Hello Magnolia Families, 

It’s great to be back after Fall break! Here’s a short blog for the week for you to enjoy 🙂

The Treasure Library

Have you visited our new Treasure Library? Ask a Magnolia friend to show it to you next time you’re in the classroom! Our treasure library idea emerged from a popular interest in our classroom: collecting tiny treasures. It’s so fun to have collections of found objects, but there had been frequent confusion about what constitutes a “treasure” vs. someone else’s special belongings, or materials that live here at school. So, in the spirit of “following the child” (shoutout to Maria Montessori) we created a Treasure Library! Friends are invited to place small treasures they find on the shelf, hold onto one for the day, then return it to the shelf. Just like at a real library: we take care of the treasures then return them! So far this week, treasures have been collected, displayed, borrowed and returned.

“e” is for Ethan, Emily, egg and eel…

“e” is a funny letter that sometimes makes an “eeeee” sound like in eel, or an “ehhh” like elephant. Take a look around your home and see how many things start with the “e” sound! Here are some tray activities that support the children in letter formation, initial sound and identification.

Fun with Teddy Bears

When we returned from Fall Break, we asked our teddy bears what they were up to without us here. Some had a tea party, played in the dramatic play corner, made art in the art area and played the piano. Sounds like they were pretty busy. They almost all made it back to the teddy bear shelf- except for two! We had a big mystery to solve here- for one whole day we searched high and low for the missing bears. The next day, teachers discovered the bears hidden deep into the small rug holder. When we wondered who must have had the idea to put them there, a Magnolia friend gleefully exclaimed, “me!” 🙂 We made sure to remind all friends that our teddy bears are special and if we hide them, they could get lost which would be sad. We agreed we would take good care of our teddy bears.

We also started creating our Teddy Bear Books. Every so often, we create a page for our book. This week, we made a portrait of ourselves with our teddy, and also made a page that is all about our names.

Around Magnolia

Every so often, we will post a video of clips we’ve taken over the week/s. It’s a fun way to see how the children interact with eachother in different ways 🙂

♥ Emily.Mitra.Darius