Happy Spring Break!

Dear Families,

Happy beginning of the Spring Vacation Week!!! As you can see, I am thinking about the children and miss them already....and it’s only been ONE day!

I am sorry that I have not written in quite some time. Where does the time go? My son, Brendan, who is a Freshman at Tulane advised me that I haven’t been on the blog for a long time. I was surprised to learn that he is keeping up with me and Class K-207 by looking at the blog every now and then - even from college. WOW!

You may not believe this but I have been actively getting ready - sadly - for the end of school and the graduation of your beautiful children from Kindergarten and the stepping up to First Grade. Believe me they are ready!!! I am so sad because I would love to keep them all in Kindergarten forever! I will soon be in touch with my Class Parents and would appreciate any help and input that my families can give to us. Our Kindergarten graduations have always been so special and seem to get better every year. It is certainly not too early to start. Believe me....time goes by very very quickly.

A couple of notes....we are in the midsts of our new unit of study in Social Studies this month. We started investigating Playgrounds! The Kindergarten teachers are working extensively with a staff developer, Renee Dinnerstein, on using the Reggio Emilia approach to investigate new topics. We will continue to collaborate with her over the next few months.

As part of our study, the children will be visiting playgrounds, interviewing contractors, looking at blue prints of playgrounds, and designing our own maps and blue prints of playgrounds. The children will be encouraged to ask questions and think creatively throughout this study. We launched this study on Friday by visiting the wonderful playground at the Liberty Science Museum. Thank you to all my parents who volunteered to come on the trip with us. I had TEN parent volunteers who came with us. They were so helpful and really worked hard on keeping on eye on all the children who were running around, climbing and going down large slides. The children loved the “science” playground....We had sole use of the playground for a period of time and the children loved investigating the NEW things they saw at the playground. When we returned to class, the children drew and wrote in their science notebooks what they saw in the playground that “surprised” them. They are doing wonderful scientific investigations and are making very involved observations.


Some ideas we have for this unit are for the children to design their own playgrounds, visit various playgrounds in the neighborhood, and even create a family “playground memory journal.” Please remember your favorite memory of a playground experience and send in any pictures that you may have of yourself at the playground. We will be sending the journal home for you to write in. The children will love to hear all about your experiences as a child. We are also going to be comparing photographs of playgrounds and looking at playground catalogues. We will be actively using the Smartboard in the classroom to think and design our very own playground. Please let us know if you have any photographs or pictures from magazines or the internet of playgrounds. If anyone is or knows any landscapers or architects who could come into the Kindergarten classes to discuss how playgrounds are built, please let us know!

We will also be keeping a journal on the making of the new Vanderbuilt Playground and will be visiting the site weekly to observe and report on the progress of the work. If anyone has any suggestions or contacts with this project, it will be very appreciated. If you would like to take your children to view the site over the vacation period - and maybe take some pictures that we can look at on our return - that would be a great beginning.

To give you a heads up....on April 9th - the first Friday after the Spring Break - K 207, together with the other Kindergarten classes, will be visiting the Brooklyn Children’s Museum to participate in an animal exploration and museum exploration. Thank you to Sandy, Matthew Smith’s mom, for helping to arrange this great trip for us. The permission slip was given out on Friday in your child’s backpack.

We are still in need of large glue sticks, crayons, black felt pens.

Thank you all for your support.

Fondly,
Ms. Graham