Mail, Slopes,
& Cozy Cooking
1/22/26
Embedded Files
Mail, Slopes,
We can't believe that we are already (more than) halfway through the first month of our new year! Winter Celebration was such a special way to wrap up 2025 (albeit in 2026) as we sang good-night to Beetle, Grandmother Maple, and all the other maple trees. We have been lucky to have already experienced several snowfalls big enough for sledding and snow-building, and are hoping and wishing for more snow in the future! In the meantime, the cold temperatures provide plenty of other exploratory opportunities. We have been finding a balance between being cozy and adventurous, as we listen to our bodies' rhythms during this dark, quiet, cold time of year. Since we have returned to school, we are adjusting to being back together in community as well as finding our rhythm in the new year!
In January, The Sunnies have been...
...exploring post offices, mail carriers, cards and packages, letters and numbers! As we noticed the children's interest in mail, the teachers provided different kinds of materials to see what aspects of the topic were interesting to the Sunnies. We started with typewriters and adding machines, which led to discussions about letter sounds and formation, addition and other forms of number manipulation, small machine mechanics, the purpose of writing and recording, and so much more. Other invitations available during the past few weeks included lots of different kinds of paper and tools for making mail, books for research and resource materials, loose parts to set up our own post office, and Morning Messages that got us thinking about mail in all its forms.
...celebrating Slope Day and exploring slopes! To kick off ski and sledding season at Randolph, the whole school gathers to celebrate Slope Day, which has become an annual tradition. Indoors and outside, we are experimenting with rolling different materials down all kinds of slopes, from gentle to steep.
...cooking up delicious recipes! For four Fridays, when the rest of the school heads to the mountain, we wear pajamas and take on some cooking projects. On our first Ski Friday, we made tomato soup and focaccia. We learned about yeast and how it works - someone even asked, "is it still alive when we eat it?" We measured our flour with a scale (connecting to our post office work) and counting teaspoons and tablespoons of other ingredients. We thought about the ratio of flour to water, and how changing that ratio would change our dough. Once we found a good consistency, we put the dough in a warm, cozy spot to rise as we chopped tomatoes and simmered our soup. The bread and soup made a delicious combination that we snacked on at the end of our day!
On the Thursday before Ski Friday, we received an invitation from the Cardinals to visit their classroom while they were skiing. We were so excited to see and explore their space. They left us a note that said they had created a scavenger hunt just for us. We followed the clues until we found the prize - the latest edition of The Beak, Jr., the Cardinal-created magazine. The Cardinals had also left us some modeling clay and invited us to create characters to add to a special shelf in their classroom, where they displayed their own clay creations. We were honored to be asked to add to that display and, after fueling up with soup and bread, worked on our characters. On Monday, we wrote a thank you letters to the Cardinals that they picked up at the post office in the Great Room. It was so much fun to get to know our schoolmates in a new way.
...finding every bit of snow and ice that exists! We have found "collections" of ice popping up in all different spaces of the playground, as children squirrel away each precious piece. The ice has become all sorts of things, from dinner ingredients to construction materials to even a surface for art.
Other winter fun includes neon painting, light table explorations, blue slime, and so, so many books!
Page updated
Report abuse