The Measure of a Year

Things are finally settling down for us in the Frog room. The members of the Frog class of 2009 have all finished transitioning to the three-year-old class (better known as "Possum Room"), and the members of the Frog class of 2010 are all settling in nicely. It's the end and the beginning of a cycle.
As one class gets ready to move on to their next room, we teachers spend a lot of time sorting through the many, many photos that we've taken throughout the school year. One thing that always stands out is how grown up the children look at the end of the year compared to the beginning of the year. Last September, we decided to measure our then-new Frogs using some pieces of ribbon we had in on the art shelves. We weren't sure what we were planning on doing with these ribbons, only that we wanted to measure the children again at the end of the year so we can show them how much they've grown. We set them aside until a few weeks ago, when the first Frog got ready to transition to the Possum room. We like to mark this occasion with some kind of special memento every year. In the past, we've made books, or photo CDs, or CD mixes of popular classroom music. This year, we thought of those ribbons and decided to incorporate them into a special gift for each of the children.

Since three is all about magical thinking, we decided that we couldn't come up with a better gift than a personalized magic wand- with a twist. Tucked in among those ribbon streamers that you see shooting out of the monogrammed felt star star on top of the wand is the solid colored grosgrain ribbon from September 2008 and a new, satin ribbon with rainbow colored stars all over it that we used to measure how tall our "graduates" were on their last day in the Frog room!

Over the year, we see so much evidence of growth in so many different areas with these children. They shift from being toddlers who are dependant on us for help with some of their most basic needs, to honest-to-goodness kids, who are aware of the impact that they have on the world around them and are ready to make things happen! It makes this work challenging, intellectually engaging, fun, and absolutely worthwhile. While we had some idea that the difference in height from the beginning of the year to the end of the year would be impressive, were not expecting it to be quite as impressive as it actually was. From our (admittedly crude) comparison, we found that most of the Frogs grew between four and six inches in a year!!!

As the "Senior frogs" made their way to the Possum room, we began welcoming the new class to the frog room. The new children watched the whole measuring and wand presentation ritual with great interest. "When will make me a magic wand?" Well, since we will definitely be doing this project again, we can answer; "Sooner than you think!" I guess we need to buy more ribbon this weekend for the class of 2010!

Thank you so much to the Frog class of 2009 and their families for making this such a fantastic year! We are looking forward to a great year with the class of 2010 and their families!

More Summer Snapshots...

Here are a few more random photos from our summer...

2009 was the summer of slugs...they were everywhere!

If you look closely front and center, you'll see one of our temporary classroom pets. The preschoolers hatched a Praying Mantis egg- technically called an "Oothica"-as a project. Since the hatch resulted in hundreds of baby Mantises, the preschoolers let us keep two in our classroom for a while. The Frogs loved watching the Mantises, especially during Mantis mealtime. Praying Mantises use their long front legs to catch live insects for dinner, which they nibble from side to side like an ear of corn. OK. it was a little bit gross, but utterly fascinating to watch!!!

(Speaking of eggs, remember these (scroll down to see what I'm talking about...)? Unfortunately, nothing came out. Apparently 2009 was not the Summer of chickens. Maybe next year...)

...Oh well, at least the fertility gods were with us on the garden front. Look, wheat!!!

Where the Summer Went...

Wow! We didn't actually mean for the Blog to take a summer vacation, nevertheless, it's been almost two months since our last post. Sorry about the lapse, even if it does serve as an apt metaphor for this summer zipping by in a flash!

Summer at Nonotuck always feels like a strange combination of very busy and very low key, at least from the teacher's perspective. Summertime is when we begin to move children from one classroom to the next. It is also when most families go away on vacation. These two factors combined meant that every week we had a different combination of kids. This made carrying out any long, involved curriculum projects that require continuity difficult. There was, however a theme that emerged from most of the Frog's summer vacation destinations, one which we were happy to pull into the classroom....

Seaweed...

Shells...

Shellfish...

Giant Manta Ray...

Crabs and seals...

more seaweed with paint...

...have you guessed what this years top vacation spot was yet?

Round and Round all Through the Town!

Now that Summer vacation season is here, every once in a while we have a day where we have very few children enrolled for the day. When this happens, we like to take full advantage of the great teacher child ratios by heading out and about. Last Friday, we had four children and three adults on hand. We decided to have an adventure....

We rode the bus...

...indulged in some doughnuts...

...window shopped...

...and took in the sights downtown!

After that, it was off to the library....

...to check out some books...

...and to visit Paco, the library's giant fish!

Then we walked over to the college to watch the construction...

...and visit the minerals...

...and the invertebrates in the science building.

We visited the fountain...

...where we watched a vertebrate who was taking a drink.

Then on to the garden...

...to smell the sweetpeas...

...admire the flowers...

...search for fish...

...and hide under the big tree!

On the way back, we took a run through the neon tunnel!

What a great day!

Wrapping Up and Moving Forward!

Whew! It's officially Summer as of Sunday, 1:45 am. Summer is always a super busy time at Nonotuck, with new families orienting to the program, teachers and families going on vacation, children moving from one classroom to the next, children 'graduating' from the school... It's easy to get swept up in all of the comings and goings! Before that happens, we wanted to take a minute to reflect of our last few weeks of curriculum.

It's really hard to write a post about costuming curriculum without including pictures of the children in all of their finery! Since three year old's are all about feeling magical and very powerful, we tried to make some costumes that would work with those themes...

Sparkly capes, modeled by our glamorous, giant jar o' beads...

Fancy badges inspired by a school visit from our local police department...

...Plus princess hats, no-sew puffy skirts, and paper bag robot costumes!

We are starting to think about what we are going to do next. With all of the comings and goings, we will most likely be keeping our curriculum fairly simple. We are, however trying to hatch these again;

...this time, we are being pretty low key about the whole process with the children. The kids know the eggs are in the incubator, but it isn't the whole focus of our curriculum. If the chicks decide to hatch, they should be doing so by around June 30th. We shall see...

If April Showers Bring May Flowers...

...And Mayflowers bring pilgrims, then what do June Showers bring?

Slugs!

Pretty big ones, at least by East coast standards...

The Frogs have been delighted by the recent influx of slugs on our playground. They have literally left no stone unturned in their ongoing quest for more of the slimy little guys. Recent teacher/child discussions have included the ethics and practical concerns of slug handling. We have tried to impress upon the Frogs that slugs are not for holding!

That said, you might want to check your child's pockets before you do the laundry...

Answers to Questions You've Never Asked! *

Q: Why does my child sing the alphabet song/ask me to sing the alphabet song whenever they are washing their hands?
A: A few (slow news) weeks ago when a certain virus garnered a staggering amount of media attention, we teachers took current events as a cue to re-up our commitment to scaffolding good personal hygiene habits with the kids. Since we are in a group setting with a lot of young children, we are pretty adamant about enforcing frequent hand washing breaks. Time and time again, we have seen successful this simple act is at discouraging the spread of illness. We will admit, however, that it isn't always easy to get a child who just wants to get right back into playing to do a very thorough cleaning job at the sink. For the last few weeks, our hand washing ritual goes like this; soap + water + rubbing hands together, (including the backs of the hands and in between the fingers) while singing the ABC song from start to finish. The only difference is we have changed the last verse to "Now I know my ABC's, and my hands are clean which is totally awesome!"
* If you have a general question that you want us to answer,go ahead and leave it in the comments section!