An Amazing Visit With Kindergarten

Kathy and Beverly's Kindergarten class have been studying animals and their habitats in great depth over the past several months. One of the ways they were celebrating their study was to invite our Prek class to visit with them to share in their learning . Each Kindergarten student selected an animal to study and research booklets and replicas of each animal's natural habitat were created in the classroom. The transformation of the kindergarten classroom was incredible! The creativity and resourcefulness of classroom materials used to create the various habitats was really quite amazing! The kindergarten children each partnered with a PreK child and individually guided them through the classroom exhibits. Children teaching children and making genuine connections was sincerely felt through this wonderful experience.

We continue to feel so fortunate to have such meaningful ways of building community from within our AFS Lower School community.

Enjoy our slideshow!

This digital slideshow created with Smilebox

Nature Journals

The beautiful weather guided our PreK plans for the day! The children loved playing outdoors for an extended period of time and were excited to work on our nature journals after playing in the playground. We discovered a really wonderful spot that, as stated by Davey, "it felt like a secret hide-out." Kailyn remarked, " It was great! I liked drawing and looking at trees."

The children absolutely loved the experience of being outdoors and exploring as they worked on their journals. Sitting on tree trunks, climbing on stumps, and gathering crumbled leaves were all part of the beautiful landscape of our morning. We were reminded of how important movement plays in our young children's lives as we observed the children as they worked in their journals.

When we returned to our classrooms, the feelings of satisfaction and contentment were felt in such a genuine way and we asked the children how they "felt about our outdoor journal writing outdoors".....

Marcellus: "The tree was so cool because we could sit on it and write."

Annabelle: "I liked making stuff with mud and sticks after I finished my journal."

Cara: "It was fun to draw the tree that I was sitting on!"

Noah: "I liked making the fire with leaves and sticks after I was done my journal."

The day was glorious and we feel so fortunate that we are able to take our classroom learning outdoors and support our children in such a meaningful way.

Peter and the Wolf

February Music Department Field Trip Information

Symphony in C ~ Peter and the Wolf

http://symphonyinc.org/performance/peter-and-the-wolf-1

Our field trip to see Peter and the Wolf was wonderful! The children arrived early in the morning and the energy and excitement was felt as soon as the children entered the classroom. The excitement was felt throughout Lower School as all of the children prepared for the excursion to Camden ! This was our first Lower School field trip and this community based experience supported one of our most important goals we have set for ourselves this year; that of building community .

We boarded the school bus and were so happy to share the bus with our 2nd grade and kindergarten friends. The children enjoyed a snack on the bus and the ride was filled with conversations and pleasure. The children truly loved the bus ride experience ; both ways of the trip! The children were well prepared for the concert and performance and were engaged from the moment it started. This was a very 'big kid' thing to do and the children beamed with pride as they sat amongst the large group of AFS students in the audience.

Lori Saidi, our Middle School Music teacher who teaches strings to Middle and Upper school students as well as teaches violin as part of our enrichment program to Lower School students, was performing with Symphony in C ~Peter and the Wolf. Having the opportunity to celebrate the gifts of one of our own faculty members was very special.

The story of Peter and the Wolf was told in a delightful , comical and most creative way. The children were captured in every moment and seemed to love both the musical and the story telling parts of the performance. This was certainly an experience that will stay with us for a very long time...

Enjoy the slideshow!

Customize a free slideshow

Preparing For Peter and the Wolf

Today Jason prepared the children for the Peter and the Wolf performance during music class. Jason introduced the children to the characters of the story and the instruments that would be representing each character. The children listened to the sounds of each instrument that they would hear and this activity helped the children have a better sense of what to expect in tomorrow's performance. Retuning to our classroom, the children were excited about the trip and we continued our conversation about Peter and the Wolf. The children confidently recalled details of what Jason had gone over in class . They identified all of the characters as well as the instruments that they would be playing. We used Alicia's iPad to look at photographs of the instruments and this visual was very helpful for the children to make a connection between the word of an instrument and its image. We are all excited to be going with our Lower School friends on this very wonderful trip celebrating the arts!

Making Connections With Our Families

Som, a close family connection of Davida visited with our class to share customs and traditions of her homeland of Thailand. Som talked to the children about what life is like in Thailand for children their age and drew comparisons between the two cultures. Som compared our alphabet with the letters and symbols that are used in Thailand and brought several children's books for the children to look at. We learned that their alphabet has 43 characters and some characters have up to five different tones in the way that they are pronounced. Each tone may indicate acta different meaning for the same symbol.

We also compared our number system to the Thai number system and looked at the symbols and the written words for each number 1-10. We even learned how to pronounce the numbers as we counted!

Making the connections between home and school bring much joy to our children. Davida was so proud to have a close family member share in her PreK world.

CREATING SHAPES WITH NATURAL MATERIALS

Our study of Art in Nature continues to move our learning in so many wonderful directions in a very natural way. We are able to guide our learning and address many of the skills that we feel are important components of our PreK program. For example, learning about geometric shapes is a fundamental component to our Early Childhood math program. Recognizing that the most meaningful learning takes place where children are directly involved in hands-on experiences, we decided to integrate the study of geometric shapes with our nature and art study.

To begin this work we introduced various books about shapes. Among the many books we read, the children were most excited about the book Wood by Andy Goldsworthy that depicted magnificent photographs of shapes in nature. We looked closely at different shapes and began a conversation about the unique attributes of each shape.

We placed a large cardboard circle on the rug with a tray of small rocks that had been collected on a previous walk. Instantaneously, the children began placing the rocks along the outer edge of the circle.

"What do you notice about the circle?"

Davie: " There are not sides or corners."

Sania: "It doesn't have corners or any ends."

Talia: "It just goes around and around and doesn't even have corners."

Kailyn: I have an idea, we can trace the circle like this with a stick. It goes round and round just doesn't stop."

We decided that going on a nature shape walk would be a wonderful way to begin this work. The directions were to look for shapes on our walk as well as to collect items that we could use to create shapes with in our Art Studio. The children collected sticks , rocks, pine needles, acorns, and seeds.

The children sorted the collection of pinecones, pine needles, sticks, acorns, and rocks onto trays. The children loved organizing the materials and clearly grasped the concepts associated with classification. The children were then asked to use the materials to create shapes. On different parts of the work area table, children started making rectangles with wood sticks, circles using pebbles and

squares with dried flowers.

We were inspired to create a more permanent piece of art using the materials we gathered. An old screen seemed like an ideal ‘canvas’ for our shape collage and the children were very excited to work on this project.