This week...

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone!

Thanks so much to Julianna’s mom and Silver Room-Alum brother for joining Julianna to share with us about their family’s New Year traditions! We had so much fun figuring out everyone’s Zodiac animal and making the cherry blossom craft afterward! Did you know that  New Year is actually a spring festival in many East Asian traditions? It’s true— and this is why we see a lot of cherry blossom and floral artworks around this event.

As if on cue, we noticed that some of our marigolds have begun to sprout! While we intentionally did not mark which seeds were planted by which children (not all seeds sprout, alas), all the children are very excited and spend quite a lot of time imagining that these early sprouters are their own. We will observe the growth of all the plants over time. Some of the grown plants will be planted upstairs in the HPMS roof garden, others will be sent home with anyone who has a little space and sunshine for them. Some may even be available in the school store!

Finally, we also had our annual Kindergarten Publishing Party on Friday! The K students have been working soooooo hard on their Small Moments story, where they think of a true story from their lives and *zoooom* in to find the details. They organized these details into a narrative with a beginning, a middle and and end, and shared them with a room full of parents. What a big day! 

// Week of Feb 4 //

Happy Lunar New Year, Everyone! - Thank you to Julianna’s family for teaching us about their family traditions!

Lunar New Year is actually a *spring* celebration— here, friends celebrate with a cherry blossom craft

Now that friends are safe and comfortable with scissors, we’re making all kinds of booklets!

February has so far had a few warm & sunny days— we’ve spotted some insects enjoying outdoor recess, too!

Book of the Week!

Sounding out his love for a favorite book

Speaking of spring... remember those marigold seeds from two weeks ago? They have *impeccable* timing— this photo was taken on Lunar New Year!

Such pride in sharing his published book!

// Week of January 28 //

Concentrating and using his whole body to take care of the classroom

Practicing the orientation of the continents

Guess who knows all his letter sounds? ☺️

“Fancying Up” their Small Moments stories in advance of our publishing party

Using bead bars to see how multiplication works

Working on bead stair booklets (and short chains in the back)

Making a bead bar booklet

// Week of January 21 //

We’ve had a lot on our minds this week!

We’ve been continuing our conversations about justice and building a fairer world for everyone— we read Freedom Summer, by Deborah Wiles, and talked about friendship and looking out for and supporting our friends when they’re faced with injustice. We also talked about how it’s so important to work hard to change unfair laws, as Martin Luther King , Jr. did, but that there’s often still unfairness that we can help counter in everyday life.  Some of the children volunteered ideas such as, “letting everyone have snack” and “making sure everyone has some blue blocks, even if they’re little” and “making a signup so everyone gets a turn with the blocks”. One friend understood the value of fairness this way: “Back in the olden days, girls couldn’t grow up to be doctors! And it’s good that people changed that rule because otherwise (name of an HPMS first grader who used to be in Silver)’s mom wouldn’t be a doctor today! And then she wouldn’t be able to get the beads out of our ears and noses!!!”

We’ve also been preparing for spring via some seed-starting activities— more on this next week :-)

// Curriculum Update: Week of Jan. 14 //

What a wonderful Work With Your Child Week we have had with you all!

Thank you for taking the time to visit and spend time working with your child (and their peers— especially if you were reading stories!) this week! What a pleasure to see you and your child sharing work and smiles together :-)

This week, we introduced some solar system works into our science area, because while we do plan on diving deeper with continent studies this winter and spring, it helps to know more about where we are in space, too! New solar system works range from books and DIY-booklets to puzzles and matching activities.

Although our morning work cycle has involved our local planets, moons and stars, the Kindergarteners also helped with a more terrestrial service project: peeling open the dried marigold flower heads harvested by the middle school ecology group this fall and harvesting the seeds from within. In tandem with the afterschool stewardship group, the Kindergarteners are packaging the seeds now so that we can distribute the seed packets to all the HPMS classrooms and staff next month. Our hope is that LOTS of marigolds can pop up around our neighborhoods this summer and fall. Not only do marigolds make for pretty fall bouquets,  they release compounds that are helpful to neighboring plants,  they attract beneficial insects such as ladybugs, and are a valuable source of late summer nectar and pollen for area pollinators!

We had two Books of the Week this week: we returned to Strictly No Elephants, by Lisa Mantchev, a favorite from the fall, and The Story of Martin Luther King, Jr., by Johnny Ray Moore. Both of these books facilitated great conversations about fairness, justice and finding ways to make the world better for everyone.

// Enjoy Photos from the week of Jan. 14 //

Building a lady, with support from dad

Putting sounds and symbols together

Making huge patterns come together!

Play dough construction of the letters

Story time with Silver Room parents is the best!

He persevered and finally broke that board!

One big brother giving advice to another (new) big brother

Putting America back together with a little help from Mom

Harvesting and packaging HPMS marigold seeds to share with the school community

Labeling marigold seed packets with great care

// Curriculum Update: Week of Jan 7 //

Happy New Year, Silver Room Families!

We can’t believe it’s already 2019,  but here we are!   We’ve so enjoyed hearing about the children’s adventures and treasured moments from the break since we’ve been back, and we’re looking forward to a great second half of the year.

Speaking of Adventures,  we’ll be doing a little “pretend travel” in the upcoming weeks, studying the solar system before moving on to the continents. If any parents or loved ones have traveled to South America (or space) and would like to share photos, artifacts or stories, let us know!

// Week of January 7 //

Practicing place value of 2-digit numbers

Noun hunt!

Working on tricky words in Writers’ Workshop

Working on the sequence of 1-10

Practicing double-digit static addition

Building fine-motor strength and concentration

Practicing static addition with the Stamp Game

// HAPPY NEW YEAR! //

// Hibernation Week: Curriculum Update //

In the words of one of our favorite fictional bears: OH. MY. GOSH!*

How has fall 2018 come and gone? But it surely has, and as we head into winter break and a new year, the Silver Room Team offers great thanks for all the support and warmth from the Silver Room families over the past few months. Thank you for helping out with snack and flowers, for celebrating holidays and birthdays with us, for sending in stones and carrots for stone soup, and for taking the time to visit for art shows and to meet and talk with us about each child's progress.

We hope you all have a warm and safe vacation-- and we look forward to ringing in 2019 with you on January 2!

*Lucille B. Bear, star of several books, including the gloriously silly Children Make Terrible Pets, by Peter Brown.

// Hibernation Week //

Practicing cursive “o”

Practicing the 100 Board

Love and greetings for a young visitor

Exploring with the Pink Tower

K students helping to mount the PreK students’ chicken art projects to the farm backdrop they helped make last week

“There’s six of us and one of her! We’ll definitely win!” “Are you sure? She can spell EVERYTHING! She’s, like... A HUNDRED years old!” — and that’s when “she” decided to show no mercy 💪👵🏻

// Curriculum Update: First Week in December //

Happy Week, Everyone!

We started off with a special presentation from one of our Kindergarteners and his dad-- they shared some of their favorite Hanukkah traditions: telling the traditional story of the lamp in the temple having enough oil, somehow, to last eight days; reading a funny story about runaway latkes; serving up some delicious latkes that fortunately did not run away; and passing out little dreidels to share. The dreidels should have made it home, by the way, and if they did, spinning dreidels (like any spinning top) are great for developing fine-motor skills-- we highly recommend spinning top games any time, as well as during Hanukkah!

Something else that has kept us quite excited this week was preparing for the HPMS Night of the Arts! The pre-K students have been working on a variety of autumn and farm-themed art projects which the Kindergarten students have helped to mount, label and hang on the walls in the hallway (the display design is still in-process, as the Kindergarten students are fitting in their installation efforts in-between their regular workplan activities). The Kindergarten students have also been working on special art projects of their own in their K-Art class-- stop by next week when those go on display! Their colors and patterns are lovely, and the students are so proud!

Looking ahead to next week, please keep in mind a few things:

Wednesday, 12/12 is our Night of the Arts! Please feel free to visit all the display spaces around the school to see what children in each program have been creating.

Friday, 12/14 is Hibernation Day!  For families who are new to HPMS, this is a day of full-on Cozy. Pajamas, stories, good times are the name of the game. Your child can come to school in pajamas for the whole day-- and if they nap, they can bring a little stuffed friend to cozy up to under their blankets!

// Photos: First week of December! //

Happy Hanukkah, everyone! May the season be filled with light!

Using "chickens" as a vehicle to explore texture and paint scraping techniques

Exploring texture via printmaking (come to the HPMS Night of the Arts next week!)

A K friend helping a younger friend keep his balance during an obstacle course.

Kindergarten students helping to mount their younger classmates' apple prints in preparation for the hallway display

Bonding over Bob Books

Puppies can be a girl's best friend (even if they're actually boys)

// Week of Nov. 26: Curriculum Update //

Welcome back! We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, full of delicious meals and time with loved ones!

This week we decided it would be good to really revisit our ground rules, so on Monday morning, we spent our entire first circle reviewing what the children thought are important ways of being helpful citizens in the Silver Room. The children reminded each other not just of ground rules, but of the rationales behind them. For instance, “Use walking feet in the classroom,” is something we agree to do because if you run inside, you might bump into someone or a shelf, or accidentally run over someone’s work rug (“And if they’re using the Moveable Alphabet or the Bead Chains, that could ... oh, that could take FOREVER to fix!”). Another helpful tip was to “Ask someone if you can touch them or their work,” because “that way you’ll know if it’s okay with them.” Great thinking, Silver Room!

We’ve enjoyed many books this week, but because we are revisiting how to strike a balance between wild fun and community ground rules, we thought it would be a great time to visit Peter Brown’s Mr. Tiger Goes Wild.  This book is once again our Book of the Week!

// Photos from the last week in November //

We sent earlier apple prints home, & we’re making newer, fancier ones for the Night of the Arts!

Getting ideas from his buddy for his leaf color scheme

Sounding out some NY-metro-area sights on his North America pin-pricking work

Impressing the young folk 😊

Helping the young folk

Carefully checking to see if his patterns match

// The Days Leading up to Thanksgiving //

Building dexterity and concentration with the metal insets

Taking care of classroom rugs

Working on the snap frame

Concentric circles in K art

Spontaneous art project: a Continent Globe to take home

Bead stair addition and arts & crafts

//Curriculum Update: Week of October 29 //

What an *exciting* week in the Silver Room!

We welcomed our friend Tyler back from England!

We talked about costumes!

Some of our friends began sounding out words for the first time!

Some of our friends began working with the chains for the first time!

And some of our friends ate their whole lunch for the first time!

We’ve had so many great moments to celebrate this week, and we’re very happy we’ve been able to celebrate them together.

Our Book of the Week was Be A Friend,  by Salina Yoon, about a boy who has a different way of sharing his thoughts, and how he eventually connects with one friend, and then another and then another.

// Photos: Week of October 29 //

K students working with word-building and compound numbers

Strengthening fingers, concentration and self-reliance skills

Labeling her map of North America

Practicing writing numerals

Book of the Week

// Week of October 22: Curriculum Update //

Brrrr! Though sunny, the temperature drop has been real this week!

Fortunately, many of the Silver Room students are becoming pretty handy with dressing in layers— more friends have mastered the “Montessori Flip” style of donning a jacket, several friends are real pros at zipping their own jackets, and some friends are even able to help other friends with zipping and buttoning up, too.

As the weather cools, dealing with layers will take up more of our recess transition time; parents can help keep these transitions lean and recess time long by helping their children choose layers and shoes that they can manage mostly by themselves (hint: shoelaces are a challenge). We look forward to lots of time outside together, looking for pretty leaves, late-season flowers and busy fall foragers!