Upstairs Neighborhood

Dear Neighborhood families,

We are thrilled to have started off the school year with your wonderful children! We’ve been so busy, we’re only now catching you up with an update. We will be on a regular schedule with our newsletters going forward.

Getting to Know You Math

September started off with getting to know one another. Each day in their journals the children were asked to draw and write about their favorite things, like “What is your favorite food?” and “What do you like to do when you’re playing?” and “How many family members do you have?” The last question led us to graph the results on the side of the Robins’ lean-to. It was interesting to see how kids defined their family: some pets were included, a favorite cousin or uncle, some counted their grandparents, and others only counted the humans living in their home with them. The drawing of faces, writing all the names, and gluing the circles to the strip of paper was big work. Then they got into graphing the data. The pics were sorted by family size, the numerals for the graph were written, and the children hammered their work to the wall in the appropriate column. They had to come up with a title for the graph that reflected the actual information the graph contained. Then we compared the data using math terms like more than, less than, most, least, equal, and so on.

Robins and Kittens at Work

Throughout the month of September the children listened to Indigenous peoples’ stories; found, explored and made observational sketches of the bones of a snapping turtle; made “Me” boxes with Nina; had Number Talks; built designs with pattern blocks; visited the creek for more observational sketching; watched a small snail; harvested loads of potatoes, and worked together to care for our school campus. Some of that work included moving carts full of wood chips to cover tree roots and provide traction in the mud around the lean-tos. This became an exercise in tracking how many loads of chips were moved! Plenty of opportunity to practice using tally marks and counting by fives, doing something together that benefits the entire community, all while building up stamina and muscles. The pattern block work teaches the children about symmetry, and they are also learning the geometric terms for the shapes like, trapezoid instead of “funny roof shape” and rhombus instead of diamond-shaped. Observational drawing is one of the important steps of record-keeping in the scientific process. Kids are learning to center themselves, really concentrate, notice details, and draw what they see.

Kites!

The weather has become cooler, and the kids have become interested in reading the thermometer. They have also taken advantage of breezier, cooler days and began making kites and paper airplanes. We’ve been learning about different types of storms, and the power of wind and water. The children will be making windsocks, streamers, and mazes for pom-poms to travel along only using air as the source of energy to move these items.

Fiber Arts

Another very creative outlet for the kids is Fiber Arts. They were off and running, finger-weaving record breaking strands of yarn. Knitting, weaving and sewing build upon the children’s fine motor skills, such as eye-hand coordination, pincer grip, using scissors and repeating a pattern, over-under-over under, or in-out-in-out. Using colorful yarn and fabrics ignites their creativity, as well. Inspired and taught by a Robin-friend who wove a basket at home, we traced cardboard circles and cut strips all along the perimeter of the circle, then weaved yarn over and under the strips to form a basket. The amount of concentration and perseverance your children put into all the fiber arts is a sight to behold.

Apple Work

We ended the month with our lovely tradition of picking apples all together at Meadowbrook Farm. Such a joy to behold families, younger siblings and teachers singing the Tree song as a group. Picking apples will lead us to the science of apples, the life cycle of an apple tree, and brainstorming things to make with the apples. Apples inspired our morning math questions, too, introducing children to number stories, or word problems.

We look forward to doing so much more with our Robins and Kittens!

Maria, Renée, and Princess

Page updated

Report abuse