NURSERY RHYMES - MARCH 2012

DIRECTOR'S CORNER

Here we are at the very end of February already! This school year is passing by quickly with the comfortably mild winter the children have been having a great time outdoors and already noticing the tulips sprouting in our garden beds. I must say however that I’m sorry the children didn’t get to enjoy snow this year!
Thanks to all who helped with our mid-year maintenance session back in January. We will be holding another session on March 6th and hope all those who need to attend can do so.
We had a wonderful turnout for Parent Child Sunday this year. We hope you enjoyed the opportunity to spend some time in your child’s space for a while and have the opportunity to experience the kinds of things they encounter during their day at school.
We have a few changes in the school since last newsletter. We welcome Fetun Shimles to the Three’s Class and welcome her and her parents Yeshimebet Teshome and Shimles Assefa to our school community. We also have a change in our teaching staff. Lucy Kallenberg has taking an extended family leave. We welcome Sharis Ingram back to the Nursery – in a different capacity. Sharis was a very involved parent in our school when her children Malachi and Kalindra were students here and we are happy to have her as an assistant teacher. Sharis knows our program and community well and understands and supports the philosophy of our school with her skills in the classrooms.
I’d also like to welcome three new babies to our school community. Chloe Mazreku was born February 2. Congratulations to the big brother Kol Mazreku and his parents Kristina and Leonard Mazreku. Lucas Spiegel was born February 13. Congratulations to big sister Mary Spiegel and her parents Robyn and Larry Spiegel. Sawyer Whiteley was born February 17. Congratulations to big sister Lily Whiteley and her parents Kristen Koesling-Whiteley and Eric Whiteley.
Many parents, grandparents and staff members have been working diligently on our annual school children’s literature quilt that will be raffled off at our spring bazaar. I have seen the squares and they are magnificent!! We have a large group of quilters this year and expect an amazing quilt. The squares are in the hands of Jean Rogers, Maria Gentilella and Kirsty Lorenzo. Each year they take on the huge job of assembling the quilt and creating a sight to behold!!
This is the time of the year when we are registering children for the next school year. We have held registration for the children within our school and are in the midst of registering new families/students from within the Co-Op. On March 10th we will begin the final phase of registration, when we open the registration to the community outside of our school and the Amalgamated and Park Reservoir Cooperatives. We will be holding an Open House at 10:30 AM on March 10. I always believe that our parents are the best advertising our school can have. New DOE funding regulations require that we fill each seat that we have been awarded in our UPK contract to secure our funding – so I hope everyone can help us make this happen. Please spread the word so that we can fill our school and continue to provide a quality educational experience for the children at reasonable tuition rates. The cooperative nature of our school has helped us provide a free half hour of UPK beyond the two and a half hours the DOE funds. It is the right thing for the children and hope we can continue to do this – but we need to fill our school to maximize our funding.
As the spring weather arrives, it is also the time of the year when the classes begin to step out into the community – with a few more field trips, the library, firehouse, coop compost area, boiler room and walks Van Cortlandt Park and through the Co-op gardens. We hope to continue to work with Friends of Van Cortlandt Park and the Urban Park
Rangers making the most of the outdoor areas this community is fortunate to have. We will let you know when these trips will occur and we welcome family members to join us.
As I have been showing prospective families around our school, several parents have noted that they are impressed by the amount of science- both indoors and outdoors that we incorporate into our curriculum. Science is an area of strength in our classroom curriculums. Whether it be connecting with nature by planting and growing some vegetables, through cooking and baking snacks, studying dinosaurs – their anatomy, size and imprints they made in the forms of fossils, mixing colors of the spectrum while painting, using materials with the light table or experimenting with “flubber” - a neat stretchy concoction made by mixing glue, water and borax – the children are involved in observing, questioning, investigating, explaining and predicting. Children in the early childhood years are not yet ready to understand or absorb abstract concepts – especially ones they cannot see, smell, touch or feel. What we do want to accomplish is to help children learn to use their senses to gain experiences and to begin to talk about what they are experiencing. We do not want them just to repeat facts, but to begin talking about experiences, begin to wonder and ask questions and use material to find out answers. We want them to become good observers; to use language to explain what they think is happening and begin to use their observations to make predictions.
So, how can you support this growth at home?
Encourage your child to wonder – just by commenting on interesting things you see that surround you every day. That may be trees, the weather, the cracks in the sidewalk, the smoke that comes from chimneys, the selection of vegetables in the grocery store, the colors made when painting.
Answer “wondering” questions in simple concrete information, telling your child about things they can see, hear or feel.
Encourage guessing – Together think about what will happen “if”. Then try it out. What would happen if we took the snowball into the house? What would happen to a plant that did not get water? What will happen to the cookie batter once we cook it?
Magnify things – young children love to see things through magnifying glasses. Even using a toilet paper tube to look through helps children focus and notice small things to talk about.
Use your ears – go for a listening walk focusing on the sounds of the neighborhood rather than just the sights. Do the same with your nose – investigate where smells are coming from. Allow your child to smell ingredients while cooking.
Start a collection: It may be fascinating pebbles, beach shells, leaves, buttons or small twigs or sticks. Talk about how they are similar or different than each other.
Most important – Talk, talk, and talk some more about what you experience or what your child wonders or guesses about and predicts. Should you not know the answers to questions – that is really OK! You can find out together, by doing so you are teaching your child to research. “I don’t know the answer to that but let’s find out together”.
Enjoy the adventure!!
Lisa