The temperature is dropping and we’ve had our first snow, which means we have reached peak “cozy up and read” season around here! We’ve been practicing our browsing skills, learning to navigate the library system, and working on finding “just right” books. Now we’re ready to lean into something that happens naturally in the library in many small ways: sharing our love of books with each other. 

Essentially, how do we share our joy and enthusiasm for stories together in an inclusive and respectful way? (They're really good at this already, as you can see below.)

We will be working on this project over the coming weeks. Once we have some templates and examples, we will invite the Upstairs Neighborhood and Downstairs friends to join in with their ideas and recommendations. The goal is to empower the children to create a community of readers amongst themselves; to encourage them to find others who love what they love; to help them find others who love something different from what they love; and, as always, to find their next book to read!

In the studio this week, we’ve begun working on one of our favorite Randolph traditions! The Winter Celebration piñata! This year we started brainstorming in early November and voted the week before our Thanksgiving break. 

When we begin talking about piñata ideas each year, we talk about how we might make the piñata something special for every child at Randolph- how can every child connect to a piñata that we’ll make together? When we started sharing ideas, we were fresh off the fun of Masquerade Parade and our masks were on our minds, so children shared lots of ideas inspired by their masks, from the Randolph Sun to a water spirit to a fire and some fun side quests too- apples, a giant R for Randolph, books, blocks, and a chicken! 

When it came time to vote, children and teachers voted on ideas that had been shared at least twice. The main vote came down to the creek, the sun, a fire, the creek dragon, an apple, and a combination of the sun and creek. The sun and creek combo won by a margin of only 4 votes and we started papier mache this week! We look forward to adding color and texture to the piñata and then  sharing the finished  masterpiece with you all at Winter Celebration!

You have read elsewhere countless examples of how each group has turned cold and snow into fresh opportunities for living, learning, and play, including an especially early grand opening of the sledding hill. During our Ecology-themed BEAM investigations, this has taken the form of forays over the creek and through the woods, looking for evidence of animal activity and winter adaptations. The snowcover allows us to see which animals are awake and where they are going, learning to recognize the tiniest tracks of a hopping bird and the large gait of a mature deer. The backdrop of snow also reveals to us the shapes and subtleties of the topography of the creek valley in ways that are otherwise impossible to glimpse, expanding our understanding of the broader ecosystem. Suddenly, the distribution of deciduous and evergreen trees seems apparent and intriguing, raising new questions about the forest that are sure to inspire further research. Truly this early snowfall has been a surprising gift for inquisitive scientists, whetting our appetite for the coming weeks and months of wintry field science.