KPAS fun

Last week ended with some glorious weather and tons of outside time....and yes,  Monday morning we arrived to a cold snowy playground!  As you could imagine we have had some very informative conversations about weather.

The chives have been plentiful on our playground and most recently we have be enjoying asparagus!  It is amazing how quickly it poked through the ground and also how fast it has grown. Everyone has enjoyed checking on it each day and estimating how much it has grown...and then predicting how much it will grow over night.

The next preschool gardening adventure will be planting sunflowers.  Jake and Julie began weeding a spot with children along the wooded side of the white fence...more natural beauty coming to our playground soon!

In the classroom we have been very busy building.  I was at the hardware store recently and noticed some very large nuts and bolts and wondered what would happen/ how would children use these in the classroom...so I purchased a few.  The teacher in me was instantly thinking they would be great for fine motor skills...the dramatic play that has ensued has been so fun.  They have been keys, hand cuffs, light sabers, and glasses...just to name a few.  I will surely add to this collection in the near future as it has been so fun to watch everyone explore with an everyday item.

Also the new baskets I purchased to hold the nuts and bolts have provided great entertainment.

Construction in the classroom has been popular.  The Lego table has continued to be very popular along with the block area. Recent creations have been focused on car garages and fire stations!  

The construction has trickled over to the playground where several kids have been creating boats, ships and the millennium falcon!  They have been using chairs and the picnic tables and sharing the roles of various Star Wars characters, fisherman, scuba divers and also sky divers...such an adventurous group we have!

Our hot lunch program continues to be popular and successful. I am so happy that we were able to switch things up and eat in the cafeteria.  Even the smallest P3 friends are learning to serve themselves, make healthy choices and only take what they want to eat...so valuable for them to realize they can always go back up to the salad bar for seconds and eliminate waste/ unwanted food by taking too much.  We are also so lucky to have our 3rd and 4th grade friends/siblings join us for meals and also help KPAS friends clear their trays.

As the year comes to an end I want to thank everyone again for this first trial year of full day KPAS.  We have had great success and look forward to an even better program next year.  KPAS will be moving upstairs to Andra's room to better accomodate our all day program and use of two classrooms in the afternoon.  Andra and Julie very happily will be taking over the KPAS basement space (back to their old space😀) and have already begun planning.  Lyndley and I have also been planning out our spaces and are very excited to collaborate on the 2 classroom spaces which will offer a nice flow as there is a door that adjoins the 2 spaces...it will be a very busy summer indeed.  Projected preschool numbers for next years enrollment is wonderful which in turns means great numbers for KPAS.  I have offered Jake a full time assistant position with KPAS which we are all very excited about.

Spring 2016 continued collaboration

In both the morning and afternoon sessions we have been focusing on togetherness and teamwork.  My kpas blog format was 2 separate posts...moving forward their will be one post which shares thoughts, projects and photos from both groups.  This year has been challenging as we turned KPAS into a full day program...the good news is the program worked, we are making changes and improving daily and will once again offer a full day program for next year.  A big change will be Andra and KPAS trading rooms.  KPAS will move upstairs to improve the flow of the program and better utilize 2 classrooms in the afternoon (our room and LYndley's).

On our sunny days we have really enjoyed the extra playground time and the ease of wearing less outdoor gear!  

Over April break Lloyd rehung our gutters on the sandbox...just in time for the rainy weeks ahead! The rain barrels have been full of water which has kept everyone busy.

In our classroom both morning and afternoon groups have been creating beautiful group and individual art.  Our rainbow wall has continued to grow-

We have starting working on another group bulletin board that is becoming filled with finger and hand painted flowers

And our most recent project has brought beauty to our book nook as we have created some hanging Art using water colors and mason jar lids

Group drawing has been another favorite activity.  It is so fun to see what a small group of children can create on one piece of paper!

It is hard to believe that we are in the final month of school.  I have loved my first year as lead teacher for KPAS and look forward to a new year with both old and new families!  Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with KPAS each morning and afternoon!

March 2016 focus on Collaboration

With Spring just around the corner in Vermont (or winter never really showing up) we have spent a lot of time in KPAS talking about how we want to change around our classroom displays to say good bye to winter.  We have had our KPAS tree farm bulletin board, our happy snowman bulletin board and our Perfect Square bulletin Board for quite some time now.  My recent visit with The Opal School in Portland, OR inspired me in several ways.  The nature of the KPAS program can be tricky for inspiring community and collaboration.  With an ever changing group of children, I decided that a large group project may help us with the idea of collaboration.  The Opal school has several "guiding principles."  One of the principles that I found to be evident across the grade levels was that of Children as Collaborators.  No child lives or learns in isolation.  A child is always in search of relationships.  Children learn and become themselves through interaction and relationships with other people, ideas, objects and symbols.

As I thought about the many art projects that my KPAS students love I realized that most of them were my ideas.  I would introduce a project, present the materials (many times pre cut or sorted), I would show an example and use a wonderful piece of literature to further inspire their project.  For our newest project.  I took down our KPAS tree farm display and left a blank wall for over a week.  The children kept asking me "what will we make next?"  "Are we making a new project?"  "What will it be?"  Every time my answer was the same..."I am not sure!"  "We will have to figure something out."  I was amazed at the immediate shock on their faces...they were ready for me to present them with the newest art project.  Over the next week as we enjoyed play and inquiry, talked about our classroom, the changing weather, the idea of creating one big group display on our empty bulletin board a theme started coming to life.  My morning group became very interested in rainbows.  We read books about rainbows, talked about nature and what weather creates rainbows.  We looked around our classroom and found several visual examples of rainbows and we discussed the pattern of rainbows.  The morning group was adamant that they wanted to create a rainbow display.  I found this to be wonderful but reminded them that we needed to discuss this with the afternoon group because it is their classroom too.  

My afternoon group was thrilled with the idea of rainbows but they had a different idea for its creation.  My morning group wanted to use paints and markers to create the rainbow and my afternoon group wanted to use glue and paper.  I asked the question "can we do both?"  The afternoon group was thrilled at that idea but to my surprise my morning group did not like the idea of using such mixed media...however they instantly agreed that they too wanted to use glue and paper and not their original idea. 

Our rainbow is coming to life and is so happy.  The students have taken full ownership over this creation and have even added a water color sky that is such a wonderful touch.  

Very quickly the students were very focused on ripping paper, gathering glue sticks and adding some "shine."  I set out baskets for the project and they quickly filled and organized their colors...a job I typically would have taken on for past projects.  

During one clean up time I looked around the class and noticed...there was only one space that needed cleaning...our bulletin/project board space.  I was amazed to see that the sand table, the blocks, the kitchen are and our puzzles were all perfectly untouched!  Our bulletin board collaboration has brought us together as a stronger group sharing ideas and working together.  KPAS has been so excited to add new details and hear the rips of paper each day and have worked together as an ENTIRE group to create a truly student driven piece of work!  It has been so inspirational to step back, listen to the students and hear their ideas.  The difference in their level of excitement is palpable.  My only role in this display has been to listen, provide materials that they ask for and to smile as they ask one another questions and marvel at their work!

I am excited for future collaborations between my morning and afternoon group.  The excitement between the groups has been amazing.  They enter the classroom excited and eager to see what new details have been added.  Stay tuned for our completed project...who knows what else we will add...ask your child what ideas they might want to bring forward!

PM KPAS Monday and Tuesday

We have been busy playing, sledding and building outside!  Tuesday's early morning rain made for the perfect snow to build a snowman!  We have been reading many stories about snowfall, snowballs and snowmen.  Everyone was so excited to learn that they could make a small snowball and roll it all around the playground and watch it grow!  We gathered rocks for the eyes and mouth, sticks for the arms and a carrot for the nose!  As an inside activity we began creating a perfect square collage inspired by Michael Hall's book Perfect Square.  Children were given a square piece of paper and encouraged to cut, rip, crumple and hole punch the shape.  With the new pieces they each created their own picture along with a story.  We are currently working on this project and our new bulletin board is taking shape...I love all of the creativity!  Please remember to pack your child a snack each day and a change of clothes.  The current weather is very unpredictable and many days our outdoor fun creates a lot of wet outerwear and sometimes leaks through.