September 1, 2023 EC West

Welcome to Early Childhood! We are looking forward to a wonderful school year with your children. We continue to set the foundation this week as we introduce new areas of the classroom. Our shelves are slowly turning around allowing the child to learn and choose work gradually. We introduced our Peace Corner, which includes how to use the peace rose to foster conflict resolution. If a friend needs to talk to another friend, they can offer them the peace rose to take turns talking and coming up with a solution to their problem. Our worry stones were shown and they help the children navigate their feelings of worry. They can choose a stone, think about their worry, and then place it in a box so they no longer need to hold onto that worry. We also discussed our friendship tree, which allows the child to recognize acts of kindness within themselves or others and hang an object to help our tree look beautiful. In our sensorial area, we introduced our pink cubes, brown prisms, knobbed cylinders and knobless cylinders. All of these works explore visual discrimination. We tore paper for an art lesson to work on fine motor skills, and our first movement lesson was walking on a line. This week, we also focused on many grace and courtesy lessons, including using a quiet voice, remembering to walk in the classroom, and raising our hand when we have something to say in the group, and the polite way to interrupt. Our afternoon specials began this week, including music and Spanish. Kindergartners also experienced Art and P.E. classes. We know these first few weeks are an adjustment as we establish our classroom community and routine, and thank you for all your support and patience!