PreK Visits Nurse Heidi

Our visit with nurse Heidi in her office was most interesting ! Heidi showed us several of the medical tools she uses each day as students come into her office and she tries to help them feel better. Heidi has several posters on the walls of how the body works which stimulated conversation and questions throughout the time of our visit. The children are continuing to develop a deeper, richer sense of community at AFS and their comfort level during our visits has grown tremendously over the last several weeks.

Enjoy our photo scrapbook which tells the story of our visit so well!

Make a photo album

New Discoveries - Science Room News

SINK AND FLOAT

One of the important parts of a engaging science curriculum is for young children to make their own individual discoveries. I find that putting lots of materials out and giving the students a brief introduction to an idea works best. So, for our last science class, I introduced the concept of "sink and float". I gave each student a container full of water and many small objects to test. After initially testing many items, the fun began in earnest. Students created boats out of objects, tested if placement in the water made a difference, asked for additional items to test. After they were all done, they created a lab sheet to record their experiment. Watch for an upcoming display of their work!

Harrison's First Visit To PreK

Learning more about each other's families and connecting in a deeper way has been a ongoing theme in our world of PreK this year. We have grown so much as a 'family' and our connections with each other and our extended families has enriched our lives. The children love sharing their family books, family stories and especially family visits.

Paula's family is visiting from Toronto and they stopped in to introduce Harrison to our AFS community. The children welcomed Evan, Nicole and Harrison with open arms and filled their visit with much love and warmth. The children were incredibly generous with their gifts of affection and attention and this was a memory that will forever be help close to mom-mom's heart!

Free picture slideshow customized with Smilebox

Mariana and Jack Visit PreK

Cristian's mother Mariana visited our class to talk to the children about her career. Mariana is a physical therapist and we learned many interesting facts about her work. "She helps people who lost their leg" ( Miranda), " She helps people learn to walk" ( Sania), She teaches people how to walk again if they get their leg taken off" ( Annabelle). Marian read a beautiful book titled We Go In A Circle by Peggy Perry Anderson which is a lovely, simple and sensitive story that reveals the interconnection between everyone involved in hippo therapy and the benefits they all share from the experience.

Marina had the children try a few different kinds of movement and exercises which helped us all relate to what is may feel like to have for example, one leg amputated. The children stood on one foot for 10 seconds...20 seconds... 30 seconds.....children closed their eyes and tried the same exercise.... they hopped on one foot and closed their eyes....

Mariana's patient Jack was kind enough to visit with our class and talk to us about his amputation and prostheses . The insight that the children were experiencing from this visit was quite remarkable and the level of sensitivity that was expressed through wonderful discussion was a model which we feel so grateful to have. Involvement with our families and communities in our learning about life has been a very powerful experience for all of us this year.

Personalize a slideshow design

Fire Fighters Jeter Visit Pre K

Marcellus' mom and dad are both fire fighters! They visited our classroom today to share their roles as community helpers and to teach the children about fire safety. The children were so fascinated with the presentation that Fire Fighter Robert Jeter and Fire Fighter Lisa Jeter shared with us. The fire fighter clothing was a high point of interest and the children learned that the bunker pants, bunker jacket, hood, mask, boots and gloves are all pieces of clothing that a fire fighter wears every time there is a fire to protect his/her body.

The whole experience was quite amazing for all of us! The children gained insight into the roles of a fire fighter and how they are such an important component to our community. The excitement of having real, live fire fighters in our very own PreK classroom was a a thrill for not only Marcellus, but for all of our PreK community. Robert and Lisa answered the many questions that the children had and their genuine love of the children was felt by all. We learned that Fire Fighter Robert needed to learn to read, do math, write, think, study and work hard to become a fire fighter. Lisa and Robert love helping people in our community and especially love visiting with Marcellus and all of his friends!

Enjoy our slide show.... we hope it captured the joy of the day with Fire Fighter Robert and Lisa Jeter!

Free photo slideshow customized with Smilebox

Nature Journaling - Science Room News

This morning we had a wonderful opportunity to be outside in glorious weather to do some nature journaling during integration time. Each pair of teacher had only 4 students, which made for a very special hour making close connections with such a small group. My group went to the Science Room garden and we had a wonderful time smelling and tasting the herbs growing there. We also discovered worms, interesting stones, seeds and leaves. It was a great opportunity to draw our observations and collect things to place in the journals.

Pam's Visit To PreK

Ella's mom, Pam, visited with our PreK class today to share her role as a community helper. Pam is a Principal in an elementary school in Lower Merion . Pam explained that her job is very similar to Crissy's job at AFS and she began our conversation by asking the children to participate in a 'whip' where each child has the opportunity to say one thing they learned from Crissy's visit earlier in the month. She was looking to help the children make connections between her role and that of Crissy's. Some of the reflections that surfaced about Crissy's visit were:

"She smiles a lot."

"...walks a lot"

"... cares a lot."

" ... loves a lot."

" ... writes a lot."

' ... types a lot."

" ... talks a lot."

" ... take care of the school."

Pam shared with the children how amazed she was of how similar her job and Crissy's job really were! She also walks, cares, loves, writes, types, and talks A LOT!!

Pam prepared a beautiful binder with a story that she wrote that describes a day in her life at work as a Principal. Pam used photographs of students, faculty and staff from her school to illustrate her story. The children drew several connections between her job and Crissy's job and delighted in hearing about her work. We learned that Pam also used to be a teacher and that she also loves working with children, families and teachers.

Our Visit With The Sunflowers

Our friends in the Sunflower class sent us an email and invited us to visit with them in their classroom! The children were excited to receive our first 'class email invitation' and enjoyed our discussions preparing for our visit to the Early Childhood building across campus. This would be the first time that we actually visited inside and played in the EC classrooms this school year, and for the children that were returning to their 'old' school, this time to re-connect was so special!

Needless to say, our walk across campus was breathtaking! The children immediately noticed and commented on the changing color of leaves, the amount of leaves that had fallen compared to our walk the day before and the overall joy of just being outdoors in nature was felt by all.

The Sunflowers enjoy singing and they invited us to sing with them. We gathered on the large meeting rug with our new friends and began with a greeting song , where we all re- introduced ourselves and the warm feelings of connecting with friends was apparent by the expressions on the children's faces.

We played on the playground together and the absolute joy that was felt is expressed so beautifully through our photos! The learning and growth that is experienced through peer learning and mixed age grouping is a gift that we feel so fortunate that we can provide for our children .

Enjoy the slideshow!

Smilebox slideshow" src="http://smilebox.com/snap/4d6a63324f5455784d54553d0d0a.jpg" style="border: medium none ;">

slideshow - Powered by Smilebox" src="http://www.smilebox.com/globalImages/blogInstructions/blogLogoSmileboxSmall.gif" style="border: medium none ;">

Customize a free slideshow

Meeting For Worship

From the beginning days of school, we have been engaged in shared silence with our children where we settle our bodies and relax our mind and keep our voices quiet within....

We begin our daily morning meeting each day with shared moments of silence as well as when we gather together for lunch. The children have grown in their ability and comfort level in settling themselves into silence as a group. We have all come to appreciate and recognize the beauty of the 'sounds of silence' together and we often comment about the many sounds we do hear when we all become quite..... We settle , we calm ourselves and we are renewed with the gifts that shared silence brings to our PreK community.

This year, the teachers of the Pre K and Kindergarten children have had many conversations about how to introduce and bring our youngest students into the more formal Meeting For Worship experience that is practiced every Wednesday in the Meetinghouse with Lower School. How do we introduce the abstract concepts associated with Meeting For Worship and how do we make this experience make sense for the youngest children in our AFS community...?

We decided to approach MFW in a very intentional way this year. We began by having a short MFW time in our classrooms each week. We prepared the children by reading a few excellent books about children attending Meeting and talked about some of the behaviors that help us to quiet our bodies and settle. We found that lighting a candle and sitting in a large circle on our meeting rug was a helpful way for us to center and know that this was the time for MFW. As the children grew more comfortable with the concept of MFW, we branched out and joined PreK 1 and Kindergarten in the music room to experience MFW as a fuller community. Raji guided our group through this process by asking thoughtful questions and reflecting on insightful observations. We all felt really good about these shared experiences together and were reminded how important it is for all of the children to have the opportunities to make connections with each other in our PreK/K wing.

The next step involved joining with PreK /K and 3rd grade partners. Third graders partner with K for MFW and we decided to ask 3rd grade to help guide us in learning more about what MFW really is all about. Our next MFW was held in the music room with 3rd grade and the 3rd graders took the leadership role in talking about what MFW means to them and how they learned to settle themselves into silence with strategies that may help the younger children. Again, observing children in multi aged group settings reminded us of the important leaning that takes place between the youngest students and the older students and how we must provide experiences for this growth to occur. The third graders had the chance to be true leaders and role models for the younger children. This opportunity facilitates the development of self confidence and self esteem and it was so wonderful to see new relationships and connections begin to evolve.

For our next MFW, we decided to actually go to the Meetinghouse and have MFW in the beautiful space where Lower School meets each week. The fall walk with our PreK , K and 3rd grade friends was breathtaking! We made several stops along the pathway to appreciate the many wonders of fall.

The children settled on the benches and our time in the Meetinghouse was so special.

At lunch , a few of the children at our table reflected on our first experience in in the Meetinghouse:

What were your thoughts about MFW today......

Davie: I like it in the Meetinghouse because you got quiet and it felt peaceful.

Annabelle: I like it because there is no screaming so loud that it hurts my ears.

Hayden: I like it because it was really quiet and we get to think about things. i liked when it was not noisy and I could think about what I did at the Franklin Institute.

Kailyn: I like when I said hello to my sister. I was thinking about seeing all the beautiful trees in the fall.

Robby: I like it because it's kind of like swimming under water; because it's really, really quiet and that's the same as swimming under water this is also really, really quiet.

We look so forward to the peaceful feelings that Wednesdays always bring for us at AFS...

Our Lower School Director ,Crissy, Visits Pre K

The excitement and joy that the children have been experiencing as family members visit our classroom to share their jobs and roles in the community is so wonderful to observe. One of our thoughts in exploring community with the children this year, was to build and develop a sense of community within our very own classroom as well as with our community of families. The connections and relationships between home and school are so very important for the children, for families and for our AFS community at large. We have had so many fantastic experiences with families visiting to share with our children and the pride and joy that the children feel when their families are involved in their world of PreK is quite remarkable to witness.

At this point, the children are asking and initiating invitations for their family member to come into our class and share! We welcome the time and so appreciate the support and enthusiasm for our program. We are building relationships and developing the closer connections that we value so dearly at AFS. Thank you...Thank you.....

Today, Crissy, Kailyn's mom and our Lower School Director visited with our PreK to talk about her job and responsibilities at AFS. Before her visit, we read the book Principals by Melanie Mitchell and learned about some of the responsibilities of principals. The children practiced listening skills during the read aloud and learned a few new facts about the role of a principal. We thought this would be a good way to prepare for our visit with Crissy.

Crissy's visit was wonderful! The children loved listening to Crissy describe a typical morning in the life of a director of Lower School at AFS. We realized early on that there is never a really typical day and that Crissy's schedule changes according to the needs of the children and families all day long! We learned that Crissy loves children and she loves working with children and families.

One of the questions the children asked was, " What do you like the best about your job" to which Crissy responded;

" In my job I talk alot

I walk alot

I write alot

I care alot

I laugh alot"

We really enjoyed Crissy's visit and the time she shared with us in the classroom!

A free digital scrapbooking design by Smilebox

Pre K Visits Our School Cafeteria

It has been an exciting and eventful time in PreK as we continue to branch out and learn more about our AFS community and our neighborhood community. This week has been particularly enriching as we hosted community helpers ( SPCA Visit), walked to Fill-A-Bagel, walked to Alverthorpe with friends in our AFS community and visited our AFS cafeteria.

Nick welcomed us to the cafeteria early in the morning and we had the opportunity to have a behind the scenes tour to see how the kitchen operates early in the day as everyone is busy preparing lunches for the day. Nick told us that the cafeteria team prepares between 300 -400 lunches daily! What a big job.....

We were introduced to all of the staff that are part of the AFS food service team and we learned about each of their jobs. We learned how important it is for the team to work together in order to be able to serve our larger AFS community. Nick showed us the vegetable garden where he gets lettuce, peppers, tomatoes and spinach from daily. The children were fascinated with our vegetable garden and were excited to see the spinach that had just been picked and placed on the salad bar for todays lunch.

We walked all around the kitchen where the team was working and we saw all kinds of really cool kitchen equipment. The bowls and pots and pans were huge and the place where the dishes are washed is also very large! We had the opportunity to ask Nick questions about his job and how he became interested in becoming a chef. He said that " as a little boy he always liked to make pizza with his father for his family. .." He relayed a personal story which the children seemed to really identify with and by the end of the conversation we had set up another plan to visit with Nick and make pizza together in the real AFS cafeteria!!!!

Our photos capture the feelings of wonder and curiosity that the children felt during our visit to the cafeteria.

Personalize a digital slideshow