haitian Creole
The teachers have been incorporating many of these values into our curriculum and the fabric of our classroom community. We will continue to explore topics of importance to families and look forward to families sharing their talents, interests and time with us!
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It’s finally Autumn and the children are having so much fun observing the changes in nature. Our walks are filled with finding natural treasures such as acorns, pine cones and leaves of yellow, orange, red and green. The children also love hearing the sound of leaves crunching beneath their tiny little feet and watching squirrels race across the sidewalk in front of us. We have brought some of these natural treasures into our classroom and our little scientists have been using magnifying glasses and goggles for further exploration.
Our curriculum theme is “About Me”! We have been exploring with the awareness of our five senses. We did a smell test where the toddlers tried to identify the scent of an onion, flour, garlic powder, a banana, cinnamon, parsley and more. One morning we set up a sensory activity where the children used their bare feet to walk through different textures around the room. Some of the textures were foam paint, grains of rice and flour. We also did a bare feet obstacle course where the children explored the difference between the wooden floor, the trampoline, climbing the stairs, jumping and squishing a nap mat, walking across a metal tray and hoping from one yoga mat to the next before beginning the course all over again!
On Monday October 5ththe toddlers made a shopping list at Morning Meeting in preparation for a field trip to Whole Foods on Tuesday. We bought plums, nectarines kiwis, strawberries, raspberries, radishes, snow peas, broccoli, celery, three different types of bell peppers (a yellow, an orange, and a purple pepper), swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, yogurt and Pineapple-Orange-Banana juice! We also purchased two pumpkins! We bought a larger oval shaped orange pumpkin and a smaller round white-ish/grey pumpkin. At the children’s request we used some of the fruit to make smoothies. We cut up the veggies, cheese and fruit for a taste test. All of the children enjoyed the nectarine and swiss cheese. Not one of the children enjoyed the radishes. Everything else we sampled had mixed reviews. After making drawings from our pumpkin observations we cut open the pumpkins for further exploration.
We also took a trip to the Central Square Library one morning and spent some time reading books together before we took out some books on our five sense and families. Some of the titles include Sense Suspense, Five for a little one, Beginnings How Families Come to Be, Full, Full, Full of Love and lots more!
As a reminder please send in a picture of your family to include in our Toddler Family Book. We are also looking forward to displaying pictures of family member in the work environment and pictures of the children’s homes around our classroom to inspire children in dramatic play and in the big block area.
Toddler Team