All Things Spring...

"To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring." - George Santayana

Note: We had a significant amount of positive feedback from last week's article on kids and conflict. If there's ever a topic you'd like me to explore/investigate in the newsletter, please email me at: mountainvillageschoolvt@gmail.com. You can put "Sam Newsletter Idea" in the subject. We want the newsletter to be a place to answer questions and start though provoking dialogues, and your suggestions can help that process along. Thanks!

Early Ed in the News

It seems like everywhere I turned this week there was one mention or another about pertinent issues regarding early education. Here are a few to catch if you missed them:

Tuesday's Vermont Edition, "Gearing Up for Universal Pre-K"

VPR Commentary from Charlotte Albright, "Teaching our Children Well"

Article from the NY Times Well Blog called "The Mindful Child" This hits on the developing brain and the idea of teaching meditation to even the youngest of kids. 

Classroom Happenings

Infant I: We have been loving the warmer weather, and both the older and younger children have been spending lots of time outside. This has created real excitement to get outdoors; the children tug at their coats to let the teachers know they are ready to go. Bubbles and water have been areas of investigation. Bubbles seem all the more interesting outside with the sunlight and breeze adding a whole new dimension. On Wednesday we filled the outdoor water table as well as some buckets and the children enjoyed filling containers with water and pouring them into other containers. Some of the kids even tried walking with their containers, a real challenge and literal balancing act!

Infant II: We also spent a majority of our time outside, taking in the sun and warmth. Our morning times have been filled with painting and exploring the undersides of the indoor climber where some of the lesser used toys are located. This seems to be an area of renewed interest. We explored water outdoors with our younger classmates, and worked on fine motor manipulation by putting long cylindrical objects through different sized holes. We have many children working hard on potty training, there are doing a great job and seeing lots of success. We also said goodbye to one student as she heads on to new adventures, and good luck to another as he heads upstairs to Toddler I!

Toddler I: As is true in spring, we start to notice the birds, and the kids have certainly had an interest in all of the birds singing, flying overhead and visiting our playground. We have been looking at a guide book to identify the varieties we are seeing, and the birdsong they make. We've been comparing the similarities and differences between birds and other animals we know about, and the children have been most fascinated with the fact that birds lay eggs instead of carrying babies in their bellies. We have also been carefully monitoring our growing caterpillars, watching them evolve and change each day. Popular books in our classroom this week were Caps for Sale and The Relatives Came. We welcomed a new student up from Infant II and he's doing a great job learning our routines.

Toddler II: We are into our fourth week of morning watercolor painting. They can't seem to get enough! It has become a bit of a morning ritual for many of the children. We have done more planting, but have also been watching our seeds grow as well, some are already sprouting. 

The Pre-K and Toddler I classrooms were kind enough to let us watch their caterpillars for a couple of mornings. We watched them crawl and try to attach themselves to the top of the container to start their chrysalis. We have been reading about the process of caterpillar to butterfly in a few books.

Aside from all these spring goings on, we are continuing our work on negotiating with peers and using respectful language to express ourselves. We've been working on self regulation during play: waiting for a turn, waiting for the other person to answer before we just take something. We have been working on finding and offering solutions such as asking to use an item after a person is finished or asking to trade. We continue to remind one another that it's never okay to hurt someone because we didn't get what we wanted. These are conversations that can happen at home too.

Pre-K: We've been enjoying some great new books from the library, more stories about "Jack" and secret shortcuts, a beautiful book about "the root children" and some serious science books regarding caterpillars and butterflies. We are pulling great new vocabulary words from these texts such as life cycle, chrysalis, metamorphosis, absurd, furious, preposterous...the list goes on. We have been growing beans in the classroom as well as cucumbers and flowers. Out on the playground we've planted strawberries and peas. On Wednesday we enjoyed the summer-like sunshine as we hiked to the top of Sunset Rock and then had our lunches right in town. It was a wonderful time and a beautiful day spent with your children!

Thanks for Reading 

Sam