Friday, February 24, 2023

2/23/2023

Fun in the Sun

We took advantage of the amazing temperatures on Thursday and spent a lot of time outside. We brought painting and weaving to the outdoor studio and invented some new games with balls and hoops.

Thinking about Diversity

We would like to thank the families who joined us last night to think together about approaches to challenging questions. Erica Thompson shared some strategies for listening and responding when children bring their questions regarding diversity to adults.
   1. Listen
   2. Repeat back/ ask the question again
   3. Think together
   4. Share facts
If you're not sure how to respond, it's fine to say "I don't know." Take time to think about what sparked their curiosity and circle back with your carefully considered answer.

These are two books that Erica recommended during our discussion. Our school also has a solid collection of book related to diversity. Please feel free to reach out to one of us if you would like recommendations.

In KW, we presented something we call the "Family Game." Children are given many images of adults and children of different ages, abilities, and skin colors. They select cards and form a "family" with the people represented. Here's some of the configurations that they formed.

Remy "There's a mom and dad with 3 children. The cousins with another mm and dad and grandma and grandpa."

Lily "Mom and dad, older sister and younger sister."

Seon "This family has a lot of kids."

Cape "I have four children in this family. A mom, a dad, and four children."

Lucas "There's a sister and brother, a mom and a dad, and a grandpa and grandma."

We noticed that the children didn't focus on skin color as they formed these families. We asked them to talk about how they made their decisions.
   Remy - I took people that looked the right age. This girl is cute and she even has earrings.
   Lucas - I just scrambled through the pictures and thought, "This one looks like a dad," or, "This one looks like a mom."
   Seon - There's three daddies and two mommies and one grandfather and one grandmother. I just picked people that looked nice.
Cape - I picked children who looked good and the mom and dad looked nice.

Friday Fun!

It was another beautiful day outside. We continued our ball and
hoop game with great success!

We had a great time inside as well. There was a Friday traffic jam:
Cal - There's so much traffic in Planet Pink!
Ford - So much traffic! It all combined.
Ellie _ We're stuck in traffic and we can't get out. Right, Zari?
Zari - Yeah!
Ford - I had super speed so I escaped from the traffic

Stickers and Small World

The children spend a good portion of each day making messages for teachers, family members, and friends. They love to include stickers in their messages. Based on this interest, we combined stickers with drawing in a studio experience. Mimi worked diligently to complete the whole process!
Of course, children spent time developing their small world scenarios!