Vegetables, Bathrooms, Visitors, Newsletter Delay

Dear Families,

Soup Please remember that it works best when children bring soup vegetables on Monday or Tuesday. The children and I prepare the vegetables for Wednesday's soup at the end of the morning on Tuesday. I know they are not in season yet, but carrots remain extremely possible (do, please, send in greens from your garden once they are ready).

Bathrooms Children, young and old, girls and boys, seem to be making many more requests to use the bathroom at times other than "official" bathroom boat times. Kim and I have not shifted the schedule, and I have no hypothesis about why children might be feeling the urge to go more. In any event, I set up the nursery rhythm and classroom to allow Kim to attend to the individual needs of children in the bathroom. I am not recommending any changes at home--except, perhaps, to send your thanks to Kim for spending so much time in the bathroom with the children.

First Grade Visitors "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids" has been just the right story at the right time for some of the children in our class, and it also provides a challenge for some of the other children in our class. Kim and I have been creative in working with this, and I strive to find solutions that help everybody. I thought it would be healthy for our group to share the experience of hearing the story with the first graders (kindergarten would also be good, but the size of the kindergarten group makes asking first grade much more practical), who will take in the story in a different way. On Tuesday, at 10am, the first graders will join us for a special telling of "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids." This should be nice for the first graders (many of whom experience me in a different mode in after care) and for our nursery children--especially because Kim's daughter is in first grade, and our nursery children show an interest in Juliana's class. If I judge it to be a success, I will invite first grade to join us again on Wednesday.
I will write more of the value of fairy tales (as well as looking at gender roles in tales) next week. In the meantime, here is a pdf of an article about the value of fairy tales, with a few sentences about "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids." This pdf is not that easy to read, and I am posting a copy outside the classroom.

Newsletter Kim Dunkley, Dyanne, and I are making final plans for the last day(s) of school, and we are holding our newsletters until we have clarified that final Wednesday. Expect a newsletter next week.

With warmth and light,

William Dolde