The grades children are busily and happily working on many wonderful lessons as we move from Winter into Springtime! Please enjoy this peek into the grades curriculum!
First Grade, Miss Varasteh–Now that the students have collected every letter in the alphabet and have practiced what each one looks and sounds like, it’s time to put them to use! In first grade, writing gives way to reading, and the students are drawing images from the fairy tales they hear, as well as writing details from the stories. Recently, the class took home a hand-made “mini book” that featured illustrations from the beginning, middle, and end of “The Three Spinners,” as well as their own writing of what they recalled most vividly. In this way, the children engage their thinking in sounding out words, feeling in illustrating the colorful scenes from the story, and willing in gathering all these inspirations and putting them down on paper. First grade parents: if your child hasn’t already shared with you, ask them to read their writing to you! They’ll most likely do so with gusto as they feel such ownership over their work!
Movement, Mr. Coady & Miss Jennifer–The children are enjoying many beloved games in Movement class! A description of each game follows:Goblins who are attempting to invade the village. Villagers must take turns running around the village wall (parking lot circle) carrying the magical ring of light to prevent the goblins from entering. The ring of light must never cease moving in order to maintain its magic. This requires that the next villager in line to receive the magic ring begin running at just the right time and just the right pace to execute the pass off of the ring while both are in motion (as a relay race). But the goblins have their own blue ring of darkness. They gather on the opposite side of the circle and pass off their ring to one another as they circle the village wall as well. If the goblins catch the villagers, the magical ring of light will lose its power. This game provides an exhilarating opportunity to develop speed, endurance, and full body coordination along with cooperation and many cheers!
The children are given a striped strip of cloth to tuck into their belt loops and transform into pesky raccoons who are wreaking havoc on the forest. Two Wood Sprites teach them a lesson by stealing their tails. This twist on the traditional tag game develops awareness of the raccoon’s backspace and offers a challenging moving target to hone the Wood Sprites’ hand-eye coordination.
A circle is drawn on the pavement to represent a nest. A mama bird is chosen to stand over her (bean bag) eggs and protect them from the crows. The mama bird simply touches the crows with her wing and the crow must drop the egg in place. The crows succeed when they carry an egg beyond the nest’s parameters. Protecting her eggs is no easy task with so many thieving crows flying around! This fast-paced game full of laughs and howls develops a myriad of physical skills while also strengthening emotional resilience, confidence and autonomy. It is a timed exercise, giving mama birds the central stage to beam with pride when counting the eggs they have successfully protected.
Nature Stories and Therapeutic Arts, Ms. England–
Throughout the winter season, the tales told in our Nature Stories class have focused on counting our blessings and acts of kindness. Some of them involved a bird that dominates the landscape of Oklahoma at this time of year. The sleek black body and loud caws of the crow stand in stark contrast to the gray skies, snow covered ground, and quiet chill of the winter months. The First Grade heard a Polish fairy tale about an injured crow (actually an enchanted prince) who felt blessed by a princess willing to endure trials and hardship in order to return him to his human form. The Second/Third Grade listened to an Inuit tale about how the crow agreed to go on a long journey and return with sunlight for the People, after they convinced him of what a blessing this would be on their way of life. We folded crows out of paper, learned an American Indian string game called crow’s feet, and made pine cone bird feeders for our feathered friends.
In our Therapeutic Arts class, copper rods were introduced and received with great acclaim. Activities with these rods serve the developmental needs of grade school students in a number of ways. This season we have used them to exercise the physiology that supports writing and reading skills (forearm and fine motor dexterity). In First Grade we learned a verse to recite while holding the rods shoulder height, raising each finger singly, and rotating our hands in rhythm to the verse. Ask them to teach you! A light broom can work just fine. It’s more difficult than you might think!
The Second/Third Grade exercised the same muscles and practiced harmonizing their breathing rhythm in a partner activity where they mirror each other and raise their arms, allowing the rods to roll down slowly to their necks, all while singing a beautiful song from the Scottish tradition. In both classes we used the rods to help dissolve the horizontal midline barrier (the imaginary line at our waist that allows us to coordinate arm and leg movements), pretending the rods were seeds to plant, fruits to harvest, and dishes to set on the table or wash in the sink.
Our vestibular (balance) sense tells us where we are in relation to the world around us. It is the sense that allows us to come to inner and outer rest and attend during focused activities, like those that take place in a classroom. During the winter season, much of nature sheds its outer glory and draws into itself, nurturing its inner essence while awaiting the return of warmth in spring. Our sensory organ for balance lies just about as internally tucked away as you can get in our bodies – the three semicircular canals within the inner ear. This Winter we have taken nature’s lead and honed this deeply inner sense through a series of balance exercises that take place approximately twenty minutes apart: we balance like a stork, slowly raising our knee to greet our nose while reciting a stork poem (with each side – we don’t want to forget one side and walk in a funny fashion the rest of the day!); we lean forward and back for about five seconds each, keeping our backs as straight as possible without arching our pelvis; we turn slowly around for ten seconds with our eyes closed and see if we can end up in the same place we started. Adults can also benefit from this and your children love to be teachers. Ask them to teach you the stork poem and see if you can balance without needing to touch anything around you!
Spring is in the air, so we are now spending more time outside with more space to move around and new therapeutic art activities to carry us through the end of the school year.