Welcome Back Parents!

We made it outside! Fresh air, wide open space and plenty of opportunity for gross motor activity. The children could not be more delighted about it.

Here are a couple of video snippets of their reaction to the trains passing by.

TRAIN!

ANOTHER TRAIN!

Exploring Culture and Celebrating Diversity

Celebrating diversity and exploring culture in the toddler environment is achieved in many ways. We celebrate many holidays, which is a good way for teachers and children to become acquainted with different cultures. We most recently celebrated the Lunar New Year with books, decorations, work in the art area and a dumpling tasting. Our goal is to reach far beyond scheduled holidays and actively create a space that is naturally diverse. We achieve this through the curriculum via books, music, art, continent work and a variety of language work.

Continent work is fully present in our classroom. Continent boxes serve as part of this curriculum. In each of these boxes there are a variety of objects including textiles, photos and animals that hail from each continent. Most recently, the Asia box was added to our language area. Next stop, Africa!

You may have heard or will soon hear some of these lyrics. This is our continent song:

Oh continents, continents 

Do you know the continents?

Continents, continents all around the world 

There’s Asia and Africa, 

North America, South America, 

Australia, Antarctica, and Europe too!

The Earth and continents in general are fairly abstract concepts for toddlers to grasp. The globe and nesting Earth work provide a bit of a concrete reference for them.

One of the children’s favorite songs is The Wheels on the Bus. We all know that one I’m sure. A new take on this song is a book titled The Wheels on the Tuk Tuk by Kabir Sehgal and Surishtha Sehgal.

This is a song book that is performed to the same tune of The Wheels on The Bus. The big difference here is that it is a tuk tuk instead of a bus and the setting is Asia. Tuk tuk is a taxi that can be found in Thailand and other neighboring areas of Asia. Vehicles of all kinds are a big hit in our classroom right now. The children see Septa buses, trucks, cars and school buses pass by our window everyday. This is a lovely way for the children to become acquainted with a mode of transportation on the other side of the world.

Auction Project Update

Take another look at our auction project! We are nearing completion. Diversity plays a huge factor here. Our project is an intentional and clear reflection of each and every one of your children. Each child created a portrait of themselves. Here are some of the completed portraits.

Parent Ed Night Rewind

The toddler teachers recently hosted an evening event all about vegetable soup. 

We kicked off the workshop with circle time. Then demonstrated the steps that your children go put into practice when making soup, including scrubbing, peeling, cutting and cleaning vegetables. This is a behind-the-scenes look at the toddlers preparing the soup that was served that evening.

Follow the link below for some detailed info on how you can try this at home with your toddler.

Here’s the recipe: VEGETABLE SOUP

Three Special Visits

We had a few written and verbal requests from neighbors to visit our classroom. One sibling from Anne Ascherio’s class, one friend from Primary ADM and one of our former toddler students currently enrolled in the Lower Elementary classroom. They each joined us and spent some time with the toddlers during the morning cycle. 

March Events

Friday, March 1st- School Closed Parent Teacher Conferences

Friday, March 8th- School Closed Parent Teacher Conferences

Friday, March 15th- School Closed Professional Development

Monday, March 25th through Friday, March 29th- GTMS Spring Break

Warm regards,

Liz, Alexis and Cherise