helping each other

Just had to post this, although it was taken a few weeks ago on a cool day. However, many of the children are still always eager to help when the need arises. If someone drops a little drawer of division beads, there is an immediate patter of feet as numerous children rush to contain them.

More recently, we've been reading and talking about the Native Americans and how they once lived. Here, two boys proudly show off the little mat they wove with plant stems.

Everyone's excited about reading!

Here is J.F. after matching pictures with their beginning sounds. This was a few weeks ago. She's beyond that now, making words with the "mumfable alphabet". Oops!

It's the moveable alphabet. And here is M.B. moving around the letters to form words. Listening for the sounds in the words hones reading and spelling skills. Learning to read well is a gradual process taken one step at a time.

We strive to have each child practice reading skills every single day.

An alpaca, colorful Diwali and jumping in leaves

On Friday morning a darling alpaca visited the school, then R.M.'s and T.M.'s mothers told us about the Indian holiday, Diwali. They showed how colorful designs called rangolis are made on the sidewalk outside of homes. With the traditional materials of yellow, orange and black lentils and rice flour they led the children in making several rangolis. Here is L.C., H.K., L.K. and E.N. working on a design.

Later, upon seeing leaves covering the playground, the children took their little rakes and made this large, soft pile, then took turns jumping and tumbling into them. This is A.T.

With velcro so prevalent, I sometimes wonder if we really need to know how to lace. But then, this morning, as I was tying my shoes, the lace suddenly snapped. It doesn't happen often, but I suppose lacing is a handy skill.

Tying, like lacing is learned through practice, usually just a few times, once each day. With tying, though, I tell the child that s/he is really teaching her or his fingers to tie. Each bow helps their fingers learn another step of the procedure. I am just as excited as the child when those little fingers are able to tie a bow all by themselves.