Here we go!

This is my classroom, empty but for me and the tables and toys that we boxed up last June so the floors could be waxed for September. I always find this time of year exciting, anticipating the new projects, the ideas we will explore and the growth that the children will make. Soon the children will have filled the library with pillows and blankets to make "nests" to read in comfort. If my room was larger I would like to have a dinghy for them to fill with pillows, blankets, soft animals and books, using their imaginations to take boat trips with their favorite authors such as John Burningham or Percy the Park Keeper.

As the year progresses, paper garlands will loop across the ceiling made cooperatively as they learn to snip, glue, share, wait, help each other and take turns. Preschool is very serious when you are 3 or 4 or 5. Children are highly tuned in to the concept of 'fairness'. A big part of what I teach is learning to be happy even though you can't have your way this time and I have learned a lot about myself while exploring this with them!

In a few weeks, as fall grows closer, each child will make a paper mache owl almost bigger than his head, we'll make black paper bats that sleep upside down over our snack table, we'll hang stuffed paper turkeys with knobby knees from the old gnarled Madrona branch we dragged from the woods one stormy afternoon and left to dry on our table as we had snack with cocoa on the rug, picnic style. We hang all sorts of things from our ceiling! Paper leaf rubbings that change with the seasons, special pictures we draw for mommy, collages we make for daddy, snowflakes and stars and monsters that scared us last night in our sleep but don't bother us now that we drew him, cut him out and gave him a name.

I frequently have children in my class with autism (for an example you could take a peek at my entry of August 2nd) and others with ADHD and I know that providing an environment that is overstimulating can be contraindicated. I know that our ceiling can be highly distracting :( However, the children (meaning me) enjoy so much making our art and hanging it up, watching it sway in the breeze that we make when we dance, that I just can't help it!