Words and Images of our First Month

learning to jump rope on a sunny day in September

Since school began one month ago, we have moved into a comfortable rhythm to our days and weeks.  Each Monday and Friday we keep open for outside the school exploration or in house projects.  On Wednesday afternoons, a group of children head to nearby Franklin High School to do woodworking under the guidance of Mike Lawson, Franklin’s industrial arts teacher, and his students.  On future Wednesdays, other activities will take place such as Brazilian dance and chess.  On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons the Big Room children join with first graders on literacy, with first graders working on penmanship and beginning reading and all the children joining in on making books of their drawings and dictating their stories to the teachers, who then read them to the whole group and make time for them to be acted out.  On Thursday, that group joins together for movement class with Eric Johnson, while on both afternoons the children in grades two and above participate in guided literacy groups with Eileen and place value work in mathematics with Laura.

We are making the most of our units, having taken our scheduled fire drill with the Fire Department as an opportunity to learn about our local fire station.  Do come up and see the children’s art work in the hall that relates to their interpretation of the poem by William Carlos Williams about the number 5 in gold on a red firetruck moving through the city in the night.  After bringing the poem alive with oral interpretation, accompanied by triangles for clangs and lights being switched off and on to simulate the following:

            Among the rain

            And lights

            I saw the figure 5

dramatic play in "fire station"

            In gold

            On a 

            Firetruck

Later, we looked at a reproduction of a painting by Charles Demuth that was his direct response to the Williams’ poem.  Do have your child show you details in the painting.  It will be in the upstairs hallway along with the children’s work throughout the next week.
      We then toured our local fire station, drew and wrote about significant aspects of the station and rebuilt the station at school with blocks.  Children had time to read books about fire trucks and other fire related topics and to pretend to ride a fire engine as we turned part of the Big Room into a fire station.

We have a display about ferry boats ongoing in the Big Room block corner and will focus on our region’s ferry boat pathways and islands over the next several weeks.  Please know that we plan to ride the ferry to Winslow on Bainbridge Island on Monday, October 17^th. This will be a whole school venture.  Please have your child at Triangle Park with 1.25 bus fare by 9:15.  We will board the bus soon after and walk to the ferry terminal from a downtown bus stop.  We will then walk off the ferry and spend time at a playground on the island within walking distance.  Children will eat lunch at the park.  We will return later that day and are planning to meet parents in Mt. Baker Park at 4 pm.

Eileen reading a story at the Mt. Baker viewpoint

     On Friday of that week, we will spend the day at Lincoln Park in West Seattle.  This is a great location and will afford us a day to study the ferry boats coming and leaving the slip on Vashon.  We will also get to explore a salt water beach, something we do rarely as a school.  We are hoping that parents might be inspired to provide us with a tasty picnic lunch.   We will have a sign up for lunch and see if we works out for that.  We would  love to have someone to barbecue hot dogs and another parent to bring chips,   We will be asking parents to drive to Lincoln Park and pick up there at three.  We will post a sign up so that parents may be in touch with one another about driving arrangements.  The Friday event will be cancelled in case of real rain.  Both these excursions are planned with four year olds in mind;  they are welcome to join us for the day.

scientific observation

While we are off site, we take advantage of all that the outside offers us to further the academic learning that can take place away from school. Children will be drawing and recording their observations;  they will be engaged in first hand social studies and science  as well as art.  We will have time on each trip for silent reading and read alouds.  

The following week, the last week in October, we will devote our thematic focus to  Halloween.  We are asking children to bring in pumpkins, but please wait for the last week. Also need small wheelbarrows—great fun is had putting pumpkins in wheel barrows in the Big Room.  We will look forward to Merna Hecht’s ninth year in telling us Halloween stories—this takes place Thursday afternoon on the 27^th.  We will have a party on Halloween Day;  all children are welcome to wear their costume to school that morning.  We are hoping to have a Carnival experience in the afternoon in the Trike Room, with parent volunteers manning and supplying various booths that we can come down to and explore.  There will be a sign up for those volunteer jobs as well as for supplies to make it a festive day at school.

on the bus

There is no school on Friday, October 14^th, due to a teacher in service day.