Below is one of Teacher Sharon’s weekly updates to parents. It’s a good example of a week in the life of our preschoolers at SPP. (FYI: For privacy, we’ve changed the students’ names in this summary.)
Dear Families,
Every week is special at SPP – but this week was “especially special.” Two field trips in three days!! Unbelievably gorgeous and warm weather Wednesday and Thursday, an impromptu tour of the police station (not typically given to the public), picnic in the park…just awesome. On Monday we went to a Seattle Parks and Recreation puppet show. Not a huge success (though paper bag puppets later in the week were hugely popular), but well worth the effort and important because we were supporting our community. Fall paint colors were available at the easel all week. Some beautiful orange, green, red and yellow paintings emerged. On Thursday we had a fun smorgasbord art project (glue, stickers, scissors, hole punchers, rulers, markers, crayons, etc) which was a big hit. Robert and Ian spent a great deal of focused energy on filling a piece of paper with circle-stickers and Austin spent a great deal of focused energy on double-sticking stickers with scotch tape.
CURRICULUM
We finished ‘neighborhood and community’ this week. I extended block play in the loud room by taping white butcher paper to the table and drawing a map of our preschool neighborhood. I placed the “neighborhood blocks” and “me blocks” where they belonged on this map. Success! Austin and Robert built another amazing “submarine” (though this time a giant one) plus a “truck.” They led the class in singing we all live in a GIANT submarine. We also looked at architectural blueprints and discussed how they are maps for building structures. I taped these on the table in the art room as a backdrop for all our art projects on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. We finished fire safety training lesson 4 which focused on grownup versus children tools and what to do if a child finds a grownup tool (ask for help). On Wednesday, we went on a field trip to fire station #25. We were a little early and stopped at the police station on the way. I thought we would just explore the lobby, but Officer Casey Sundin kindly offered to take us in the back for a brief tour! He showed us their newly completed roll call room, uniforms, kitchen, pool table, memorial wall…it was unexpected, very gracious and exciting. Our tour of the fire station afterward was equally as exciting. Though we thought we were going to take our time listening to fire fighters and exploring their vehicles, this station is actually very busy. One by one each fire fighter trying to give us a tour got called out. We ended up instead watching all the rigs drive away until the entire station was empty and we had to leave!! I thought this twist was actually better in some ways because the children got to see the fire fighters do their community work in real time. Back at school we read Firefighters! : Speeding! Spraying! Saving! by Patricia Hubbell. We made fire fighter sticker pictures, wore new police/fire costumes and drew thank you pictures.
ANTI-BIAS
We were very lucky at fire station #25 to meet Fire Chief Tamalynn Nigretto http://www.cityofseattle.net/html/women_first.htm (scroll down towards bottom). She was walking by and I made a distinct point to draw the children’s attention to her. She was very friendly and stopped. I helped them engage so we could discuss later that she was a firewoman and they would remember who she was. On Thursday we shared pictures of deceased loved ones and read Day of the Dead by Tony Johnson. We had a very special, deep and rich experience with Austin’s picture of his birth father who passed away last year. Derek and I thought Austin might be withdrawn but in fact, the opposite happened. Austin was very proud of the picture, described things in it with great detail and wanted to keep it on his person most of the day. The other children were extremely interested yet showed tremendous respect. It was very touching.
ENVIRONMENT
At the sensory table we played with rice and recycled food containers. Please continue bringing in recycled containers for the art room.
SERVICE
At the playground this week we were able to unexpectedly service our community a little more. We ran into Seattle Parks and Recreation worker Michael. He was collecting garbage with a claw (should we get claws for our next garbage pickup at school?). Building on last week’s service project (litter collection), the children were very interested in what he was doing. They asked him some questions, recognized what he was doing was something they knew how to do and started pitching in unprompted!! (see attachment, Robert pointing out garbage for Michael). Needless to say, I was very proud.
KID QUOTES
Austin (working with stickers and tape): “I need to concentrate on my artwork. Please be quiet.”
Darnell: “Anybody wants to be a fireman?”
Ian: “I wanna be a police man”
Trevor (stacking cones): “Look! I made a tower!!”
REMINDERS
Quotebooks! Quotebooks! Quotebooks! Please keep jotting down the amazing things your kids say. I’m still not seeing much at the end of the week.
NEXT WEEK
Next week is a short week. No school on Thursday Nov 11 Veterans Day. We had a lot of break in routine this week so next we will return to our typical daily flow. Making a complete transition to a focus on harvest and growing food. We will be singing songs about eating and the foods we like. crafts, projects and sensory table will involve food materials. We will also experiment with growing things ourselves, making compost, etc. finally, we will have a “sub-theme” (if you will) – the ABCs! I’d like to spend a little time before winter break exploring the alphabet. Each day will be letter-themed and include activities like letter coloring sheets, listing words, sharing letter objects, etc. On to week 9…