Mark Those Calendars!
- Art Materials: Please bring in anything you can of Christina’s requested list
The library is a cozy space for literacy to blossom and flourish!
- Community Snack Schedule: This week is the Steinhauer Family. Please, use the snack signup genius here to sign up for a week to ring snack. Let the Snack Coordinator Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com) know if you need special accommodations. And a BIG thank you to the Olsen family who volunteered last week!
- Parent Work Shifts Start: Monday September 19th
- NO SCHOOL Fall Break: September 24-October 9th
- October Parent Meeting: Wednesday October 26th 6:30-7:30pm
- Parent Teacher Conference Week: We have EARLY dismissal at 1:10pm 10/24-10/28. Please click here to sign up for Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, or Friday conference times, (Yes, I said Sunday!). I have commitments Tuesday and Thursday that I cannot change.
- First Field Trip: THIS Friday September 23rd at 9:00am (Apple Farm on Gizdich Ranch in Watsonville, CA!)
- FUTURE Parent Meeting Dates: Wednesday Nov 9th, Wednesday Dec 14th, Wednesday Jan 25th, Skipping February (short month, too many conflicts), Wednesday March 22nd, Wednesday April 26th, Wednesday May 24th, and Wednesday June 14th.
- Second Field Trip: Tuesday October 18, 2016 at 9:30am (Spina Farms Pumpkin Patch in Los Banos, CA)
Emergency Parent Sub List:
- Jennifer Coscarart (Tuesdays 2nd shift & some Thursdays)
- Doreen Stitt (Tuesdays 2nd shift & some Thursdays)
- Akiko Fukuhara (3rd shifts) 408-614-9793
- Angela Henshall (Thursday 2nd shift)
- Christine Ging (always around Thursday morning, though I may be in Rm 12)
- Lonnell Graham (408)-836-0385
- David Ramos (408) 393-4456 (Thursdays after 1pm)
A NEW Trampoline: The Process For Making Agreements
Children were ready for me to introduce a body tool to help get out wiggles and excess energy. A trampoline was donated to room 5, but Terra has allowed the whole kinder pod to use it in the center atelier space. In order to use a material like this, we had to come up with agreements like we did for noise cancelling headphones and fidget tools. The process begins with the whole group doing the following 4 steps:
- Discuss the tool/material in question (brainstorming)
- Create safety through agreements (Logan wrote down ideas/adults scribed, too)
- Try out agreements (practicing safely, respectfully using the tool)
- Amend agreements as needed (trial/error)
Once children were finished, friends put their agreements into motion and took ownership over the success of this tool’s induction into our exploration time:
- Two children agreed we needed a timer (Dominic & Sthanika) and a sign up list, because it was too hard to remember who went next with so many kids clambering to try it! They decided to try 3 minutes per person, “because you don’t have to wait so long for a turn and you’ll get really tired after 4 minutes, anyway!”
- Nakiya at one point directed everyone to the sign-up list to keep track of who’s turn it was to try the trampoline. “I’m showing people where to sign up and telling them to get the people who are up next and telling people where they are on the list if they’re not up, yet. Some kids need help following the numbers and waiting their turn. ____ already had her turn during someone else’s turn and she wants to go, again. But it’s Quentin’s turn, now.” (Honoring turn-taking!)
- Buddy system: “You have to go get whoever is next, when you’re turn is over,” Maddie S. said.
- THEN, another one of the children put herself in charge of monitoring the timer, for each turn, and telling kids when it was time to get off. “I need to do it because it’s so noisy, they can’t hear the timer, anyway.” (Sthanika)
- Parents/teachers wandered in and out if the center space to check on safety, but it was mostly a smooth, child-run activity!
A Birthday Bummer…
Children are turning 6 and it’s such a big deal how they celebrate themselves! Will it be a swimming party? A jump-on-in party? At my house? At a park? At Gilroy gardens? At a restaurant? They’re super jazzed and coming to school bursting with details of what kind of party they will have, what cake they will get, and when it will be. Then, other children naturally catch the excitement in the air and want to join in on the fun dialogue, “Oh! I love that place! I’m so excited to go there! What kind of toys do you want?” Then, the birthday child turns to the excited friend and says, “Oh, no, no, no. (Points to others) You, you, you, and you are coming….not you. I don’t think my mom thought you wanted to come.” Those words slapped him in the face and his spirit dims. His social confidence immediately deflates along with his excitement, and his eyes begin to water. That child’s whole body slumps into a hunched over pile of sadness and as he says, “Aww, man…” And the friends continue playing until an adult intervenes. As the day goes on, suddenly, only the people invited to that birthday party are ONLY invited to play, too. “Sorry, there isn’t room for you.” They say casually, as they let another friend in. Exclusion shapes a child’s idea of who he/she is and what his/her value is to those around him/her.
We will of course talk about the etiquette of birthday party conversations, as a class, but
the reality is that not every child knows how to include everyone, as is. Some kids will use the social capital of birthday invites to exclude others and strengthen cliques. The worst part is, many think it’s okay, because parents may have even said (with the best of intentions), “Let’s keep it small, sweetie” or “How about we just invite your closest friends. Hmm?” Birthday parties are expensive. I get it! It’s not easy or cheap to throw a rockin’ kids’ party for 24 kids, plus adults. But what children do with that exciting information, when it’s limited to certain friends, can be hurtful.
It’s even worse when a parent sends a mass email to everyone with the e-vite, but only some people on the mailing list are ACTUALLY invited. So, the people who ‘accidentally’ got the message, click on the e-vite and get an error message saying, “You are not on the invite list, please check with the host.” Not cool.
So, please, as birthdays come up, think very carefully about how you present the invite list idea to your child and how you and your child present it to other people. Create boundaries for when and where these thrilling discussions are allowed. I say this because I had several kids in tears over these party invites (or lack thereof). Those invite lists hold a LOT of social meaning for kids in terms of belonging, and they won’t understand why they weren’t invited. Especially, if they look up to the person doing the inviting. They also won’t understand why certain friends begin to “ice” them out in play, either. They will just feel smaller and smaller and think something must be wrong with them.
It infuriates me to see children go through that agonizing process, because it’s traumatizing. It leaves invisible wounds of self-doubt and questioning – why wasn’t I good enough? What’s wrong with me? And eventually, children can begin to expect that they deserve such treatment and start to shut down emotionally, so as not to get hurt. That kind of emotional trauma will not be tolerated in my class. Our children will grow up including others and knowing the full value of their worth, which is so precious and vast that it’s unable to be defined. So, I’ll do my part as the teacher to support these birthday invite conversations at school, if you’ll help me as parents by carefully framing the birthday invite conversations at home. It’s a big ticket item that needs to be processed, carefully. I strongly encourage you to take the time to have these conversations, before they spin into webs of exclusion among kinder peers.
Weekly Highlights:
- Parent Meeting: Please take a look at the Meeting Minutes Document from our
Morning Meeting at it’s best!
meeting this week and let me know if you have any questions or comments. We talked about observations, adults in the classroom, and several housekeeping items.
- Trampoline: We added another body tool and came up with agreements for how to use it safely. It’s shared by our whole kinder pod, but our class the first to be ready to have it introduced!
- Handwriting: We started our Handwriting Without Tears notebooks which will supplement our writing curriculum. We began with practicing frog jump letters F, E, D, B, and P. It seems simple, but legible “best” handwriting will help IMMENSELY during story workshop!
- Birthday Books: To celebrate your child’s birthday, they may bring in a book for us to read to the class! Please, refrain from bringing food.
- Share Chair: If children would like to share, the 3rd item on our meeting agendas are usually sharing. They can bring in a book or special item from home to show. If they bring a toy, it will have to go right back into their back packs.
- Family Photo: Where is yours? I know who you are and your family name label is waiting for you! lol I’m missing 2! Please bring in your photos ASAP. We’re a community!
- Invisible Numbers Math: Children used chalk slates, q-tips, and water to write numbers and math sentences together. Later, they used snap cubes to help with addition!
- Spiral Cutting/Coloring: A great fine motor art activity!
- Nuts & Bolts (& washers!): A fun fine motor activity of seeing how they work and which sizes match.
- Mosaic Pattern Making: I introduced gluing colorful square shapes onto black and white mosaic prints to make various patterns. Children enjoyed this activity
immensely! - Alphabet Legumes: Children did fine motor art with liquid glue and beans.
- Watercolors/Light Tables: Children loved experimenting with water colors and pipettes on light tables.
Art Material Wishlist:
- Toilet paper rolls
- Random flowers if you have a garden
- Nature items – twigs, stones, leaves, shells, feathers, branches, tree bark, flowers, acorns, etc.
- Marbles
- String
- Plastic caps – from orange juice, milk, etc. – please wash before donating – All colors, shapes and sizes are welcome.
- Wine corks
- Misc. Fabric – various sizes, prints, colors, etc.
- Rubber Bands
- Lace
- Bubble Wrap
- Tree Branch Stumps – Anyone cutting down a tree soon or maybe just some branches?
Whole-Group Read-Aloud Books & Songs: 
- Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins
- Mat Man Song -Handwriting Without Tears
- Mat Girl Song- Copy write Kate 🙂
- Go Noodle Songs: Milkshake, Pop See Ko, Pop See Ko 2.0, Wobbly Man, Wiggle It, and Secret Handshake.
[Slideshow]
14th 6:30-7:30pm
Three weeks ago, it came to my attention that although the marbles were a hot commodity for all children to play with, only boys for the most part played with them. After a lengthy conversation, children came up with agreements for using them fairly: Using a 5-minute timer for children to play in small groups of 4 at a time, and choosing attendance rocks, randomly. This week, children didn’t want the agreements we made and so I gave them a choice on Tuesday of having the agreements conversation then, but cutting into exploration, or waiting until Wednesday and not having the marbles out for a day. They chose the latter of the two choices. They said that 5 minutes was a little short for playing, and some kids had a hard time transitioning out. It was a very interesting math conversation, actually. Because children were grappling with group counting. Some wanted 20 minutes for 4 people, but we only have 40 minutes total for exploration, at most. So, I laid out the number of rocks for 10 minutes and 20 minutes. And a few children put together that if we did 10 minutes for groups of 4, we’d be able to have 4 groups (or 16 people) and if we did 20 minutes for groups of 4 there would only be 2 
groups (or 8 people). Tyler exclaimed, “OH, OH, I KNOW! Because well if we only have 40 minutes of exploration and we did 20 minutes per group, then that means only 2 groups would go because 20 + 20 = 40.” Then, I laid out the rocks in a formation to help them understand and another child said, “Oh, I get it, so if we did 10 minutes with marbles, we could have 1, 2, 3,….16 people take turns! But if we did 20 minutes, then, only 8 people would go.” They understood MORE people could play if we agreed on 10 minutes, and the agreements are as follows:
7 people said YES to the above marble agreements, 2 said no, and 5 didn’t vote. I said “I noticed the majority of us, that means most of us, said YES, two said NO, and 5 people didn’t vote at all.” Children were worried at first, so I reassured them, “No, no, that’s okay! You are allowed to not vote, but then, because you’ve given up your vote you can’t be upset with the results since you had a chance to affect them. There’s a fancy, adult word for NOT voting called ‘abstain.’ When you don’t know enough about your choices to make an informed decision or you don’t like either of your options, you can choose neither or give up your choice by abstaining. When you choose not to vote, you…(children: abstain! -repeated 3x) now, how many people ABSTAINED from our marble vote? (children: 5!)”
Two weeks ago, it came to my attention that although the marbles were a hot commodity for all children to play with, only boys for the most part played with them. At first, I took the marbles away to see where children might play and how the dynamics would shift. Big surprise: Nobody even asked for them! However, this past Monday, they were missing in action, again, and many boys and girls asked where they were. I said they were put away for now, because I we needed to talk as a group about reopening the sensory table and bringing back the marbles. “But why did you take them away?” I posed the same question back to them and the response was, “We fighted too much over them, maybe.” I said, “That’s something to consider, but that’s not the only reason why I put them away.” At our meeting, I asked 3 questions after announcing the missing marble runs:
clothes
meetings” about what participating in clean up meant…some children are more inclined to stewardship than others, but we’ll all get there!
work displayed!
Kate's Rm 7 Kinder Class: Exploring Who We Are 1 Day at a Time! 