You may have heard from your child that he or she has been working in the Sky and Trees classrooms, as well the Studio!
These three rooms house our four major areas of study, led by us — the four Sky and Trees teachers.
Here is a bit about how that works, and what you can expect to read about in the coming months!
During activity time, the Sky classroom is our literacy center...
Most often, Ms. Jordan will be leading the children in activities that develop the children's drawing, knowledge of letters, and storytelling. Throughout the year, you will hear about different ways that the children will familiarize themselves with creating drawings, letter formation, the spelling of their names, and of the elements of a story narrative.
Right now, the children are being introduced to the four major elements that make up any letter ... Big Line, Little Line, Big Curve, Little Curve. We often refer to these as the four letter-forms. They will be the literal building blocks for our study of writing letters for the rest of the year.
During activity time, the Trees classroom is our math center...
Most often, Mr. Johnosn will be leading the children in activities that develop numeracy skills, such as one-to-one correspondence and conservation. There is also a focus on spatial awareness, through puzzles, counting games, sorting games, and building materials — like blocks, of course!
That's right ... Blocks are math! Right now, Mr. Johnson is introducing the blocks to the children one by one, day by day. Each block has a mathematical relationship to the others. The language that the children use to describe each block, as well as the physical experience of manipulating each block (for example, building a double out of two units, or a quad out of four units), builds their mathematical awareness.
During activity time, we use the Studio in two ways!
In one half of the Studio, Ms. Chalmers leads the children in drama...
In some ways, this goes hand in hand with the literacy work of the Sky classroom, helping children become aware of the narrative form and other storytelling elements through acting out a story. But drama is far more than this. Through imaginative play, children's creativity is fostered as they become the authors of new stories. The children can also process or anticipate real-life events through role-playing. In addition to all of this, dramatic play helps children who struggle with articulation, confidence, or navigating big emotions and social situations. Drama gives the child who is already confident and bold a place where it is okay to be center stage. The drama area also has one of our favorite materials in the whole school: hollow blocks! We will spend a lot of energy and build a lot of muscle this year by moving these blocks around to build sets and scenery for our stories.
Right now, the children are familiarizing themselves with the drama area by working with a kitchen scene and two babies.
In the other half of the Studio, Ms. Kadota leads the children in creating visual artwork...
Visual arts are central to all we do at Mustard Seed School, and it is no different in The Nest. The studio area devoted to visual arts is where the children will learn to work with paper collage, paint, clay, wire, fabric, and many other materials. Our focus on the visual arts is for three primary reasons. First of all, working with scissors, glue, paintbrushes, etc. are excellent for developing fine motor skills. Having well-developed fine motor skills leads to more developed thinking and skills later on... This is impossible to overstate: The more your child works with glue, scissors, and paint, the better readers, writers and mathematicians he or she will become.
Secondly, the arts are an amazing way to reinforce what we are learning in other areas. Whether it is a worship story, a math concept, a favorite fairy tale, or something we saw at the park, reflecting things back in the form of visual art helps cement these pieces of knowledge and new experiences in our minds and can also express to others what our ideas and areas of knowledge are. Right now, Ms. Kadota is leading the children in the formation of our collaborative Creation collage, which is slowly revealing itself in the righthand side of the worship area in the Sky classroom.
Finally, and most importantly, we do art for art's sake ... If we are teaching that it is in God that we "live and move and have our being," we must allow children to be who they are in God — creators! To discover, reflect, and create beauty is to be a Child of God.
Everywhere we go: Studio, Sky and Tress...
Everything we do:
art, drama, literacy, and math...
We are discovering the beauty of God's creation,
and our own beauty as a part of the creation.
and our own beauty as a part of the creation.
After all,
God is not far from any one of us...
... In Him we live, and move, and have our being.
... In Him we live, and move, and have our being.
