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Early Learners

Updated on 12/2/2011

The Participation of Parents

The ideas and skills that the families bring to the school and, even more importantly, the exchange of ideas between parents and teachers, favors the development of a new way of educating, and helps teachers to view the participation of families not as a threat but as an intrinsic element of collegiality and as the integration of different wisdoms.

-Sergio Spaggiari

ACADEMICS

This week the students began exploring and experimenting with our new marble roll set. The addition of the Quadrilla set to the classroom has sparked many problems to solve such as how to place the support pieces so that the marbles roll out in the direction wanted and which pieces are needed to support the swirl track. This has been a great opportunity for the children to develop their social negotiation skills as they are discussing their construction plans and sharing the pieces.

In the music studio children have been busy with a variety of exciting projects ranging from creating and recording bird sounds, to inventing new symbols for writing music, and attempting to play the Digeridoo that Kai brought into the classroom last week. In addition, the children have been using unconventional materials in the classroom to create sound. Some children have been exclaiming that these sound-makers are instruments. This led the Early Learner teachers to ask the question, “What is an instrument?” Bekah has been surveying all of the children in the class to find out if they think that tap shoes, gourds, jars filled with water or PVC pipe could be considered instruments. This has been a rich opportunity for the EL children to make and assert theories as well as think more deeply about our question, “What is an instrument?” The students are exploring the physics of sound, the construction of instruments and what makes music, music. The results of the survey were this: 17 children thought that tap shoes were instruments and 15 thought that they were not. 26 children thought that gourds were instruments and 8 thought that they were not. 23 children thought that jars filled with varying amounts of water were instruments and 11 said that the jars of water were not and lastly, 14 children thought that PVC pipes were instruments and 20 thought that the PVC pipes were not. Kevin Cahill created a chart to show the results of the survey in a visual manner which has been a wonderful introduction to showing children how data can be presented in varying ways.

It has been an exciting week in the art studio. Several children spent time working with clay and there is now a drying rack full of pieces to be fired. On Monday, a few children decided to make rainbows on clay slabs. Josie decided to draw her rainbow into clay and Gwen used clay lines to represent her arches which led to lots of scoring and using slip to adhere the pieces permanently. Many children were inspired by Gwen and Josie’s work and decided to create rainbows of their own. Tate decided to make a name sign out of clay which inspired other children to try the clay out as another way to “write.”

The creation of the “Giant Ghost” out of reusable materials is still under construction and now involves several children. Elliott and Jack worked to share their vision for the sculpture by creating a plan. Now that the plan is available, other children are able to look at it and see how they might help. They decided to have the sculpture stay indoors after testing out cardboard boxes in the water table and discovering that cardboard breaks when it is wet. The stack of boxes is about as tall as the Fire Marshall will allow and now the excitement has been about whether it is taller than anyone’s dad. So far, the sculpture is taller than Will’s dad and Alastair’s dad!

The students were able to look at a live chicken up close on Thursday when Tucker and Sue Warnke brought in their family chicken Sally. This beautiful, white chicken was an exciting opportunity for the children to feel her feathers, feed her some "scratch" and ask questions about how Tucker and his family care for her. Sue also showed us the difference in color between one of Sally's eggs and one from the grocery store. The children were delighted by this visitor and Sally even left some of her feathers in our classroom!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The student portfolios have been updated with personal and social development pages and photos. Please feel free to check out your child's portfolio to enjoy at home for a few days. There is a sign-out sheet on the side of the black shelf in the office. Don't forget to return the portfolio when you are done so that we may add more pages.

WE NEED YOU!

If you are out shopping at yard sales or cleaning out your drawers and cupboards we would love to have...

empty spray bottles and liquid soap dispensers

PVC pipe

ribbon

beads or jewelry to take apart

feathers

Hilary and Brian Dunstan are on the look out for a great nanny to use next year. If you have any recommendations please contact Hilary at hildunstan@hotmail.com or 336-3688 or 949-0536

THANK YOU!

JoAnna Madden for volunteering in the classroom.

Jody and Darian for doing laundry.

Willow for bringing in feathers, beads and hot glue items.

Will for bringing in items for the hot glue area.

Everyone who brought in boxes for the ghost/volcano sculpture.

RaQuel Montgomery for sorting art work.

Landon for donating costumes and puzzles to the class.

Kai for sharing his digereedoo.

Malcolm for sharing his bird nest.

Marcy French for donating Kleenex to the classroom.

Tucker and Sue Warnke for sharing their chicken Sally with the class.

Ann Hendry for subbing.

GLAD YOU ASKED THAT!

If you have a question that you would like to have answered, please let a teacher know. We may decide to post your question and our answer here as others might be wondering the same thing.

Is it ok for my child to come to school with a runny nose and cough?

This is a great question as we have had so many kids out sick lately. Ultimately we defer to the judgment of parents on runny noses but when a child has a severely runny nose or has difficulty effectively using tissues we might suggest that they stay home a few days. It is certainly no fun for a child to be constantly wiping their nose and being asked to wash hands too. Coughs can be fatiguing as well as spread germs so please help your child to remember to cough into their elbow if you choose to send them to school.

Please see below for the information from our Parent/Student Handbook on illness.

Student Health

Attendance Policy

It is the intention of our school to provide a healthy and safe environment for our children. The following wellness policy is designed to protect the health of the students, parents and staff. Should students become ill at school, parents will be called to make arrangements for the student to go home as soon as possible.

The ill child will be removed to a comfortable location until s/he can be picked up. Please understand that the school does not have facilities for sick children and that we rely on parents to care for sick children at home.

Children or adults with any of the following symptoms may not attend school:

Any contagious condition

Measles, chicken pox, mumps, whooping cough, streptococcal infection, head lice (return to school is only possible after all nits are no longer present).

Fever

Any temperature one degree above normal is considered a fever. Children should remain home until the temperature is normal (98.6 oral/99 rectal) for 24 hours.

Rashes

A physician must diagnose all unidentified rashes.

Impetigo

Red pimples that become pustules.

Conjunctivitis

A child may return to school after taking antibiotics for 24 hours and/or after a doctor signs a release and the child is free of symptoms.

Diarrhea

A child must be kept home for 24 hours after last occurrence.

Vomiting

A child must be kept home for 24 hours after last occurrence.

Foothills School reserves the right to ask parents to obtain a note from a doctor that gives the child medical approval to return to school.

For information about absences related to illness, please see page 32.

How do I get paint out of my child's clothes?

As much as we encourage children to wear paint smocks and roll up their sleeves when working in the art studio, children will still get paint, glue, clay, etc. on their clothing. We know how frustrating it can be to see a favorite outfit stained and so we strongly encourage children to dress in play clothes.

Tip for removing acrylic paint from clothing: A squirt or two of full strength liquid dishwashing soap right on the paint, and then wash as usual.