As I spend my mornings in the classrooms, the children are gracious enough to welcome me into their play and activities, eager to show off what they are working on.
In the Picassos’ room, the children continue to love reading stories. Every time that I went into the classroom this week I saw at least one of the teachers sitting on the floor surrounded by children and books and was often asked by the children to read a book to them as well. There’s an old saying that says children become readers on the laps of their parents. This stays true today and within the classrooms. By sitting with their teachers and peers and listening to rich stories and engaging books, the children are gaining a robust vocabulary and a love for reading and books which will support their reading development as they get older.
In the Mozarts’ room, the growth of the children is clear. The children in this room have reached the time of year in which they have made huge strides in their interactive play; that is to say that they are much more interested in playing with friends rather than by themselves. This is one of my favorite developmental shifts of this age group. Suddenly the classroom is full of pairs and small groups of children working together to achieve a common goal, in this case setting a table for a pretend picnic and constructing a castle out of blocks, rather than only working alongside of each other.
In the Shakespeares’ room, the children have taken this ability to collaborate to an even higher level. This week, the children worked together to create two collaborative, self-initiated art projects. I observed as two children joined their classmate who was already painting a butterfly and jump right in to help her make the designs on the wings. Later in the week, I heard that the children had asked their teacher if they could use a large foam board to create a life cycle mural. Upon approval, they immediately set to work creating a leaf for eggs to sit.
In the Amigos room, I was able to observe the incredible independence of the children as they created child-sized butterflies. Since they were creating such large pieces of work, they needed large pieces of paper from the roll of butcher paper. In order to get the piece of paper they needed, they worked together to carefully pull out the amount they needed and then cut the paper from the roll by themselves. I watched as they spent much of the morning completely engaged in helping each other trace, cut, and design their giant butterflies.