Fundraiser Thanks!
We are so happy with the turnout and support from last Saturday's fundraiser and fall celebration. It was a wonderful to see the children and families enjoying the afternoon together here at school. We want to send a special thank you to all the parent volunteers, bake sale bakers, Suncommon, Chad Hollister and the individuals and businesses who donated to our silent auction. You all contributed to the success of this event, and we thank you. We're certainly looking forward to more events like this in the future, so stay tuned!
MVS T-Shirts for Sale
You may have noticed a few fashion forward kiddos here at school and around town.
We now have Mountain Village School t-shirts available for purchase! The shirts are $15 and we have a variety of sizes, yes, even for you grown-up types. Infant shirts have the MVS logo on the front, while the larger sizes read "MVS" on the front with the logo on the back.
NAEYC Conference
Next week Sarah will be heading down to Orlando, Florida to attend the NAEYC conference. Megan will also be attending as part of her graduate program in early childhood education. This conference brings together experts and innovators from across the country to focus on the work of teaching young children. We wish them safe (and sunny) travels and can't wait to hear all about the new learning they bring home.
Reflections from the Playground
Stick Season. Daylight Savings Time. Dreaded November. By whatever name you call it, this time of year happens to be my least favorite, only made more tolerable by that thankful holiday that comes around just in the nick of time. Okay, maybe I'm tending towards the slightly over dramatic(!), but the shorter days and sometimes unforgiving weather can be challenging, especially when heading outdoors with young children.
In the past few weeks, our playground has really been on my mind. I've been fortunate enough to see this area change and evolve: from one section of fencing being pulled back to nearly double our space, to the addition of new elements such as tires, spools and split logs, to the recent expansion which provides us with various inclines and wooded areas. And Friday evening as I returned inside from the dark, cold and wet, after time spent singing, sprinting and building a number of apple carrying contraptions, I realized that this little fenced in land has rapidly become one of my favorite places. And not just favorite places at school...but very favorite places. But why?
Simply put, I see this space as the ultimate teacher. As Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia region of Italy's educational philosophy attests, "There are three teachers of children: adults, other children, and their physical environment." Our play space combines all three of those elements, and together weaves experiences that are thought-provoking and powerful for the children. In a typical afternoon, a child could expect to construct something that took time and/or effort, discover something of interest, navigate a complicated social interaction, fail at something, succeed at something else, laugh, shed a tear (or two), organize a game, sing a song, the possibilities are seemingly endless. The environment and the interactions the children have with it, provide for these rich daily experiences that lead to new growth and learning.
Jim Greenman's book Caring Spaces Learning Places succinctly gets to the heart of the matter on the importance of environment: "The child’s mode of being in the world is such that the world becomes an invitation. It is things in the beckoning world that invite the child, that awaken his curiosity, that invoke him to make sense of that multitude of experiences lying beyond; in short to become, through his play, both an actor and a meaning maker."
Just this week, an interaction between several children made this all exceptionally clear. A student was hitting a large tree with a stick when a peer communicated that it was not okay to hit the tree, the tree was living and due to this fact, it was important to be gentle. The student doing the hitting responded that the tree was not alive because it did not have any leaves. What ensued was a conversation between three minds about how when the leaves go from the tress, they are not *necessarily* dead. As I observed the whole interaction unfolding, the children looked back at me in a way that seemed to be searching for some kind of validation, or moment of interjection where I would just set the whole record straight. But, that didn't need to happen, the children were completely capable of ironing out this whole tree business for themselves, and that they did. In fact, in the midst of our playground, I believe they came to some high level conclusions, and made meaning out of their environment.
You see, moments like these have turned the playground into one of my favorite places, even in the heart of dark, damp November. It is a place for many scenarios to develop, it is a place to be challenged, find reassurance, to grow. And I'm proud of that any day of the year.
Classroom Happenings
Infant I: The children have loved exploring the new trampolines and watching some of their older peers jump on them. The room has been very vocal, the children are testing out the pitches and volume of their voices. We've also observed some new milestones such as sitting and crawling. We also wanted to mention a new approach to classroom notebooks: We will be doing one in depth observation per week for parents and families instead of short daily observations. This allows for "quality over quantity" to give an a more in depth picture of the children's activities.
Infant II: Our recent focus has been counting. We seem to count most everything that we see, but special interest is still on crab apples. They enjoy collecting them and mixing them up to make "cranberry soup." The chipmunk has also been a regular visitor on the playground as he selectively goes through each crab apple, keeping some and tossing thise that don't make the cut, much to the children's wonder. This week the sensory table was filled with sand, which was very engaging as the class focused on dumping and pouring. The class also enjoyed watching the town workers prune the trees. As heard by Melissa: "Not gentle to the trees!" as the branches fell.
Toddler I: We are taking things slowly in our classroom and simplifying our routines as the children grow accustomed to their new teaching team. The morning schedule is a bit different now: The students are currently spending the 7:30 to 9:30 block of time outdoors, then returning inside for snack, potty time, free play, etc. So far this is working well! Their has been an interest in building with the wooden "Lego" style blocks. There has been a lot of building to hold and incorporate specific toys and trucks. In the sensory table, the children played with cotton balls and tongs. They practiced picking up and dropping the balls as well as compressing them and watching them "repuff." The class has been talking more practice walks around the parking lot and school, we appreciate conversations at home about staying safe on walks.
Toddler II: A walk through our room this week would tell the story about how much the children enjoyed exploring the flour in the sensory table. The children were delighted to play and use descriptive words to articulate the experience: "Smooth!" Prior to the flour extraveganza, the children explored a variety of sponges and soapy water. In their yoga practice this week, the class worked hard to figure out "camel" pose.
Pre-K: Colder weather has set in. We've had some beautiful days too, but we've been refocusing on spending some time indoors, and how that should look We've specifically been talking about movement through the classroom, volume and intensity of play. We've set up a sign in station for children to practice fine motor control and letter writing skills and also added a new "Question of the day" for the children to answer independently or with a parent. We will continue to create small group/individual stations for the children to work at during these months where we spend just a little more time indoors. And remember layers, mittens, hats and boots will keep us warm during our daily treks outdoors.
As Seen at MVS
Thanks for Reading
We are so happy with the turnout and support from last Saturday's fundraiser and fall celebration. It was a wonderful to see the children and families enjoying the afternoon together here at school. We want to send a special thank you to all the parent volunteers, bake sale bakers, Suncommon, Chad Hollister and the individuals and businesses who donated to our silent auction. You all contributed to the success of this event, and we thank you. We're certainly looking forward to more events like this in the future, so stay tuned!
MVS T-Shirts for Sale
NAEYC Conference
Reflections from the Playground
Stick Season. Daylight Savings Time. Dreaded November. By whatever name you call it, this time of year happens to be my least favorite, only made more tolerable by that thankful holiday that comes around just in the nick of time. Okay, maybe I'm tending towards the slightly over dramatic(!), but the shorter days and sometimes unforgiving weather can be challenging, especially when heading outdoors with young children.
In the past few weeks, our playground has really been on my mind. I've been fortunate enough to see this area change and evolve: from one section of fencing being pulled back to nearly double our space, to the addition of new elements such as tires, spools and split logs, to the recent expansion which provides us with various inclines and wooded areas. And Friday evening as I returned inside from the dark, cold and wet, after time spent singing, sprinting and building a number of apple carrying contraptions, I realized that this little fenced in land has rapidly become one of my favorite places. And not just favorite places at school...but very favorite places. But why?
Simply put, I see this space as the ultimate teacher. As Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia region of Italy's educational philosophy attests, "There are three teachers of children: adults, other children, and their physical environment." Our play space combines all three of those elements, and together weaves experiences that are thought-provoking and powerful for the children. In a typical afternoon, a child could expect to construct something that took time and/or effort, discover something of interest, navigate a complicated social interaction, fail at something, succeed at something else, laugh, shed a tear (or two), organize a game, sing a song, the possibilities are seemingly endless. The environment and the interactions the children have with it, provide for these rich daily experiences that lead to new growth and learning.
Jim Greenman's book Caring Spaces Learning Places succinctly gets to the heart of the matter on the importance of environment: "The child’s mode of being in the world is such that the world becomes an invitation. It is things in the beckoning world that invite the child, that awaken his curiosity, that invoke him to make sense of that multitude of experiences lying beyond; in short to become, through his play, both an actor and a meaning maker."
Just this week, an interaction between several children made this all exceptionally clear. A student was hitting a large tree with a stick when a peer communicated that it was not okay to hit the tree, the tree was living and due to this fact, it was important to be gentle. The student doing the hitting responded that the tree was not alive because it did not have any leaves. What ensued was a conversation between three minds about how when the leaves go from the tress, they are not *necessarily* dead. As I observed the whole interaction unfolding, the children looked back at me in a way that seemed to be searching for some kind of validation, or moment of interjection where I would just set the whole record straight. But, that didn't need to happen, the children were completely capable of ironing out this whole tree business for themselves, and that they did. In fact, in the midst of our playground, I believe they came to some high level conclusions, and made meaning out of their environment.
You see, moments like these have turned the playground into one of my favorite places, even in the heart of dark, damp November. It is a place for many scenarios to develop, it is a place to be challenged, find reassurance, to grow. And I'm proud of that any day of the year.
Classroom Happenings
Infant I: The children have loved exploring the new trampolines and watching some of their older peers jump on them. The room has been very vocal, the children are testing out the pitches and volume of their voices. We've also observed some new milestones such as sitting and crawling. We also wanted to mention a new approach to classroom notebooks: We will be doing one in depth observation per week for parents and families instead of short daily observations. This allows for "quality over quantity" to give an a more in depth picture of the children's activities.
Infant II: Our recent focus has been counting. We seem to count most everything that we see, but special interest is still on crab apples. They enjoy collecting them and mixing them up to make "cranberry soup." The chipmunk has also been a regular visitor on the playground as he selectively goes through each crab apple, keeping some and tossing thise that don't make the cut, much to the children's wonder. This week the sensory table was filled with sand, which was very engaging as the class focused on dumping and pouring. The class also enjoyed watching the town workers prune the trees. As heard by Melissa: "Not gentle to the trees!" as the branches fell.
Toddler I: We are taking things slowly in our classroom and simplifying our routines as the children grow accustomed to their new teaching team. The morning schedule is a bit different now: The students are currently spending the 7:30 to 9:30 block of time outdoors, then returning inside for snack, potty time, free play, etc. So far this is working well! Their has been an interest in building with the wooden "Lego" style blocks. There has been a lot of building to hold and incorporate specific toys and trucks. In the sensory table, the children played with cotton balls and tongs. They practiced picking up and dropping the balls as well as compressing them and watching them "repuff." The class has been talking more practice walks around the parking lot and school, we appreciate conversations at home about staying safe on walks.
Toddler II: A walk through our room this week would tell the story about how much the children enjoyed exploring the flour in the sensory table. The children were delighted to play and use descriptive words to articulate the experience: "Smooth!" Prior to the flour extraveganza, the children explored a variety of sponges and soapy water. In their yoga practice this week, the class worked hard to figure out "camel" pose.
As Seen at MVS
Thanks for Reading
-Sam
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