Parents,
I apologize for not posting last week. Here is a recap of what we did. We went a solar system walk. We visited each of the planets and talked about what is unique to them. On Friday we made a planet cake and then ate it. It was delicious! The morning class choose earth and the afternoon class chose Mars. What a great way to end our study of the solar system.
We took a closer look at our 5 senses and talked about how they send our brain information. Each day we looked at a different sense. We also talked about how we care for the living things in our classroom like watering the plants and feeding the class pets.
This week we will talk about positive and negative choices and how our mindset affects these. We will tie this into the first habit of happy kids which is be proactive.
Throughout this year we will be studying Steven Covey’s Seven Habits for Happy Kids. This is a spin off of his best selling book for adults. The seven habits are:
- Be Proactive
- Begin With the End in Mind
- Put First Things First
- Think Win-Win
- Seek First to Understand then to be Understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the Saw
We will talk about how certain things that happen to us that might push us into having a negative mind like when a friend hurts our feelings or we become angry over something, or we lose something we love. We will then talk about how we can choose how we react to these feelings. This is called being proactive as opposed to reactive. A reactive person may say “He made me mad!” A proactive person would say “I chose to forgive”. A reactive person would say “I am like this because of how I was raised.” A proactive person would say “I chose to do things differently than how I was raised.” Being proactive is about choice. We can not prevent or protect our children from all the hardships that they will face. However, we can teach them to be proactive and choose how they will react to hardship. Thus turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones.
To go along with our habit of being proactive we will be reading a book called Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin. The cat gets new white shoes but throughout his day many things happen to those white shoes and they do not stay white. Pete never gets upset. He choses to remain happy.
We will begin our study of plants by looking at what parts a plant has. We will talk about how our earth is made up of land, air and water and we will talk about gravity. The week will end by doing a gravity painting. There is something so fun about dropping balls soaked in paint and watching them splat on paper below.
We are missing several small items from different materials in our classroom. If your child brings home something that you do not recognize, such as beads, small animals or other small objects – it might belong in our classroom and we would love to have it back. I know how appealing the small objects can be, it’s part of the reason we use them but often we cannot use the material if even one piece is missing. Thanks for your help with this.
Jean Piaget said “The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done”. In our classroom we often ask students to try new things or do something that has typically been done for them. Some children love the challenge while others are frustrated with the thought of doing something that is new to them. Our goal is not to frustrate but to challenge and show the children what they are capable of. Maria Montessori said “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed”. As teachers we would challenge you as parents to help your child by not doing things for them that they are capable of. Each child has different abilities, but they are all capable of more than we think. Just some food for thought.
Have a great week!
Ms. Jen & Ms. Martha