Dr. King, Night Animals, & Lunar New Year Part I

❄️ ⛄Over the past couple weeks we have seen a rise in imaginative play and desire for stories, both as read alouds from books and oral storytelling ⛄❄️

Updates/Reminders

Friday, 2/7 Japanese New Year mochi making at the UAC
February 17-21 Mid-Winter Break-No School; Childcare available for ExDay eligible children with sign-up
Please return any laundered Caterpillar underwear that your child may have borrowed, thank you!

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Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we heard a story about Dr. King and threw him a birthday party! Julianne helped us make a big paper cake with candles and beautiful memorial collages. Dr. King has a very long name and practiced saying it together. Some friends came up with a song reciting “Dr. King” over and over to a beat. We got to see illustrations of him from when he was a tiny baby and the things he liked to do with his big sister and little brother when he was a child. Apparently he was quite the prankster. We also learned that there were rules called laws that didn’t allow Dr. King to play with children with lighter skin whose ancestors were from Europe because he had darker brown skin and ancestors from Africa and how sad that made him and how unfair that was. We heard how Dr. King used his superpowers of having a big strong voice that made people listen and so much love to share his messages of kindness and fairness. And that he and so many other people marched and held signs reminding and demanding that people be fair and kind. We learned that people still gather, march, and hold signs to demand those very same things. We baked him a chocolate birthday cake, sang him happy birthday, and had a dance party to Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday,” in Dr. King’s honor. Fun fact: Stevie Wonder says happy birthday to Dr. King in the song!

Night Animals

Night Animals quickly became a class favorite. Many friends recite the story themselves as they flip through the pages. We added a night animal themed small world bin with working flashlights. The animals have been used to retell the story and make up new stories. And the flashlights have been fun to use to illuminate all sorts of things. Owl Babies continues to be a favorite, with the baby owls and mama owl coming out to play.

Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year took place on Wednesday, January 29th this year on the new moon. We’ve begun our dive into the various traditions of many Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese people in the diaspora. Books have been vital showing us the many ways people prepare for the new year and celebrate. The light table has turned into a tray of togetherness, a tray, typically with 6-8 sections, filled with candied fruits and other sweets found both in Chinese and Vietnamese traditions. Traditional foods and artifacts that are found in many Chinese celebrations have been available to interact with: a gong, chopsticks, lycee, mandarin oranges, long life noodles, fireworks. Lanterns are available to color and all around the classroom are colors often found on lion dance lions: red, yellow/gold, orange, and green. We moved our bodies like the lion dancers after watching a short video of them and dragon dancers. We made dragon hand kites and flew them around the berm. There’s was lots of “ROARing.” We’ve been enjoying singing Miss Katie’s “The Story of Nian” song with puppets as well, We’ll continue our celebrations into next week with a ECC-wide Outside Time Lunar New Year celebration and learning more about the animals of the zodiac and a cooking project.

Art with Julianne

Julianne helped us make a big birthday cake and memorial collages for Dr. King. They have served as visual reminders of the holiday, inspiring the Dr. King song at lunch.