Monthly Archives: September 2019

Story, Reading, Writing and Getting to Know Each Other

One of the things we are interested in doing at the beginning of a school year (and now that we have been here a few weeks) is offer children ways to know each better, share their perspectives and ideas, listen to each other well, and begin to express their ideas through language, drawing and writing. All of this is to say we are interested in helping children understand the many values of communication and that we can communicate our feelings and ideas to each other now, write about them so that we can remember and share them at another time, and read books and/or pictures to help us communicate with others we may not know with knowledge or ideas we’d like to connect with.

There are many ways this is happening in each classroom. We talk together about ourselves and family, often using photo albums, books, and family photos. In one class, we started the year with a family project that asked everyone to bring something small in that represents a summer memory, and that has led to rich conversations about the experiences that are important to us. In another class, children made a collaborative book with pages representing each child’s summer memories. When children draw, paint, or build, we invite conversations and stories about their ideas and often write these down so that they can be remembered and shared at another time. Children in every class have started using journals so that drawings, writings and stories can be collected over time in school.

We sing and dance our stories too – either using books with songs, improvised movement ideas, or songs and stories that we can act out together. Many children have already discovered the power of puppets for telling a story, and are taking turns as puppeteers and audience members. We’ve been inspired to use chalk outdoors after reading and thinking about the experiences of a character in the book A Piece of Chalk and have collected leaves after reading Leaf Man so that we can make leaf people or animals of our own. We’ve used flannel pieces to retell familiar songs and stories with a visual component that children can manipulate on their own.

We are already finding ways to document our ideas and questions that arise from investigations and constructions as well. This might happen after building at blocks or out on the playground when we find insects or look at changes in the garden.

In each case, our goal is to encourage community through shared language and experience.

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Helping Children Notice and Engage

As we begin our school year together, it’s important to teachers at LCP to encourage habits of observation and engagement in our environment.

Our outdoor time offers important beginnings. What do we see when we look up? What do we see when we look down and under? What are the properties of the natural materials we have available on the playground – sand, water, mud, grass, or stones? Where are the best running spaces? Where can we see and play with our shadows? How does it feel to be under a cherry tree? If we use chalk or other materials to represent our ideas and create, do they change if we add water? Can we find ways to see the wind? How are the leaves that are falling from the trees the same and different? Can we find seeds? What’s growing in our gardens? How can tools like our story boards and magnifiers stimulate deeper investigations?

At the beginning of our school year we are also purposeful in our support of community, connections, and collaboration. Are children investigating together and sharing their discoveries? Can we set up the environment so that children are encouraged to work together to solve problems with materials in the environment? Are there materials or tools available every day that require the participation of more than one child? How can we teachers encourage child to child helping and caring?

Today we are in the middle of our second week of school. There are so many stories and beginning connections already!

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