ST. JOHN'S PRESCHOOL - Children\'s Workshop 2025-2026

Table Setting Moments

Fri, 22 May 2026 15:53:00 GMT

"I made a rainbow train." -Theo

Bird Headbands

A whimsical repurposing and translation of egg cartons to bird headbands! We love them and the children adore wearing them! They all have so much personality and the children genuinely cannot wait to take them home!

Acknowledging one more week of table setting, and loving every moment together. <3 Have a splendid long weekend!

Homemade Paper and Self Portraits!

Fri, 22 May 2026 13:53:33 GMT

Homemade Paper with seeds

This week, the CW children were so excited to make homemade paper infused with wildflower seeds.
Theo said - " It's going to make beautiful flowers"
Betsy - " It's going to make beautiful paper we can plant"
Leo - " It's kind of fun like making a rainbow"
Susan - " It's kind of funner than making a rainbow!"

First we are mix the wildflower seeds with the paper pulp

Then, when the seeds are fully incorporated into the paper pulp, we flatten it on a mesh screen

The children are pressing the excess moisture out of the paper pulp to create a flat piece of paper

Once the paper is dry, we will cut it into small pieces and take it home to plant and watch it grow!

Self Portraits

This week in CW, we continued to work on our self portrait, so every CW child has drawn his self portrait, while others continued to develop their drawing skills.

Tommy drew his first self portrait

Max loves to draw his self portrait with his flower shirt

Tommy's self portrait

Max' s self portrait ( I am ready for a hug!)

Betsy

Betsy decided to draw her self portrait unclothed

Elizabeth

Lucy

Sander

Sander is paying close attention to the details on his face

Thomas

Thomas - " Hey wait a minute, I have hair on my forehead!"

Max

Max worked very hard on drawing his tee shirt

Jake

Maeve

Sewing Circle

Some of our CW children absolutely LOVE cross stitching!! they have created a sewing circle and they love to sit together and cross stitch

Small World is Back

This week the children were so so excited to have Small World back

Leo's small world with Moana characters

Susan's small world is all about family, uncles, and babies

Gus's small world

This guy is working and drinking coffee (Gus)

Leo

Sander

Gigi's intricate small world

Construction Area

Theo loves to build airplanes in the construction area and take his friends on far away trips

Table Setting Moments and More

Fri, 15 May 2026 19:29:50 GMT

Enjoy the weekend!

Self-portraits and Finding Rainbows to Making Rainbows...

Tue, 12 May 2026 15:17:55 GMT

Self Portraits

We love working with children on their self portraits at St John's. It is also a wonderful tool to measure growth in children's skills throughout their time here.

Monday

On Monday, Eva started to work with the children on their self portrait

Elizabeth

Gigi

Lucy

Betsy

Lily

Tuesday

Camila

Susan - " I want to draw myself as a baby!"

Dru - " I have green eyes"

Gus was working very hard to draw many details he noticed on his face and said " I have lots of eye lashes! and my smile is wicked!"

Wednesday

Henry tried several shade od hair color before finding a perfect matching one. Lily said - " I want to draw the red bow in my hair"

Henry

Lily is helping Henry finding the right "hair" color he needed

Lily

Leo was very interested in watching how Max draws his portrait

Max spent a fair amount of time drawing his flower shirt and his bird headband.

Thursday

Elizabeth, Max, Leo, and Lucy worked on their portraits together

Elizabeth made several drafts before getting her eye lashes the way she wanted it.

Elizabeth's portrait

Lucy was excited to draw her second portrait and noticing that her ears also had sink on and her hair was so "flowy" and long.

Max was excited to draw another portrait of himself, this time wearing a blue flower shirt!

Chasing Rainbows at School

Betsy and Lily are catching real Rainbows in the hallway

Blue Stripes

The children mixed different shades of blue to dye the fabric stripes

Yellow Stripes

The children mix different shades of yellow

Indigo and Violet AKA Purple!

What colors do we need to make Indigo and Violet, AKA Purple? Red and Blue, the children loved mixing red and blue to create several shade of purple!

"We love it !! Now we have to make pink stripes " - Betsy

Betsy and Elizabeth - "We have to make pink because we always use pink when we draw rainbows at school"

Pink

According to Betsy and Elizabeth, the best part about dying fabric is the clean up part!
Betsy said - "Teachers are so lucky because they get to do the washing, that's my favorite chore"

Have a wonderful and colorful weekend!!

Happy Thoughts: "A Rainbow House is Happy" - Lily

Tue, 05 May 2026 20:15:41 GMT

Let's make a Rainbow!

First, let's dye the Red and Orange fabric stripes

Lily said - " I love to walk through the wet fabric stripes". This picture reminded me of the work of art by Bulgarian artist Christo Yavacheff and French artist Jeanne-Claude.

The Making of the Yellow Stripes

Lily mixed yellow watercolor and yellow acrylic paint to dye the fabric

The Making of the green Stripes

Max said when he came to CW - " Brigitte, today we are making green (stripes) then tomorrow blue YaY !!because blue comes after green right?" The children used different type of green dye to color the fabric

Construction Area

This week, Gus and Henry turned the construction area into a jet and they were flying to Japan

Quite a few friends wanted to take part in the expedition!

Wire, Buttons and Beads

This week, the CW children added the final touches to the New Children 's Welcome Message Box! It was a very tedious work, but the children persisted and did a fantastic job!

Cross Stitching Club

We love cross stitching in CW

Dru made a flower ! she cross stitched the flower first then she cross stitched the stem and attached them together. Betsy made a cross stitch piece for Tate and decided to make it into a "cross stitch necklace", Tate absolutely adores her new necklace!

Small Group Activity

Melanie made fun bird headbands with the children

Table Setting Moments

Have a wonderful Weekend!

Celebrating Big and Small Moments

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:44:51 GMT

We love to go on trips!

Theo built an airplane and insisted on taking Brigitte on a trip to France and then to California! " Brigitte come sit at the back of my plane" - Fun. Jake said "I am a snake guy", so watch out for him on the plane!! Susan and Leo also came along on this fun adventure. We had a little bet of turbulences due to a storm but Theo stayed in control at all time!

Another Day Another Trip!

Theo - " Brigitte come sit at the back of my plane. We are going to Japan, we are taxing right now, then we have to go on four planes! there's a storm, so buckle up"

The Tug of war between the Tuckers and the Raineys was fierce!

It all started with three Tucker friends against two Rainey friends, but other Rainey friends joined in solidarity!

Helping Brown Room with dying fabric stripes was fun

Our Brown room friends were dying stripes of fabric in the outdoor classroom and left some blank stripes and watercolors for the CW children to also enjoyed the process.
Max: "Can we do more tomorrow?"

More planned trips in the classroom

Thomas and Theo came up with a fantastic plan to go to Candyland, they will get there by driving a kid jeep, and nobody can stop them. Of course when they get there , they will only eat candy!! how fun!

Theo and Thomas are planning their fun trip to Candyland, then they drew their ideas

Theo drew him with Thomas and the gingerbread man

Thomas drew the king of Candyland, which is made out of candy

Theo drew three gingerbread men from candyland

Puppy Training School

This week, some of our CW friends decided to create a puppy training school.

Elizabeth was the puppy trainers and Betsy was a well behaved puppy

A little visit to the doctor's office seems mandatory in CW

Susan ; "Last call for Florida, Last call for Florida! we are leaving Jake, Last call!"

Light Table Work

This week the children enjoyed drawing on transparent strips to create a story

Elizabeth completed her beautiful flower garden

Dru

Elizabeth

Betsy

Henry and Gus

Gus

Henry

Gus's great "Gum"story

Message Center, Collages, and More...

Tommy - " I am going to keep it here everyday until it's finished"

Dru filled every single square

Dru worked on an elaborate collage

Elizabeth made a drawing of her and her friends

Leo : " That what baby Marco looks like" (his baby brother)

Leo ; " This is my building, and my apartment is in this building, I broke the fire place with a toy!"

Lucy and Gus are telling each others funny stories

Theo drew a picture of his Pasha

Sander made a long message

Henry made an interesting message

Lily was working on creating masks

Lily choose to turn this one into a mask

Thomas drew his self portrait to add to his school portrait now that he is officially in CW

Still cross stitching!! YES

Some CW children are still excited about cross stitching!

Yay !!Gus is starting a cross stitch

And Maeve just finished hers

I am making the longest line - Sander

Sander was wondering if he could make a line out of cubes longer than the low table, and he did as Tommy confirmed

A Bit of Watercolor and Tempera for Springtime Things

Repurposing some different materials - strips of air filter woven with pipe cleaners, we gave these "flowers" a pop of color!

Repurposing egg cartons and valuing the density of their paper composition, Max saw what we hoped would be imagined - a bird - or in Max's words: "It's looks like a duck!" So we got the tempera colors of his choice and got to work painting the bird. Betsy soon joined and much later, Maeve voiced interest. We'll keep working on the birds and flowers for spring.

Table Setting Moments

Come and Get Me...

Sharing the CW video with the children at the end of CW today. They had fun watching the "long" movie.

Thank you for your presence at our CW presentation this morning! We know many of you were unable to attend and we missed having you in there. We love that we were able to spend so many CW days with your child.

What is happening to Spring?

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:26:34 GMT

The CW children are thinking about Spring, they noticed new bugs in the outdoor classroom, new flowers growing, more birds flying around. They are also confuse about the weather, which seems like a battle between Winter, who doesn't want to leave and Summer who wants to rush in. So, we are all patiently waiting for Spring to show up with its milder temperatures and more enjoyable weather!

Maeve's beautiful spring flowers

Elizabeth 's beautiful"Welcome Spring" sign

Monday - CW is in the Middle Room

On Mondays, we have CW in the Middle room while the St John's staff gather in the Tucker Room for staff meeting.

Maggie is reading a book while the table setters, Betsy and Gigi, set up the table for lunch.

Celebrating Spring on the Light Table

This week, the CW children traced DC birds on the light table and more spring flowers

Betsy is very happy with her work

Camila traced daffodils

Camila traced a patch of flowers

Theo is carefuly tracing tulips

Elizabeth, Camila, Betsy, and dru are working on the light table

Tommy is tracing tulips

Theo is tracing a morning Dove

Theo is very proud of his work

Betsy traced two kinds of spring flowers

Drew wanted to trace tulips

Maeve and Lily are working at the light table

Maeve traced a red robin

Lily worked really hard to trace a blue Jay and then added all the details

Lily 's drawing of a blue jay

Working on our Self-Portrait

Lily is paying attention to her face

Lucy is drawing her self-portrait

Lily is adding her body her self-portrait

Life in CW

After lunch, the CW children have the choice to either; draw on the light table, make messages, work on a puzzle, build in the construction area, play in the dramatic play area, play games, cross stitch, sew with beads and fabric on a sewing hoop, work on collages, or draw.

Max, Susan, Jake, and the baby are in the car on their way to Florida

Max, Susan, and Jake are playing a fun game together

Betsy and Elizabeth are working with Melanie on abstract collages (crayon wrappers and egg cartoons)

Dru, Gigi, Elizabeth, and Betsy are drawing and making messages at the low table

Dru and Leo are drawing together

Betsy found fun stickers and made a message for Cece

Leo is drawing a train

More collages work

Lucy, Max, and Leo are having fun playing together

"I am So excited to give my friend a message!"- Leo

Leo was so excited to give a message to his friend Theo who was working in the construction area

Camila, Sander, and Tommy are making messages

Dru, lucy, and Max are also working on messages

Construction Area

"We made a house for the animals" - Henry, Theo, and Maeve built a great building together

Table Setting Moments

Bon weekend!

Yeah !! More projects are being finished in CW !!

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:40:45 GMT

Persistence - Persistence - Persistence has been on our mind in CW!- Betsy and Elizabeth are so proud of themselves for finally finishing their very hard cross stitch projects that took many many weeks to complete. And, we are also very proud of them. Maeve is also working very hard on finishing her cross stitch project.

Super Proud Betsy

Super Proud Elizabeth

Hard Working Maeve

"And guess what?" Betsy said : "I want to start a new cross stitch , a small one for Brigitte to keep"

"We want to keep braiding" - Betsy, Elizabeth, Lily, Maeve

This week, Elizabeth, Betsy, Lily, and Maeve wanted to make another long colorful braid for their hair. What an amazing skill to have!

Betsy was showing her friends her little braid in her hair

"I want to learn how to braid too" - Jake, Dru, and Max

"Look, I made a Rainbow!" - Dru

This week, The CW children had the opportunity to sew beads and fabric on a piece of white fabric. Dru surprised herself when she added several beads on her needle and it created an arc, so she happily said, "Look Brigitte , I made a rainbow!" Dru kept on sewing and made several more rainbows!

Tommy loved adding pieces of fabric to his sewing

Theo was also interesting in sewing

Tracing Spring Flowers on the Light Table

Leo is tracing tulips

Construction and Games Areas

Lucy, Max, and Jake played chutes and ladders together

Theo added complexity by using a pair of tongue to pick up the very small sticks

Lucy is perched high like a bird!

Sander used a little boat to bring the small wood sticks to fill all the holes

Gus and Theo are also demonstrating Persistence while working on completing a puzzle

Dressing up or pretending to have a baby is also a fun part of our CW days (Theo - Lily)

We always love to draw in CW

Drawing together with all sort of drawing tools might be a favorite part of CW.

Tommy drew a little rainbow family and wrote his name.

We LOVE Exchanging Messages

Leo is making a message for Theo because Leo said: " Our names are almost the same, Leo-Theo" -

Leo is delivering his message for Theo

Sander is making a message for Leo

And, Leo is very happy to have a message from Sander

Table Setting Moments

Friday at the Park!

Enjoy the weekend!

Welcome to our new CW friend, Thomas

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:55:54 GMT

We were all super excited to have Thomas with us !

This week, Thomas joined the CW crew and he was very excited about it. His joy reminded us of the deep CW values of our strong sense of community, where Children are so excited to be table setters, eat lunch together, share stories, learn new things together, watch Brigitte dance the clean plate club song and have fun! CW is truly a heartwarming place. Thomas, your overwhelming joy really brighten our day! Thank you!

It's always exciting to be table setters and every Monday morning the children checked the CW attendance board as they are looking forward to their table setting days. Betsy made a message to Camila on Monday to let her know that's she is SO excited to be table setting with her on Friday.

Transition time between lunch and play

While everyone eat at their own rhythm, children trickled to the "puzzles table" when they are done eating. Puzzles offer some nice thinking skills, we also have some fun games that can turn into interesting play!

Lizzie and Betsy love to add stitches to her sewing projects after lunch, while both Susan and Leo made crowns with the "snap together" game

Paper folding for table setting

In CW, we always encourage our friends to finish their works, and we encourage everyone to give the new activity/experience a try. We will be using our paper folding composition as table center pieces

Learning to braid can be tricky!

Melanie found lots of pipe cleaners in the Tucker closet and thought children could practice their weaving or braiding skills with them. Then they also tried breading with cording and shoelaces.

Betsy said : "I am looking at Camila's braid to help me braid"

Construction

We love going up the ladder to add materials on top of our structure

Drawing

Susan loves to practice writing her name

Lucy is working on her self portrait

Free check ups are always available

Leo, Camila, and Gigi enjoyed playing doctors with the babies

Table Setting Moments

Have a wonderful weekend!

Hello Spring!

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 15:08:52 GMT

Bonding Over Shared Interests

Max came to school with his little stuff lamb and spent most his day bottle fed him, so Brigitte was happy to share her recent experience feeding a lamb!

Welcoming Spring..

We were all excited to come back to school and share our fun spring break memories. The children are so happy to have had such incredible weather this week.

Elizabeth drew spring and rain because the flowers need rain to grow. This inspired the other children to draw their version of spring!

Camila's spring

Dru's spring flowers

Max's interpretation of spring

Lili drew a dog enjoying the spring

Betsy's

Elizabeth also drew Betsy's spring house

Susan : "It's me and my daddy, and I have a baby in my tummy! and There's a cube for the baby"

Susan: "It's the Universe"

Paper Flolding

This week, we are working on our paper folding skills. The children are exploring this through folding paper in various spiral shapes and sticking them on the container lined with glue. They would observe and point out how the paper would move as it slightly unraveled once they let go. Throughout the week they have the opportunity to fill the negative spaces between the spirals with tissue paper, beads and buttons!

Susan is adding materials to the negatives spaces

Lily

Sander

Betsy

Dru

Maeve

Dru (2)

Susan

Tommy (in progress)

Camila (in progress)

Jake

Construction and Dramatic play Area are buzzing..

At the moment, we are offering small world as our table setting materials and as transition from lunch to classroom. Wonderful stories always emerged from playing with small world.

Susan used the clay luminaries as furnitures and one of the luminary's became a bath tub, where the daddy dipped his feet in for the children to wash.

Gus built a bar for his four cowboys, added chicken, ice in the middle of the bar, and a hot tub on the side!!

Jake, Max, and Leo went on their own fun adventure

Tommy and Sander's play were inspired by the recent rocket launch

Henry and Gus made magic potion in the mystery area

Gigi and Leo love to read books together

Cozy time at the end of the day!

Cross Stitching is still happening

Elizabeth, Tommy, Maeve, and Betsy are still enjoying cross stitching

Betsy : "How many more rows do I have to do?
Brigitte : " 9 more, you're almost there!"

About "Cross stitching" on a large scale? About learning to braid!

Which one goes faster? - Lily

On Thursday, Lily, Betsy, and Theo wanted to experiment with speed on the incline with mini skateboards and have races. After many repeated attempts, they learned that the placing of the skateboards determined the outcome of the race, here is a small sneak peek at their experience.

Our Table Setters this week...

On Monday, our table setters were Lily and Betsy, we had lunch in the middle room, and spring and Easter were highlighted

Tuesday was Gus and Lucy's turn to set up the tables

On Wednesday, Jake and Henry were our table setters

On Thursday, Sander and Max were our table setters
On Friday, Betsy and Lily volunteered to fill in for Gigi and Camila as table setters

Outdoor Fun

The CW children love to pretend to be horses, very fast horses!