WNESU Early Education Center

Thank you all for responding and confirming your child's attendance for the upcoming school year. All of our returning three-year-olds are enrolled at the sites and on the schedules their families chose.

There will be some paperwork closer to the summer, but everyone is all set for now.

We have opened preK enrollment to new students, if you know a family looking for preschool for next school year you can share this link with them: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfUsCJox33Xwf21bAeKP-GTPqyMDLb-a9mdVskX2wQoq-o5nA/viewform

For families of children who will be 5 by September 1st, kindergarten registration information will be coming home in early spring. And while the topic of kindergarten…

We try to wait until the very end of the year to start talking about kindergarten because it raises a lot of issues for some children. They are very comfortable in our cozy little Early Ed. Center. They know their teachers, their classmates, the routine, everything. For some children, kindergarten is this mysterious place out there and all they know is what it doesn’t have: No Kathleen or Lisa, no familiar routine-it won’t be preschool. Other children are just excited about this next step in their “growing up,” and can’t wait to get on with it. Both reactions, sometimes in the same child, are normal.

You can help by remembering that Kindergarten is 6½ months away- a really long time in your child’s eyes. Follow their lead; don’t keep trying to discuss it if they seem uninterested. And remember that some children feel ambivalent about growing up, so a lot of “you’re a big kid now” needs to be balanced with “I’ll always cuddle with you/read to you/take care of you/etc.”

If you have any questions or concerns about your child's readiness; if you want to share your excitement about Kindergarten or vent your worries, know that we are here to listen to you and support you and your child through this transition.

The pre-K team will be all together that day, taking advantage of an exciting opportunity to attend the Vermont Kindergarten/Early Education Conference. It will be a full day of training exploring science, technology, engineering, art and math for preschool learners!

We have been enjoying our outdoor classroom for the last few weeks. We have been learning how to gallop, participated in friend races, built make believe fire pits, skated on frozen mud puddles, tossed and kicked balls with partners and used the parachute. So much to be learned and enjoyed in the great outdoors!

Inside our classroom we have been reading and acting out lots of fairy tales. We particularly liked Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Little Pigs. We will be finishing this unit with a fairy tale mural that will hang out in the hallway at WCS. We also continue to work on our fine motor skills by signing in every Monday and Tuesday and making letters for our alphabet banners out of different materials. If your child is in their three year old year they will be taking their letters home as they make them. If your child is in their last year before Kindergarten, we will hold on to all the letters until the banners are complete and then they will go home.

Other important events that have happened in the last few weeks were "Hat Day" and "Wear Red Day". Your children really enjoyed sharing their funny hats from home! We will finish this unit by February break and when we return our next unit will be a book study.

You may have noticed how much space we have in the classroom for block building and how many kinds of building materials we have on our shelves. This is by design. Blocks are open-ended materials that stimulate young imaginations, provide choices for discovery and invention, and promote the development of problem-solving skills. Building with blocks helps develop young children’s eye-hand coordination, visual perception, and large and small motor skills. It builds self-confidence and provides opportunity for creativity and dramatic play. Children have to learn how to use the space and materials together, practicing important social skills like compromise, listening, and sharing.

Children have been exploring and practicing scientific and mathematical principles such as symmetry, balance, and gravity as they build. Like scientists, they are asking important questions: How can I make a really tall tower that stays up? What does it take to build a strong structure? How can a wall be strong and have a space for a door? How can I build an upstairs?

Blocks are engrossing and fun, of course. They are also invaluable tools for promoting children’s development on many fronts.

In Miss Kathleen's class, we have been exploring winter and all the fun that comes with the season of winter. We did some great mitten activities including mitten patterning and mitten match rhymes. We added M for Mittens to our letter gallery. When we explored snowflakes, we did some snowflake counting and built our fine motor skills by painting and cutting coffee filters to make paper snowflakes for our windows. We also added S for Snowflakes to our letter gallery which we made with our big snowflake paper punches. We did a science experiment with oil, water, white paint and alka-seltzer tablets as we created a snowstorm in a jar! We had fun with snowmen too! We finally got some actual snow that allowed us to create some adorable snowmen on our playground! Indoors we made snowmen with the letters in our names. After reading Snowmen at Night we created our own pages with our ideas of what our snowmen do at night after we go to bed. There were some very creative ideas! We made a giant hot chocolate mug with a 5 gallon bucket; we practiced our throwing skills by tossing hardened marshmallows into the mug. It was so much fun! We also used real (hardened) mini marshmallows to practice counting and quantifying with hot chocolate number mats. We finished our unit by adding H for Hat to our letter gallery on HAT DAY! We had so much fun wearing our hats in school!

No matter how compliant a child is, there will be times when he does not want to put on his socks or when she refuses to pick up her toys. As young children develop, they begin to understand that they can make their own decisions. And occasionally they make a power play at an inconvenient time.

While a power play can be frustrating for the adult who is trying to get the child to do something, it is a healthy part of children's social/emotional development. These incidents help children develop a stronger sense of self and the capability to set their own limits.

We adults need to react appropriately. In many instances, trying to force the child to do what he has said he will not do escalates the situation into a full-blown power struggle.

Try offering assistance instead. For example, you might say, "You can put on your socks by yourself or can help you this morning." Or, "I could help you put away your toys. Would you like that?" Or offer choices. "OK, you don't want to wear these socks today. Would you rather wear blue ones or green ones?" "Let's see. Which would it be easier to start with, putting the blocks in this tub or putting the cars back in their case?" Power plays are simply a part of growing up. When handled by adults in a calm manner, they offer opportunities for children to develop self-esteem and self-control.