Food Program Updates

News and Reminders: The clothing swap, put together by the Parent Collaboration Committee, is happening this Saturday from 9 am until noon at the Stowe Elementary School Gym. You won't want to miss it! There will also be bounce houses, snacks, and coffee.

We have several children graduating this year who will be headed to kindergarten. We have our first step of the transition happening on Monday. The kindergarten teachers from Stowe Elementary will be visiting us at MVS on Monday at 11:00 am. This gives us a chance to meet the teachers and to begin conversations about kindergarten. 

In our long term goals for Mountain Village School, we have always wanted to include a kitchen. As many of you know we have been working hard on making this a reality. We have finally finished installing the necessary equipment. If you don't already know, the kitchen is located at the end of the building, where our loading dock is. You can access it through the library, just before my office. We are in the final stages of getting things ready to be making food! I have been working hard on developing relationships with local farms and interviewing chef candidates. A few of the main goals of providing meals at school is to create a sense of community. We want the children to experience a thoughtful, well-prepared family style meal at school. Meal times are important to us, as I am sure they are for you at school, and we want to bring more intention and attention to how we all value what we are eating. We are making very dedicated choices to have our meals be organic, sourced from local farms, and vegetarian. We have spent a lot of time researching nutrition for children to make sure we are offering the most balanced and healthy options for all of the different age groups at MVS. We will be including whole grains, proteins, a lot of fruits and vegetables, and homemade breads, in addition to many other foods. We have found that by offering all children the same foods together, they are more comfortable trying new foods and experiencing different tastes. We also will use the kitchen and our menu to direct part of our curriculum. We will learn about how our food is made and prepared, where it comes from, and what it takes to bring it to school. We will do this through the involvement of the children directly in the kitchen, as well as getting to know the farms and farmers. Our new bus will be a great help in getting us there!

Our goal is to have everything up and running for the beginning of June. We will be sending out information to all of you once we have all of the details about cost, menus, and timing finalized. The food program will not be required, however, we would love to have as many children involved as possible.

We know that there is still research being done on whether or not an organic diet is truly necessary. However, we would like to limit children's exposure to unnecessary pesticides, GMOs, and chemical fertilizers. Here's a link to an article about why an organic diet can be beneficial.

5 Reasons Why Organics Matters, No Matter What

If you have any questions or concerns about your child not getting a balanced diet without meat here's a link to an example of a well balanced vegetarian diet.

Vegetarian Food Plate

We are being very conscious and considerate about making sure that we are offering the right mixture of proteins, grains, fruits, veggies, and dairy.

Please send me any questions you might have about the food program and keep an eye out for more information.


Classroom Updates

Infant I
This week we have been experimenting a bit with sleep schedules, particularly with our older crew as many of them seem to be ready to take just one (longer) nap per day. It helps prevent them from taking naps that are just too short and also lets us get outside a lot more, which we've noticed, really does help them sleep better too. We still maintain a lot of flexibility if we can see that a child is particularly tired one day or if we hear from parents that he or she didn't sleep well the previous night. Keeping all those moving pieces in mind, it has been a really good week! Many children have been hanging out at or around the long toy bin its new central position, making for lots of parallel and interactive play.

Infant II
We have been interested in worms! We all look around the playground and go on a worm hunt. We look under the stumps and the large barrel. All of the children get excited when we turn the stumps over and there, willing around, are the slimy worms. We pick them up and put them on a tray to examine. At first, the children look at them adn feel a little unsure about if they should touch them or not. Once they see one child touch a worm, more build up the courage to touch them. Then there are a few children that really like holding them in their hands. We talk about the color of the worms and the the size of them too. We especially like looking at the tiny ones. We also talked about how they move around, "wiggle" is a new word for some of us. We also talked about where they live and get very excited when we are finished looking and put them in the garden. On a sad note, we are saying goodbye to Danielle this week. We will truly miss her and wish her all the best!

Toddlers
This week we have been very excited to use chalk outside on the playground. We have been interested in identifying the color of the chalk and using the chalk to make marks on the fence and rocks. In the beginning of the week, we enjoyed playing in the rain and finding puddles on the playground. We were also excited to discover worms under the hay and worked hard on being careful and gentle with them. On Thursday, we had fun working on a collaborative painting project with infant II outside.

Preschool I
This week we paid closer attention to the weather and how it determined what we needed to wear to play outside. The favorite book this week was definitely "The Gruffalo", chosen by a student during the weekly library trip/ The children love the rhymes about the clever mouse tricking all of the bigger, hungry animals by inventing the Gruffalo. Ask them, they might remember that the animals included a snake, an owl, and a fox!

We also had a lot of fun with our "clean mud" science experiment in the sensory table. Everyone pitched in to unroll adn tear up toilet paper and to fetch water. The favorite moment was definitely when we put the soap in the microwave to watch it blow up!

It's finally getting hot and sunny, sunscreen and hats to shade faces and ears will be greatly appreciated. Please remember to lable everything.

Preschool II
This was the first full week with Jane as our teacher. We practiced using our best listening ears as we went up to the river behind the big hill near the elementary school almost everyday. We ate snack up there and then ran down to the woods and river. At the river we looked for critters and their homes. We also explored the concets of sinking and floating by testing different natural items in the river. We also explored around the bend of the river to what we named "The Lost City".

PreK

Our crew is growing steadily making our scheduling and transition planning ever more important. We've started beginning our day on the playground and the children are loving it. They have space to run and spread themselves out as they make their morning transitions. This will be our routine for the majority of the summer so please plan accordingly. Additionally, we have been splitting into two groups for our excursions and circle time.

Drawing plans for a tree house. 

Happy Birthday To You!

A spontaneous drumming circle happened one afternoon this week. They had a variety of songs, including ones about the sun and the moon. The music was fantastic! 

An afternoon art activity of making faces with found natural objects.