We were so excited to have all of our friends back at school today! It has been awhile since we have all been in the classroom together, so our room was buzzing with excitement today!

Today, the children spent time with Mrs. Jackson working on enrichment activities in small groups. In today’s activity, they were offered a basket of shape manipulatives. Together, they examined the shapes and described their findings- how were they alike? how were they different? The groups also talked about features of the shapes- lines, edges, curves, etc. After spending some time handling and exploring their shapes, the children then were given paper and writing utensils to try either independently drawing shapes of their own or tracing the shapes in their basket.

I offered this activity today after noticing a pattern relative to the children’s art explorations. Many of the children are moving away from scribbling and into the stage of representational drawing when working with our art materials. I am often asked by the children how to draw different objects. When asked, I have been encouraging them to identify different features of their intended object, then transfer that onto paper. For example- “What do you notice about the flower? What do you see when you look at it? You see pink petals? Those petals look like little circles, don’t they?” I will also refer the children to more capable friends to ask for help to develop a community bond.

Our project on mail continued today with an activity on maps. Yesterday, Lane brought in a map of her house that she shared with us during Morning Meeting. This map inspired several children to talk about where they lived and what their house looked like. We talked about how maps can help us find important places like our houses in the community. In the Writing Area, some of the children used markers and pencils to draw a picture of their houses.

Our class has become very interested in music, movement, and dance in recent days! They enjoy dressing up in costumes and moving to the instrumental music on our CD player, occasionally incorporating scarves and streamers into their dances. Every child in our class has been participating this activity in some way, so it has been a great way to build community within our classroom!

I am allowing the children to operate the CD player to select songs and control the volume. At first, I thought that their interest was more in the control of the machine than it was in the actual song. However, I have noted that they are very thoughtful and intentional in their song selection! They are able to distinguish between various tempos and rhythms, even beginning to use different pieces to communicate emotion and feeling.

Music is included in the Virginia Foundation Blocks for Early Learning. The Virginia Department of Education includes this excerpt regarding the importance of music in the early learning standards for curriculum.

“The performing arts are expressions of the joy of the human experience. Children especially show their joy through music since it is a natural and integral part of a young child’s life. Music educates and enriches the lives of young children, who naturally are eager to explore and engage in music activities with others. In addition, music can be used to teach and reinforce the development of literacy, mathematics, and science concepts. These foundation blocks give young children the basic knowledge of music theory and performance, and the encouragement necessary for future pursuit of musical endeavors. “

The VaFBELs in the domain of music include standards in Music Theory/Literacy, Performance, Music History & Cultural Context, Analysis, Evaluation & Critique, and Aesthetics.

We also include structured movement activities during our studio explorations. The children are especially fond of utilizing the projector to learn new dances, exercises, and yoga poses in the Movement Studio, where there is plenty of space for big body movement and play!