Farewell for Now Week!

Farewell For Now Week was here before we knew it!  The children had a wonderful time on Field Day, and did a great job at their "Book Reading"!  We are delighted that so many of you were able to join us for our Songs, Book Reading and Picnic.  It has been a truly wonderful year!  We wish you a wonderful summer and look forward to seeing you in September!

Looking Deeper: Exploration and Learning through Play

Let's take a closer look at the children's social emotional growth.

I always love looking at the photos taken of the children during the special events of our last two days of school; namely Field Day, our Book Reading and our Family Picnic.  Over the course of the year we have routinely looked deeper at the growth occurring in the developmental areas of fine & gross motor, speech & language, and cognition.  This week's photos aptly illustrate the social/emotional growth which has also been on-going.

 

Every single day as the children have come to school they have strengthened their social/emotional skills and utilized these emerging and intricate skills to broaden their circle of relationships.  We spend a life time working at improving our inter-personal relationships.  This year as parallel play moved into the realm of interactive play, the children worked hard daily to move beyond themselves and "play" with friends.  Achieving this end is one of the paramount goals I have for my young students.  Meeting this goal is at the heart of my plans each and every day.  The classroom is designed  to support and expand interactive play as are the Units and Themes presented.  Each day I have observed the children as they have stepped outside of themselves and worked at making and being friends.  Witnessing these efforts and the fruits they bear is one of the most gratifying gifts of my job as their teacher!  It has been a privilege and a joy to behold the children sharing their thoughts, ideas, opinions, preferences and imaginings with one another as they build and strengthen friendships.

Field Day, Book Reading and Family Picnic brings us full-circle.  The abandonment and delight on the faces of the children on Field Day illustrate how far they have come in building important interpersonal relationships.

  

The lovely photos of our final activities bring you most appropriately back into the picture, as you are the ones who gave your children the wonderful foundation and confidence to expand and transfer their trust from home and family to school and friends!

Thank you for sharing your children with us!  They have become a vital part of the Parker family/community, and it has been an absolute joy to witness this process and their abundant growth daily.  It has been a lovely school year!  Have a wonderful summer, we look forward to seeing you again in September!  

Have a fun and restful Summer!

Fun Fun Fun Week!

Fun, Fun, Fun Week was filled with "fun" learning activities!  

The children experimented with eye droppers and colored water to create new colors.  

They strung Cheerios, pretzels and beads to make necklaces.  

They requested a return of our special pop corn popper.  Watching the pop corn pop is almost as much fun as eating it! 

At Story Time they listened to felt board fairy tales, and stories from their favorite author, Kieko Kasza.

A return visit from Baby Mikka was an additional highlight of the week. 

Perhaps most fun of all was our field trip to the Bethlehem Town Park Playground.  The weather was nearly perfect, and the children had a "perfectly" grand time!

 Happy Summer Birthday to Pradun, Rowan, Tommy and Sammy!

 Happy Birthday to Evvie who turned four and celebrated with the class this past Tuesday!

Looking Deeper:  Exploration and Learning through Play

This Week let's take a closer look at the "fun" of play!

As mentioned above, this week was filled with a wide variety of activities, some new, some back by popular demand, but all Fun, Fun, Fun!  One characteristic that these activities had in common was the fact that they were multi-layered in skill focus, and provided the children with a "review" of many skills and facts that we focused upon over the course of the year!

The children excitedly mixed colored water every day this week and never tired of creating new colors.  They experienced this activity as playful and fun, but as is always the case with play, it was so much more!  Manipulating an eye dropper was a new learning experience for many of the children. 

They spontaneously reviewed and exclaimed that blue and yellow made green, that red and yellow made orange, and that blue and red made purple.  Additionally, Spanish was utilized from time to time as a child was heard to exclaim; I made verde....... anaranjado.......morado! 

Stringing Cheerios and pretzels is a fun fine motor activity that quickly morphed into a Math lesson as the children began counting the number of Cheerios and pretzels that were on their strings, and discerned who had more and/or most. 

Subtraction came into play as the children began eating their necklaces! 

Stringing colored beads provided experimentation with Math concepts of greater complexity as the children instinctively began to form patterns with the colored beads!

Science concepts were reviewed as we talked once again about how and why a kernel of corn expands when heated and eventually "pops," turning into something delicious!   Before we knew it,  we were discussing Social Studies as the children remembered and articulated that the Native Americans made pop corn while sitting around their camp fires!

The children demonstrated their knowledge and love of literature as they requested their favorite stories by a beloved author!

 The children delighted in the exercise of social and gross motor skills as they played on our Field Trip to the Bethlehem Town Park Playground!

 Play is fun!  Play is a source of great joy!  Play is also a wonderful vehicle of  learning for children and adults of all ages!  Remember to always take time, and/or make time to Play!

Have a fun and restful weekend!