As you may have heard, our classroom has a new assistant! Ms. Patricia (Ms. Patty to the kids) began working in our classroom on Monday morning and she has been such a help and support to all of us. She has a wonderful background in early childhood education and brings a calming presence to our room.

With another adult in the classroom, some of our procedures will be changing back to what they were at the beginning of the year in order to use our time better. Some of these changes may be difficult or frustrating to the children as they transition into them, but I do feel they are for the best.

One of the challenges we have already had this week is with regard to snack. We have had “group snack” for several months now, which meant that our entire classroom stopped working and sat down to eat snack together. There were some pros to this situation in everyone got to eat and talk together and everyone was guaranteed to have snack, but the downside was that the entire rug had to be cleared of all work, it interrupted our work cycle even for the children who didn’t want to eat and made it difficult to get back into the flow of work afterward. We have now gone back to “self serve” snack in which two children may eat at a time at the snack table and when they are done, two others can join in. Overall, this is a much better system in that lessons and other work can continue without breaking the children’s concentration; however, some of our students have gotten upset that they don’t always get snack early every day. We have talked as a class and I have talked with some children individually about the fact that we don’t all need snack every day and it’s only for when we are truly hungry, but we have still had students “starving” by 10 AM, refusing to work and even crying and throwing fits about not having turn at snack when they have wanted it. When I have talked to them individually, one of the first things that comes up is that they have only eaten a small bowl of cereal for breakfast.

I am not here to criticize food choices and my own children love cereal, but I do strongly recommend making sure that your student has enough to eat for breakfast that they can be functional and happy for several hours, including protein. Cheese sticks, hardboiled eggs or wholegrain toast with peanut butter can be fast and easy breakfast options that will help our students be able to focus and concentrate in the mornings. As we settle into this routine more I’m sure we’ll be able to allow most of our class to eat snack every day, but it’s not a guarantee especially on days with art or library or other special activities.

Thank you so much for your patience and understanding as our classroom navigates these changes!