September 12, 2012, 03:24 PM
Is it really only the second day of school? The children seem so happy, confident and comfortable within the classroom. Friendships formed in last year's classes remain solid and already we can see new relationships forming. We started out our day making our pizza dough. I was surprised to discover the children really did not know what made dough so I was happy to have the opportunity to share the ingredient list with them ( flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar, and olive oil). We looked at each ingredient separately and talked about the role of each one. Each child came over to the cooking station during free play to roll out their dough and put on their toppings. Needless to say there was lots of cheese sprinkled on and I saw several children stuffing shreds into their mouth as quickly as they could! We ate outside in the sunshine and felt the chilly wind on our backs. We spent lots of time at the playground and then rushed to come in to eat lunch- a fabulous day!
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| Rolling the dough |
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| Spreading sauce |
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| YUM!! |
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| Making our journal covers |
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| Beautiful day to play in the sand |
Emily
Comments
September 6, 2012, 12:20 PM
Emily
September 6, 2012, 09:59 AM
As I sit at my desk very early in the morning, feeling the chilly air and looking out at darkness, I find myself slowly saying goodbye to summer. It is always a bittersweet time for us teachers as we bid farewell to the lazy days of summer....coffee mug still in hand at 10:00 am, reading in bed, gardening when the urge comes, canning local produce, and best of all, enjoying the company of our own children, who are also without schedule. Yes, unabashedly, we LOVE summer.
But we also LOVE the school year. In the past two weeks, I have found myself starting to feel that excited bubble inside- the creative, full of ideas, images and questions kind of bubble. The bubble that keeps growing throughout the year as your children help it to become bigger and bigger. But, unlike other bubbles, it never pops; it changes shapes and may get smaller at times, but it is always there.
As each year is unique, I ask myself what this year will bring. What amazing journeys will our class, our school, our community centre and our community as a whole share? How will each child grow as an individual and as a team member? How will I grow as a teacher and a community member? Many questions but certainly no answers right now.
Thank you for sharing your children with us. We are eager to make friends with them, to spark their curiosity, to engage them in meaningful learning, to watch them smile and laugh, and to relish in their growth.
Emily
But we also LOVE the school year. In the past two weeks, I have found myself starting to feel that excited bubble inside- the creative, full of ideas, images and questions kind of bubble. The bubble that keeps growing throughout the year as your children help it to become bigger and bigger. But, unlike other bubbles, it never pops; it changes shapes and may get smaller at times, but it is always there.
As each year is unique, I ask myself what this year will bring. What amazing journeys will our class, our school, our community centre and our community as a whole share? How will each child grow as an individual and as a team member? How will I grow as a teacher and a community member? Many questions but certainly no answers right now.
Thank you for sharing your children with us. We are eager to make friends with them, to spark their curiosity, to engage them in meaningful learning, to watch them smile and laugh, and to relish in their growth.
Emily
Welcome
August 20, 2012, 01:56 PM
Welcome to our first posting! I am excited to help launch this new website and blog and
I hope that these social media tools aid in furthering our communication with you, our
families. We know that each family is busy but we hope you can find a few minutes
each week to peruse through the site and stay updated about life at West. Perhaps I
should begin by laying out a few key points to ensure that we both understand the
structure and uses of the site.
The general website will outline the main components of our program-everything you
need to know about our child care dept from how it is run, staffing, who makes up our
Board, fees, application process etc. Take some time to browse through this section as
you might be surprised by some details about our other programs.
On our homepage, you will see this blog posting, updated regularly. I would like to
share the concept behind this blog with you so you can gain an understanding of how the idea was conceived. Our child care department has always placed great emphasis on
partnering with our families to create a strong, cohesive learning environment. We
believe that communication is an integral part of this partnership. As educators, we are
always evolving and changing, and in exploring new areas and methodolgies of child
development, we are realizing that communication is not only about “housekeeping”
information but also about sharing the daily classroom experiences with you. These are
rich, interesting and dynamic and our team would like to share our observations and
interactions with you.
Initially the four hour class will be piloting this project. As the initiator of this concept and
a coordinator with administrative time, it was logical for me to take on this project. I will
be writing posts about what is going on in our classroom-observations, stories, quotes.
Children’s names and child specific photos will not be used. I am hoping to deepen our
understanding of your amazing children and allow us all time to process and enjoy our
classroom experience.I would love your feedback so I know what is working for you
and what isn’t. Once this process is underway and is meeting our goals, we will begin to
post blogs from our other classrooms.
Emily
Emily
Comments (2)