Category Archives: Classroom Posts

Family-Teacher Conferences, Self-Help Skills, and Open House

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Laura Paciorek| Comments Off on Family-Teacher Conferences, Self-Help Skills, and Open House

Dear Families of Room 1:

 

FAMILY-TEACHER CONFERENCES:  Room 1 will be having conferences next week!  Keep an eye out for a calendar near the sign-in book.  We are excited to meet with you so that we can talk about how things are going with you and learn more from you about your child.  Conference slots will be 20 minutes in length and we can provide childcare for children enrolled at the CDC.

 

SELF-HELP SKILLS:  At our teacher planning meeting on Friday, we spent quite a bit of time talking about some of the things we have observed the children doing that indicate they are ready to take some new steps in our routine each day.  Self-help skills are something that young children are learning from infancy onward.  If you are interested in learning more about self-help skills and routines, this article may of interest to you:

 

http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/documents/teaching_routines.pdf

 

I found it to be interesting because it talks about what can be expected at different ages, how to support a child in learning self-help skills, and why a child might resist learning self-help skills.

 

In Room 1, we are going to focus on the following:

 

  • Drinking from an open cup at snack time: We put a little water in the cups so that children can practice drinking from them at snack time.
  • Cleaning their own snack spots: We noticed that children have been wanting to help bring their dishes to the sink, so we will have a bin where they can clear their dishes after snack.
  • Visiting the toilets: We are planning to start bringing some of the children to Room 2 to see the toilets and try them out, if the children are interested.

 

OPEN HOUSE:  You should have received an email about open house on Tuesday, September 30, at 5-6 p.m.  We are looking forward to having you stop by, if you can!  Bring family and friends and see what’s happening in your child’s classroom, chat with your child’s teachers, meet other program families, make new friends, and help us create relationships and develop a sense of community among all involved with our Center. See you there!

 

Have a great week, everyone.

 

  • The Teachers of Room 1 –

 

BCC: Families of Room 1, Teachers of Room 1, Supervising Staff at the CDC

 

Reference:

 

The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning,

Vanderbilt University (n.d.).

Teaching your child to: Become independent with daily routines.

Retrieved from

http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/documents/teaching_routines.pdf

 

Posted in Classroom Posts, Families and Community, Social Studies

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Environment Plans!

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Laura Paciorek| Comments Off on Environment Plans!

On Friday, the teachers met to discuss the plans for our classroom environment and group gatherings.  We came up with the following ideas (in our planning documents below).

We are still looking for inexpensive binoculars for the classroom.  The children still have a strong interest in birds!  We sang Aloutette (a French song about a bird) with the children last week as Ms. Laura played it on her flute.  The flute has been a fun addition to the classroom.  If you have a musical talent you would like to share with the children, we would love to have you join us at the end of our day to play an instrument!

Here are our planning documents.  Have a great week!

Indoor planning September 8

Outdoor Planning – September 8

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Week 3 in Room 1: Environment, donations, gatherings

Posted on September 1, 2014 by Laura Paciorek| Comments Off on Week 3 in Room 1: Environment, donations, gatherings

Dear Families of Room 1:

We are so excited to begin our third week with you and your children.  We have some exciting things planned for the next couple of weeks.

ENVIRONMENT: Our environment is in the process of being updated.  Here are some of the things that we have added, based upon the initial observations we have made of the children during weeks 1 and 2.

Science/Discovery: We have added some color paddles so that the children can explore color and light (physical science).  We have also added magnifying glasses because they are useful science tools to have in the classroom.  We noticed that the children have been interested in the magnets on the teachers’ name tags.  Therefore, we also added large magnet wands into the classroom.

Kitchen area: In our dramatic play kitchen area, we added large utensils since we observed the children consistently using the one we originally had available to them.

Dress up: We put out more shoes instead of hats (we kept one hat for now).  We are planning to add things that they might like to put in the bags and baskets that we have available for them to carry.

Blocks/construction: We talked about introducing the children more to the unit blocks.  They just started using those blocks on Friday.  We also plan to add some large cars and trucks instead of the small ones.

Art: The children are exploring cause and effect and making marks.  We plan to put out watercolors with big brushes at the easel.  We also want to add more paper and chalk.  They have been using the printmaking items, so we would like to add new items that make different kinds of prints and fingerpaint for a different texture.

Music: The children have been using everything in this area, so we want to keep it the same for consistency and repetition.  Ms. Laura plans to bring in her flute to play for the children sometime soon, too.

ROOM DONATIONS: There are some things that we would love to have for our classroom.  The first is something small: bubble wands of all shapes and sizes!  We have found that bubbles have been a huge interest of the children and we want to build on this investigation.

We are also looking for a small fish tank and fish.  We talked about pets that might be fun for the children and fish would be great!  We know that sometimes families have things like fish tanks in the garage or storage area, so we wanted to check with all of you first to see if any of you had a tank you would like to donate.  Please talk with Ms. Laura if you do so that we can coordinate the process of getting a tank set up for the children.

We have noticed that almost all of the children have shown an interest in birds.  It’s a great thing because we have a lot of birds visit our yard.  If anyone has a bird feeder to donate, we might try to hang one outdoors to encourage more birds to visit.  We are also looking for children’s inexpensive binoculars that we could put in the science area so that children could look for birds and other creatures through the window when we are indoors.

GATHERING OPPORTUNITIES: The children are learning the routine in the room. We have two “gathering opportunities” in Room 1.  One is a music time before snack.  The other is a literacy time at the end of the day before pick up.  We have been singing and dancing to “Slippery Fish” as our song for the first group and plan to continue that.  Ms. Laura may also try playing “Alouette” (a French song about a bird) or some other songs on the flute at some point soon, if the children seem interested.

At the end of the day, we have been looking at the children’s journals.  Each child now has a book with photos from school in it.  We are working on getting better cover photos so that we can make covers for the books.  The teachers will also work on adding some descriptions of the photos at some point.  For now, we wanted each child to have photos of them enjoying their time at school.  It has been great seeing the school photos added to the books with the family pages in them.  The children often carry the books around with them and talk about their families.  Now that the books contain photos of home and photos of school, they truly create a home-school connection!

We hope that you had a great long weekend.  We will see you all soon!  If you have questions, please ask a teacher in Room 1!

– The Teachers of Room 1: Ms. Laura, Ms. Amanda, Ms. Caroline, Ms. Chandler –

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Book about Room 1

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Laura Paciorek| Comments Off on Book about Room 1

Dear Families:

I hope you are all having a great first week of school.  We have truly enjoyed getting to know you all and your children.  Today I created a book for all of you!  It is a book for children and families about Room 1.  The book is attached in PDF format.  I want to encourage you to:
  • ​Print out this book and bind it together somehow so that you and your child can read it together (we use report covers and sheet protectors to make books for children).
AND/OR
  • ​Download the PDF into your eReader, tablet, or phone and have it available for you and your child to scroll through and read/discuss together.
The book is about the environment and routine in Room 1.  It shows places in our classroom that may now be familiar to your child.  Reading this book at home with your child can:
  1. ​Create a connection between home and school
  2. Help your child learn some early literacy skills
  3. Help with the transition to beginning school in Room 1
  4. Create a bond between you and your child
  5. Provide oral language opportunities for your child
We hope that you enjoy this book!  We will be putting some copies into our classroom, too, so that we can read the book with the children in the school setting.  This will create even more of a connection between home and school.
Learning about the routine of school, becoming familiar with the classroom environment, and creating relationships between the adults and children in the classroom are the most important parts of beginning school.  We will continue to work on forming relationships with you and your children.  The family photos and family pages for the children’s journals have been great.  We have those in our classroom already!
If you have any questions about Room 1, please do not hesitate to ask.  We hope that you enjoy this little book about our classroom.  If you have trouble downloading it, please let us know.
Have a great evening.
– The Teachers of Room 1 –
Attachment: My School

 

Posted in Classroom Posts, Families and Community, Language Arts, Social Studies

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Room 1 – Week 1 – August 18-22 Planning

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Laura Paciorek| Comments Off on Room 1 – Week 1 – August 18-22 Planning

We are excited to begin our week together.  Here are our room plans for the first week of school.  If you have questions, please ask us any time!

Indoor Environment and Activity Plans

Outdoor Environment and Activity Plans

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