Hello Indigo Parents!

Carrie and I have been busy working with students on individual goals that we discussed with parents during conferences.  At this time of the school year, we tend to focus more on small group and individual based lessons (rather than basic lessons that can be taught to the group as a whole) as many students are ready to be challenged in different ways.

Welcoming New Students

We are pleased to invite 3 new students into our studio coming from Melisa’s pre-primary studio.  They have been transitioning well with the help of our older students who have been welcoming and helpful with the transition.  Welcome, Angelina, Emmett, and Charles! Their photos are posted under “Cast” on the homepage.

Popular Material

While every child has been going off in their own direction with material, there are some works that have been introduced that have sparked an interest in nearly every child…

Story Telling Extensions

I have demonstrated a variety of extensions for storytelling material that has been available in the studio throughout the year in order to challenge the students to think out of the box.  Storytelling is also an enjoyable approach to encouraging kids to work on their social skills, listening skills, and to expand their vocabulary.Imagery Cards:  Throughout the school year, cards with unique photo imagery have been offered for children to sequence in their own ways in order to come up with original stories.  Lately, we have been challenging our students to ask questions with “who, what, where, when, how, and why” when describing imagery to tell a story.  Further more, I have been teaching a variety of words to express how one might be feeling.  One example happens during circle times: I explain the words and then the students take turns to act out how one might appear or behave if they were heartbroken, relaxed, nervous, saddened, irritated, embarrassed, peaceful, frantic, humble, etc.  We teachers especially begin to see our students using some of these words as they are telling stories with the imagery cards during work cycles.  It’s like music to our ears when Carrie and I hear the kids working constructively like this together, taking turns explaining what they feel should happen next in the story, expressing their thoughts and feelings with each other. 

Storybook Box: Throughout the school year, Carrie has been faithful to changing out the story book box every few weeks by adding a new storybook with objects to tell the story with.  She always presents this work during a circle time where she reads the story aloud as she takes miscellaneous objects and figurines to act out the scene of each page.  Children love to retell these stories as they “read” aloud, bringing the objects to life through personification, a literary approach to add interest and understanding to the stories.

Dinosaur WorksI think just about every child has been found working on this material recently.  We put together some dinosaur works that teach common dinosaur names and whether they were herbivores or carnivores, along with some fossil matching footprints.  

Updates, etc.

As I mentioned earlier, we have been focusing more on students in small groups and on an individual basis to help them to be challenged in areas they are showing interest in.  I will be taking the time within the next two weeks to write brief emails to each parent, letting you know how your child is personally doing.  As always, I will leave you with some photos from work cycles, etc.   Hope you like!

Wyatt’s Celebration of Life!