// Weeks of Feb 25 & March 4 //
For any Birthday Celebrations.... please be aware:
// Curriculum Update: Week of Feb. 18 //
Happy 💯 Day of School!
This week’s highlight was seeing all of our little friends dressed up as adorable 100 year old men and women. Thanks to all who participated. Everyone had a great time making necklaces out of 100 cereal loops, coloring 100 gum balls, building a structure out of 100 popsicle sticks, counting the 10 Short Chain, doing the Hundred Board and more! Some of the children brought in their own 100 small objects to share including: 100 dots on an ice cream cone, 100 colorful rubber bands, 100 pennies, 100 stickers, 100 dominoes, and 100 buttons. We love counting to 100! Thanks to Alina for also sharing a book about the 100th Day of School with us.
We also had a great time dancing with all of you during Family Fun Night! We really hope you can all make it to our Winter Gala on March 2nd. Ms. Sasha and Ms. Kristi will be there and are looking forward to spending time with you. :)
// Presidents' Day Week //
// Week of February 11 ❤️ //
This week...
What an exciting week we had! Our Kindergarten friends had their Writer’s Workshop Publishing Party on Thursday and truly enjoyed sharing all their hard work and beautiful stories with their families and friends. We hope you enjoy reading your child’s book with them at home and all of the children’s stories will be displayed next week for everyone to see at their convenience. Bravo, Indigo Room K’s! We’re so proud of you!
We also continued our exploration of the human body by learning about the skeletal system this week. We discussed the names of bones, the differences between types of joints, and how tendons and ligaments connect bones together. We also explored how bones can fracture or break and how they repair themselves and heal!
Thank you to Edgar for providing our classroom with delicious snacks and for sharing his very favorite snack — French biscuits called Galettes. So tasty!
// Week of Feb 4 //
// Curriculum Update: Week of Jan 28 //
We started off this week with a special 5th birthday celebration on Monday! Happy birthday, Kira, and thanks for sharing the yummy cupcakes with us!
This week we started a new science unit and discussion on something we all know a lot about because we all have one — the human body! We started with the skin, the body’s biggest organ and the one that we can easily see and feel. We learned that skin is our body’s first defense against germs and infections. It invisibly mends itself, stretches and grows as we do, and has two main layers: the epidermis (top thin layer of dead cells) and the dermis (thicker bottom layer). Our entire body, with the exception of the palms of our hands and soles of our feet, is covered in tiny hairs and we have over 2 million pores with sweat glands to keep our body cool. Lastly, we discussed how our skin cells produce a pigment or dye called melanin which determines the beautiful shade of our skin. So cool! We look forward to learning more about the human body over the next couple of weeks.
// Week of January 28 //
// Week of January 21 //
We hope you have a second to take a look at our painted Peace Signs hanging across the hall from the Indigo Room. All of the children shared with us their hopes and dreams for the future. We hope you enjoy them!
This week we read a new book by an old favorite author, Andi Green, titled The Very Frustrated Monster. The children were so enamored with this word and so we used this as a spring board and learned how feeling frustrated is different from feeling sad, or angry, or disappointed. The children learned about appropriate ways of coping with feelings of frustration and shared moments where they are their family members might have felt this way. It was a really great conversation!
Our Kindergarten friends are working hard to finish up their final copies of their Small Moment stories for our publishing party on Thursday, February 7th at 9:30am. Kindergarten parents — if you haven’t already, please RSVP via the evite invitation sent out last weekend. Thank you in advance!
// Week of Martin Luther King Day //
// Curriculum Update: Week of Jan. 14 //
As we approach Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we have been reading books about his accomplishments and discussing how he made our country a more peaceful, loving and accepting place. We learned how MLK Jr. showed people how to make change through persistent love instead of hate. We read I Have a Dream, a children’s version of the famous speech made by Martin Luther King Jr., with beautiful painted illustrations by Kadir Nelson. We also painted tape resist peace signs and shared our own dreams for the future. As we reflect on the important work and change made by MLK Jr., we also remind ourselves and practice how to resolve conflicts in a peaceful way.
We practice being peaceful in the Indigo Room through singing songs like Light a Candle for Peace and Peace Like a River. We also practice yoga and have started to explore the beginning stages of mediation with activities like the Montessori Silence Game.
We have also enjoyed seeing our friends’ joyful faces as they show their families their favorite works in the classroom. We hope you have enjoyed Work With Your Child Week! We ended our week with a very special 6th birthday for our friend Edgar. We hope you enjoyed your special day. Thanks for sharing it with us! :)
// Enjoy Photos from the week of Jan. 14 //
// Curriculum Update: Week of Jan 7 //
What a fun-filled week! This week we started exloring the themes of peace, equality and celebrating our differences as we lead up to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We read two books to spring-board our discussions, The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson and It’s Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr. The children took turns sharing what special qualities make them unique from their peers and how we can celebrate our differences! We look forward to delving deeper into these themes over the next couple of weeks.
Our Kindergarten friends took a special field trip to the Mile Square Theater in Hoboken to see a performance by the Hoboken Children’s theater titled, The Pirate La Dee Da. It was really inspiring and we enjoyed seeing older children perform and sing so well. The performances are this weekend, so if you are a musical lover, definitely check it out!
We ended our week with a sweet birthday celebration for our dear friend, Rohan. Happy birthday, buddy! Thanks for sharing your special day with us.
// Week of January 7 //
// Curriculum Update, New Year! //
Happy New Year! The children are so excited to back in the Indigo Room. The whole class seems happy, refreshed and rejuvenated after a nice long break with family and friends. We’re looking forward to see what 2019 has in store for us!
Re-entry into a short week gave us all a chance to slowly get back to our familiar rhythm and routine. We enjoyed sharing stories from our vacations, playing in the park, working with our favorite materials, and getting back into the swing of things. We had fun playing a tasting and sequencing game with Ms. Sasha and ended our week celebrating a very special 5th birthday with Alison on Friday. Thanks for sharing the yummy treats from Eataly with us!
// HAPPY NEW YEAR! //
// Hibernation Week: Curriculum Update //
How is it our last school week of 2018?! Time really flies when you are having fun. :-)
We started the week off with a special 5th birthday celebration for our friend Alina. We enjoyed your photos and the warm gingerbread you shared with us. Happy birthday! From there, we really dove into the holiday spirit of the season and had a blast making some winter crafts. We poked cloves into oranges, used tree scraps to make a wreath for our classroom, and strung popcorn and cranberries on floral wire to strengthen our fine-motor skills. We couldn’t help but snack on some of the popcorn while we worked! Yum!
We ended the week with one of our favorite days of the year — Hibernation Day! We donned our favorite PJs, sang some winter songs, warmed our bellies with hot cocoa, and pretended to “hibernate” in the teepee in our classroom. It was truly the perfect day to end the week!
Thanks to everyone who joined us for the Night of the Arts! We hope you enjoyed all the art work we created this year. Thank you to Ellie for caring for Blossom over the winter break. We hope you have fun with her. We wish everyone who celebrates a happy holiday and a very happy 2019! See you in the new year!
// Hibernation Week //
// Curriculum Update: First Week in December //
How exciting that it is December and the last month of 2018. Our Indigo Room friends are definitely finishing off the year strong! It’s been a week filled with birthdays in the Indigo Room. This week we celebrated Armaan’s 5th birthday, who coincidentally shares his special day with our beloved Ms. Sasha! The children worked hard making cards, drawings, and writing notes to make their day super special. Armaan also shared his favorite snack, veggie sticks, with his friends this week! Additionally, the children tasted a brand new snack this week — chickpeas with tomato sauce. Yum!
We’ve been very busy making art and getting ready for the Night of the Arts on Wednesday, December 12th. We are really looking forward to sharing all our creative endeavors with you! This week we also read The Hat and The Mitten by Jan Brett and continued our discussion on hibernation, migration and adaptation. The children are looking forward to making their own mittens next week before we celebrate Hibernation Day on Friday!