Upcoming Dates and Announcements:
- September 24th: Picture Day!! Break out the hair gel, bows, and bowties, and bring your best smile!
- September 26th: Join us on main campus for Coffee Conversations @ 2:00 pm! (This is a time to chat with the Head of School, faculty, other families, and discuss parenting, education, and current trends. A short article will be shared beforehand via Talking Points, if interested.)
- October 3rd: Save the Date for Special Person’s Day!
- October 4th: 11:30 am dismissal
Hello JK Families,
No need to fear! The JK Superheroes are here! Our classroom has been taken over by the greatest group of mighty heroes of all time! We continued to explore all things super this week, diving into several underlying concepts and themes. Officer John helped us practice walking safely from one side of the street to the other using a handmade crosswalk, giant traffic light, and authentic automobile sounds. The students quickly learned when it is a good time to cross and when they have to freeze.
When we weren’t freezing our bodies, the children were sent on a mission to save some of our treasured items from our classroom that were frozen in ice. Using droppers and warm water, the children worked patiently and tenaciously on “freeing” gems, acorns, seashells, pom-poms, dinosaurs and other small animals. Every few minutes they gave us updates on how the frozen giraffe and raptor were coming along, as well as giving a celebratory cheer when a loose part was released.
While those missions were underway, other students got their little fingers and hands working with our tinkering trays. Pipe cleaners, beads, buttons, golf tees, and honey dippers were twisted, knotted and woven together in new and unconventional ways. Some creations became works of sculptural art while others adorned wrists and necks as jewelry. We then explored the idea of good versus bad, light versus dark using several large cardboard boxes. The students arranged our tea lights and tap lights in intricate ways within the boxes while some used flashlights to light the way. We even had some puppies and kitties show up as the boxes were connected to become places of safety and protection.
What is a superhero without a snazzy outfit? As the colorful capes we have in our House center became the inspiration for our current explorations, we knew we needed more to offer to the students. A generous friend of JK made us all blank capes, allowing us to design our own. With our vibrant liquid watercolors and watered-down acrylic paints, each student brought their ideas to life. Shades of blue helped our ice powers, while glowing reds, oranges and pinks became our fiery ones. Then there were the golds, greens, blacks, and rainbows that took us on a whole new mixing adventure. We will continue to customize our capes next week. We can’t wait for the big reveal!
Our letter explorations continued as we took on the letter Tt! Using our wooden letter pieces, we practiced forming the uppercase and lowercase T, followed by writing it on our sand trays and whiteboards. Our word webs became quite large as we carefully made the sound of the letter, writing down words like teapot, teeth, tongue, and tic-tac-toe. What other words can you think of?
We finished off the week by circling back to our JK Class Mantra that we have been building upon since the start of our time together. It reads:
Use gentle hands.
Say kind words.
Think of others.
After reading Our Class Is a Family by Shannon Olsen, we celebrated all of the things that make us unique and beautiful but still a family by taking our explorations outside. We traced each other with sidewalk chalk, adding in all of the necessary details to make them extra fun. The giggles and joy from the students were pure joy and we couldn’t get enough!
We hope to see you at Boots for Buses! Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss Claire and Miss Liz
