Leaves are falling, temperatures are dropping and even snow has made a small appearance! In our community that means it is time to start practicing how to put on our winter clothing. Weather permitting (temperatures above 12°F including the wind chill and no rain), we like to enjoy our outdoor environment and all that it has to offer us. With the weather getting cold so suddenly, we haven’t had much time to work on getting ourselves ready to go outside. Please make sure your child has warm clothing, a coat, hat and mittens or gloves so that they can enjoy the outdoors. It might be helpful for them to also have a more weather appropriate change of clothing and an extra sweater/sweatshirt too. Of course, once the snow comes to stay, that list also includes warm boots and snow pants. We have discovered that once all this winter gear gets involved, getting ready to go outside takes a lot longer. In their quest to become more efficient, independent and successful at this endeavor, the children came up with a little line-up: Snow pants first; then boots, jacket, scarf (if you have one), hat, and mittens last. Why mittens last, you ask? Because we discovered together that it is very hard to put anything else on once your hands are covered!
It was wonderful to get the time to speak to all of you at conferences and share all of the exciting progress the children have been making over the last few months. So many wonderful things are happening in the classroom, with both older and younger friends discovering the world of maps and finding exciting new places in the world to learn about. Ms. Heather has been so kind to share her experiences of life in Europe with the children. She brought in articles that she collected during her travels and helped the children find places on the map of Europe that they come from.
We have also been working a lot on our letters and the sounds they make, and making some interesting discoveries on the journey to reading. For instance, we found out that some letters make the same sound as others and that names of people are often puzzle words (non-phonetic)! When we first encounter letters in our environment they are in lower case cursive.
Why use cursive instead of print? Cursive is easier for the young child to learn. Cursive letters have a flowing, uninterrupted movement that is more natural to the child’s movement. Since all cursive letters have a consistent point, it eliminates confusion with reversal and inversion of letters (e.g., b and d and p; m and w). Research also shows that cursive writing stimulates parts of the brain responsible for learning language, refining fine motor skills and creates more right-left brain connections.
Have a wonderful and cozy winter break. Happy reading!
Archana