The children have been engaging in essential community work. We have discussed the importance of noticing and celebrating the many different layers of one's self. The children have engaged in this work through the sharing of birthdays, names, interests, and celebratory portraits.
1. When's my Birthday?
We built our birthday calendar. Children designed their birthday sign and then we noticed similarities and differences. We connected this community work to our counting and cardinality learning targets, asking and answering math questions; How many birthdays in the month of September? Which month has the most birthdays? Which month has the least?
2. My Name is an Important Word!
The children further explored their names by representing each letter using clay. This experience connected to past name work and encouraged the development of fine motor skills. When providing opportunities to pinch a material, such as clay, we are supporting pencil grip. Later we connected our "pinch trick" with our writing tools to how we pinch clay.
3. I like to...
We have been sharing our interests by playing a getting-to-know-you game during our morning meeting! This game encourages the children to answer questions, make connections, and engage in conversation; supporting the development of speaking and listening skills. This is also a fun way to practice recognizing "how many" dots quickly and fluently and practice counting forward on a game board- we say one number name for each jump.
What's YOUR best dance move?
Our community work is not limited to one experience or one way of sharing and celebrating. There are layers to this work, because we have layers. As children engage in self exploration and discovery, we begin to notice our differences- all of our important and powerful details.
The children drew two drafts of their self-portraits, because writers practice and grow stronger. We introduced whiteboards and mirrors. The children looked closely at their details, noticing the lines and shapes they needed to represent. We read the art story, ish, to help us remember that our first draft will look you-ish.
We then drew again, using pencil. We engaged with teaching and storybooks celebrating differences. The children talked about the parts of themselves that they want to celebrate in their self-portraits; my hair, my eyes, my shoulders, my freckles.
During our Kindergarten Open House in August you shared three words to describe your child. We read your words to the children on Friday and they cut out their words to include with their portraits. This was a valuable part of our process. We read each child's three words and discussed meaning. Many children connected with the words, agreeing that a friend is kind or that yes, I am a nature-lover!
Towards the end of the year the children will draw another self-portrait and they will think of their own three words.
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