The Green Room is busy, busy, busy with many projects and preparing for Gavi's departure. We wish him well in his new home and school and we will miss him in our classroom. It's been so lovely seeing Gavi develop and strengthen his friendships and many other skills. He helps us with davening and nearly always has something to share. He has engineered stable block structures, Lego structures and Magna Tile structures that amaze us and allow all the children to interact. Recently he built a swimming pool and many of the children played along sending their mini-mes (5 inch photos of themselves) down the slide and into the pool. We love Gavi and wish him and his family the best of blessings in their new adventures.
This week we are continuing with the creation and the children have been creating things with their imaginations. We are developing our fine motor skills cutting with scissors, manipulating play dough, water sensorial activities and working on our pencil grip and letter sounds with the older students, a few of the younger children are already following in their footsteps. The children all look forward to this. They improve their memory skills naming the item that is pulled from a tray while a cloth conceals the remaining items. Many are already very skilled at discerning the missing item.
As we enter the playground and return the morahs are modeling How to Shake Hands and saying, "Welcome to our playground. Please play safe", (or something applicable). The children pause, make eye contact with us and reply, "Thank you for reminding me Morah Cindy/Devora." Taking time to connect is so valuable in assisting the child's social/emotional skills at home, in school and within our community. When asked a question or to do an activity, they are encouraged to say, "Yes please." or "No thank you".
The children are improving their self-regulation skills and their manners. We practice the Conscious Discipline Skills for self calming using the S.T.A.R. (Smile, Take a deep breath and Relax.) The children's favorite is the Balloon Breath, (We breath holding our hands as though the balloon is growing with 3 -4 deep breaths, then pfffffft, like we let the balloon go.) These are hanging on our Green Room bulletin boards and are also listed on the Conscious Discipline Website. We continue to emphasize:
We take care of ourselves.
We take care of others.
We take care of things.
We created the heavens and earth using our loft and hung some clouds over our kitchen. The children used shaving cream and enjoyed the sensation. We are creating a send off book for Gavi and the wishes the children have for him have been touching and entertaining. One child wished Gavi a bunny and a unicorn! Most of them wish him hugs and wish he would stay, play with them forever and send hugs and love. We had a little send off with cake and shared memories Thursday, Gavi's last day.
The children remained calm and did well during our fire drill. We thank you all for your donations to our classroom, your time and your talents and those of extended family members. Thanks to Bibi Herran and CJP for hosting Conscious Discipline Workshop.
October 31 - Petting Zoo
November - Each child bring a different variety of squash and know its name for our table of interest.
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