Hello Dear Preschool Parents,
I hope you got a chance to visit The Willow School’s Website and scroll over to preschool’s blog to check out the fabulous time preschool friends have had with the story of Three Billy Goats Gruff last week.
This week our wonderful preschool children made the play bill, the invitations, and made tickets for the play. The dates for their first play are February 1 through February 12th. Look for our posters around the school which were of course made by the children. Parents will receive a special invitation to come in for the final performance. We’ll let you know the date. The children are very excited about this new project which is, oral storytelling and then making it into a production of a play. Jermaine and I will see the children through if they have interests in continuing with other stories. If you recall this all began with the story of The Story of the Bear after the children listened to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. We still listen to the movements of this symphony and their work has continued using the same pattern of sculpting and drawing the characters of the story, making costumes, and acting out the story on the stage.
Above: Asher, Sam, Carter, and Benny build a bridge to trip trap across.
Lilla, Oscar, and Max make a troll with different materials
Ticket making with Oscar, August, Benny and Billy
If your child was not pictured here, fear not! All of the children gave been acting out the play and all of the children had a ton of fun this week with the making of our play!
International Week is coming up the week of February 8, 2016:
We are planning some international cuisine for lunches for the weeks ahead this winter, and we would like the planning process to be connected to our community at large. Our community of Children, parents, staff, and greater community members. We have a diverse staff and certainly many will be happy to share. Ideally food, stories, music, dance, or any other art form that you may want to share, will be shared for a two week period to be announced.
Calling on parent volunteers!!! Come and work with Sheree in the kitchen to plan a menu or bring in a pot luck to share.
The idea is to plan some international cuisine for the week. Basically, we would like traditional foods to served for lunch with staff assistance and parent volunteers. Amy, who is from Britain (hint, hint) is one example of who may assist in sharing of some food with a parent volunteer. The children will share in the significance/tradition/ritual/importance of the meal and will be involved in the planning process.
During the International Cuisine Week, we would like to invite the children to share their cultural traditions. We welcome parents to come in and share along with your child(ren). The food sharing is one way to share a cultural tradition. The tradition can be as simple as reading a book or as elaborate as you would like it to be for the children to experience.
Thank you for your interests! We look forward to hearing from you at drop off or pick up.
Extra Clothing this week Jermaine and Natalie did a cubby inventory and noticed that many friends do not have enough pants, underwear, and socks. Also it would be great to have a pair of boots in the cubby just in case shoes get wet after outdoor time or so that your child has the option to splash around freely outside AFTER a rain or icy weather. The children so enjoy outdoor time and often we need to keep some children inside if the jacket is not padded enough for a cold day or if the child does not have the proper shoes for stepping in puddles. Lastly, in preschool class one of our agreements from the beginning of the year has been to keep shoes and socks on (except for nap time of course) at school. Mostly we need to keep shoes on so that if there is a fire drill, actual emergency or just a simple transition from the room, the children will be ready to go…that being said some children like to take shoes and socks off and often lose socks, or cannot find shoes when it is time to go outside. We continue to encourage the children to put shoes inside of socks if they are going to take them off and put them by the door. If your child does this at home perhaps practicing putting shoes and socks in the same place will help establish this behavior. With jackets, hats and gloves, if your child does not like to wear coats, hats and gloves, perhaps reminding your child at home that all winter long is the time for coats. Please remind your child that winter time is coat time. Mr. Jermaine and Ms. Natalie continue to make sure the children are all bundled up with the clothes/coats that you provide us with. Thank you for your understanding and attention in this matter.
Thank you to Amy Schwartz and Amy Fields for coming in to read for our Friday Reading time! How great it is to see moms (and dads) on Fridays. We have a group that loved=s to be read to so please sign up in the hallway if you have not already.