our first three days

It has been a joy getting to know the children and engaging in some rich conversations about books, community, feelings, and school.

During our first three days, children have worked on...

Developing our classroom expectations together

As a school our rules are that we are safe, kind, and responsible. We have talked about these words and what being safe or kind looks like and feels like. It was important for the children to develop our own classroom rules. We will revisit and expand on these expectations throughout the school year!

Making connections as a new peer community

Children worked on their birthday signs this week. Their signs are attached to wood cookies hanging from our birthday calendar. We noticed that some Kindergarteners share their birthday month and that "three of our months are missing!" - not every month has a birthday. After children worked on their birthday signs, we had a share. Reagan bravely shared her work with her peers, sitting tall on our sharing stump and talking about the details on her sign.

 

On the playground the Kindergarteners have been asking for a push on the swings from their new friends, finding cozy spaces to plan their games, sharing found natural treasures, gathering on our stumps and benches, and reading together on our rug. 

 

 

Our morning message is an important teaching tool. This week, the children have found and circled their names on the morning message, pointed to and read words, added sticky notes, and circled noticings - such as the date. We will continue to explore and talk about our names as children learn the names of their peers.

 

Learning the zones to support our conversations about feelings, transitions, work time, and engagement

The zones of regulation are a tool for reflecting engagement in our classroom. After introducing and talking about the zones on Thursday, I invited children to interact with our morning message Friday morning with the question, what zone are you in today? Using small sticky notes, each child wrote their name and then placed it on our chart - letting us know their zone. We counted how many for each zone, comparing the amounts. The green zone had the most. While this was a great counting experience and children had the opportunity to discuss less, more, and equal it was also a rich conversation about feelings and community. I shared that it's okay to be in the blue or red zone, but that our goal is to help our peers to feel in the green zone, ready to learn and play with us. 

Perhaps our most powerful moment came later in the morning, when Bodhi whispered in my ear, 

"We did it!"

"Did what?"

"We worked together and now I'm not in the blue zone anymore, I'm in the green zone!"

We stopped our meeting and I asked Bodhi to share with the whole class. He explained that he started the day in the blue zone and now he is in the green zone. He moved his sticky note on our message encouraging two other peers to move their sticky notes to the green zone, too. We recounted and celebrated Bodhi now feeling happy and ready to be with us.

Yes, we did it.