Marylhurst Early Childhood Center

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There have been so many exciting things going on in the Two’s class this year!

The Two’s class embodies the idea of community. Children attend class once a week with their parent for a morning of fun activities and parent group time with Ann. This year’s classes have laughed and cried through shared parent discussion. This group time supports parents in their parenting challenges and successes. Some parents create relationships within their groups that last for many years outside of the Two’s classroom.

While parents share in group time, children spend time exploring the classroom. For some children, this is their first experience in a social setting outside of family. Our goal is to help them learn to trust others, while experiencing family support. We support children with gaining independence and to assert themselves in socially acceptable ways, but always remembering they are still two.

The schedule in the Two’s class provides for ample time of exploration. The environment is set up to allow the children time to explore freely, to make social connections with peers and to even experience a little risk-taking. The climbing structure in our room has become the “climb on top of me if you can”, risk-taking experience. Because we have a staggered age level in our classroom, some children are physically ready to climb on the outside of the structure and risk jumping off onto a mat. Younger children can be seen observing this play, not yet ready to make the leap. As the year progresses, more and more children attempt this challenge and more and more children succeed. Claps and cheers can be heard as children hold a teacher’s or parent’s hand for the leap on the mat.

Our schedule also provides time in the morning for parents to share in activities with their child. The first half an hour is designed for parents to experience art, dress a baby or pour sand together. This is a wonderful time for parents to value and reinforce their child’s play activities and encourage relationships with other classmates.

Snack time in the Two’s class is pretty much a feast. Parents provide snack for the adults and the children. You can usually smell the aroma of fresh baked coffee cakes and breads coming from our room. The children eat family style while Teacher Kim reads books or does finger plays. Their favorites this year are “The little old lady who swallowed a fly”, (children can never get enough of helping her eat a cow or spider) and the “5 little Monkeys swinging in a tree” with an alligator that sneaks up and snaps them out.

Next, is free choice exploration. This is a time when you might witness shaving crème on the table, or worms being examined and talked about. We also offer many painting, gluing, cutting and collage materials. All these activities are planned to help build fine motor muscles for later writing skills and to promote creative expression.

The end of our day closes with a fun circle time of singing and movement. Teacher Ann rocks her guitar while children drive cars with hoops, sing about kitties and birds or participate in color recognition songs like the newly added “Rainbow” song and hand puppets. When circle ends, children head to the gym with their parent for more large muscle building and socializing.

At this point in the year, older classes have become buddies with the Two’s to share in activities throughout the building. This is designed to help build the bridge of relationships and to ease transitions for children who will graduate to the Threes’s drop-off programs. We have been seen cooking in the kitchen with the Mice class, being an audience for the Bears “3 little pigs” play in the auditorium and classroom and soon, we may be marching through your child’s room in a musical parade. The fun never ends!

Each day in the Two’s class is an adventure built around family support and play. If you know anyone who has a two-year old by September 1st, 2010, let them know about the parent support portion of this class and the wonderful first social experience that their child can share in.

Kim Gilliam and Ann Brown

Two’s class teachers

The Turtle year is one of incredible growth and change. Many children enter our class in the fall never having spent time away from a parent. We begin the year navigating the stormy seas of first time separation. Often times this process seems to be more difficult for the grown-up than the child. We as Turtle teachers offer ideas, routines that are tried and true, as well as support to the parents and children to find out what strategies work best for each individual family. Success is achieved the day when the once reticent child enters the room without a good-bye or even a backward glance to the incredulous parent.

This year’s Turtles have made great strides moving from the “all about me” world to finding their unique place in our Turtle community and learning how they can make valuable contributions for the benefit of the whole. As this awareness of others grows, the children begin to question what the noises are in the space above us. They ponder what could be making those loud stomping sounds: could it be elephants, giants, or dinosaurs?

Children with older siblings quickly explain that the thumping above is coming from the Mice classroom. From the looks of confusion on many of the Turtles’ faces, we quickly deduce that a walking tour of the school is needed to discover the source of the commotion. We stop at each classroom door to meet teachers and friends from the “upstairs” world. The children realize the interesting noises are actually coming from the Mice class and that the class is filled with curious children such as themselves and not a group of very large rodents!

The Turtles have accomplished a great deal during their time in our class. During circle, they have learned how to raise a “quiet blinker” before sharing their ideas and how to patiently wait when someone else is taking their turn. (This is an on-going skill that we get to practice daily…it’s really hard to be patient when you’ve got something so exciting to share!) They are learning who the classroom experts are and who to go to for help with a specific problem. They are eager to teach their special skills to friends and they beam with pride when they can help a comrade accomplish a task. Learning how to ask a friend to join in an activity is another skill the Turtles are getting quite adept at. It is gratifying to hear the excited invitations to play that are called out to classmates as they enter the room for the day.

As the year comes to a close, we are often able to stand back and watch as the cooperative activities swirl around us. Many children are oblivious to our presence as they sort through the obstacles that come their way. Rarely do they need a teacher to model problem solving strategies for they have discovered they already hold the keys to successful interactive play. With the confidence they have acquired, we know that they are ready to leave us and move on to the challenges ahead, but seeing them go is always bittersweet. We look forward to watching them grow and mature as they continue on in our Marylhurst community.

Elizabeth Kortenhoff and Shawna Bennett

Turtles class teachers

The Bears teachers do not get to see a lot of parents because our classroom is downstairs in the “bear cave”. So we wanted to share all of the wonderful things we have been doing this year.

We started the year off with a lot of great ideas in the class, one of which took on a life of its own.  Cooking, as it turns out, was a huge interest and a whole lot of fun for everyone.  The children cooked and ate everything including bread, cookies, pizza, chili, spaghetti & chocolate candies; the list was endless.

They even had the experience of making their own special creations called “fake bake.”  It was so much fun to see them add their own ingredients into their bowl until they got it just right! Then off to the oven they went.  As you can imagine some of the children added a lot of sugar and they loved the taste, but some added a lot of salt and that got a whole different reaction.  So the cooking of their own concoctions invited them to use their palates to find out what they might have to change the next time.

Fake bake opens itself to so many wonderful learning opportunities. Mixing and measuring ingredients is a wonderful introduction to math. As the children develop their recipes, they dictate the ingredients in their recipes to the teachers. As the teachers document the children’s recipes, they see their words put to paper, a wonderful step to literacy.  We also used cooking ingredients to create art projects – yes – art projects.  The Bears loved seeing what syrup and watercolor do when they are mixed together and painted on paper.

We ended our cooking theme with a huge, and very successful family lunch. The children prepared food and we shared the day with the families of the Bears class.  We had moms, dads, grandmas and grandpas; the day was a cooking celebration! The children were so proud to show off what they had learned.

Cooking made way for the “Cupcake” general store, which was really fun.  The children brought in lots of different items from home for the store. The learning included how to stock shelves, identify and shop for groceries and how to bag the groceries and pay the cashier.   If some of them needed more money, they would simply print their own at the writing table. The grocery store experience is a wonderful connection between school and life out of the classroom.

We have now moved into learning where sound comes from and the big question is, “Can you see sound?”. The children have a lot of ideas on this subject. Come down and look on the walls outside of the Bears class where we have documented all these wonderful ideas.

For the remainder of the year the Bears class will be focusing on singing and acting. We will be taking a field trip to WLHS to hear the Symphonic Choir rehearse. This trip will expand our knowledge of collective sound and all the different vocal ranges. We have discovered quite a few budding entertainers in our class.  Exploring the stage and all the different ways their bodies can move, builds self-confidence. They have already been practicing two wonderful plays, which we will be expanding on and moving up to the stage area. Rehearsal time permitting, we hope to have an end of the year play by the Bears class.

This has been a fabulous group of children. They have learned about each other through thoughtfully playing together.  This has made us such a tight knit community.  As teachers we love watching them take care of each other, it is so sweet to see, and we are so proud of these little people. They have their differences, and there are plenty of those, but they are more than willing to talk about any grievances they may have and work them out. Their wonderful growth this year will help them so much as they transition next year, and throughout their lives. The Bears teachers are going to miss them greatly, and we want to thank all the parents for sharing them with us for the school year.

Bears class teachers,

Linda, Di, student teacher Marion, Cheri (from left to right)

As I prepared to write this article, I thought about how to summarize the many adventures we have embarked upon in the Raccoons class this year. The time we spent as the “Pirate Class” looms large in my memory… with our massive, home-made sailing ship dominating the dramatic play area, our ocean murals and great white shark surrounding the ship, the captain’s quarters and crow’s nest up above in the loft…

I wanted to describe how the theme of ocean exploration led us into many areas of study: the biology of ocean creatures, the physics of floating, the art of the seashell, and, of course, the legendary hero/villain character of the pirate. This was exciting material to work with – not only because of my own latent longing to go to sea, but because of the dialogue that developed between teacher and child…the theme of ocean exploration continued to emerge and branch out from the experience in the classroom.

I enjoy the philosophical exploration that comes out of our time with the children, as we reflect and process these experiences with our fellow teachers. However, we adults have a strong tendency to over-think just about everything. After a powerful presentation of a curriculum theme that was developed at the Opal School, I decided to use this space in the newsletter to share the story of the Raccoons class through the words of some of our children. These stories were collected as the children worked on a collage of paper ships and sea creatures on a cut-up ocean painting. What they communicate is much more imaginative, more interesting, and a lot more fun than any adult explanation. Enjoy.

“The pirate ship is a really, really big pirate ship and it needs to sail with the sail ship. It needs to go in the big waves and the river. There is a big, big, big pirate ship and it went up, up, and down, down. And it went away last time. Everything is bad if the ship is broken. When it was very little it was a car. It was yellow, orange, and blue.”… Mariano

“One day, a seahorse said, “I want to play hide-and-seek!”… Evan

“Boats are sailing on the water and then they go down and then they go back up and then they get swallowed up. They saw a boat and it got washed by the waves and then it got really washed away, then it got sinking, then it broke”… Jude

“These boats are all sailing to Oregon and they are buying some ducks and they want to get to the Ugly Duck Stadium”… Gracie

“Two pirates, a captain, and an old pirate were fighting. The good pirate fell off and the shark ate him. Then the pirate fought and the person who was good won. The old pirate died. All there was, was a bad pirate and he didn’t know where his crew was and he fell into the ocean and the shark ate him too.”… Masson

“All the ships are on a cruise and this one is crashing.”… Cameron

“These crabs are dancing. They are in a crab tank.”… Josh

“Ships are in the ocean and they got smooched by the stormy weather and they got back out by sailing to the other side and it went into a house and that’s it.”… Oliver

“The ships are floating on a storm ocean. After the strom the ships begin to sink.”… Nathan

“These boats are sailing to Antarctica. When they get there, they are going to find some penguins.”… Milo

“The whale is saying to the shark, “You can’t catch me!” The sting ray is trying to get away from the shark, but his tail can sting! The octopus has eight arms. The seahorse is going up and down. They’re hanging out in the ocean.”… Morgan

Dana, Samantha and Carrie

Raccoons class teachers

The liveliness and uniqueness of the MECC community is experienced by most of you when you drop your children off at 9am and then again when you pick them up at noon or 1, to sing goodbye. As you set off to continue your day Read the rest of this entry »