The Prepared Environment

Our classroom is thoughtfully designed to act as another teacher. The prepared environment ensures that each child will grow and thrive in the classroom. One perfect example of this concept is our Snack work. To an outsider, it may seem like the students are only serving themselves snacks to satisfy their hunger. The direct aim of this work is to foster concentration, order, coordination and independence. Our students are aimed to use the practical life skills that they have mastered from other areas in the classroom. The Snack work is now a culmination of all of the isolated skills (pouring, tonging, scooping) that they have been practicing. It now becomes purposeful. The indirect aim of this work seeks to further the child's learning. The students need to follow a specific order that is planned in a sequence. The physical movement of each step is designed to go from left-right, top to bottom, which prepare our students for reading. The children also get to reinforce their number recognition, quantification and name recognition. Another indirect aim is care for self, others and the environment. The completed Snack work involves hand washing, snack preparation and clean up. Every child will have to make sure that snack is ready for the next user. 

I really enjoy sharing this aspect of early childhood because to some the intentionality is not  obvious. Everything that our students do in the classroom has a purpose that will benefit their holistic growth.

To end, I would like to share two videos from last week. This one is a video of our class singing a peace song for the celebration of International Day of Peace. This one is a video of our class doing a turn and talk about their families.

Thank you for your time. See you at school!

Always,

Celine Guerrero

Sebastian uses his tonging skills to serve himself some snack. 

The students need to be able to recognize the numbers to correctly get the quantity of snack they can get.

Frances washed her used cup for the next user.

Snack is served and prepared from left to right.

The children are also practicing good table manners and their social skills.

Balance and equilibrium. Olivia manages to carry a glass plate to her snack area. She also had to find her name stick to save her space.

Library time!

Browsing and choosing books

Ms. Diane, one of our parent Library volunteers read to our class.

Mark Anthony and Solomon with the 100 Board.

Carlos matched a whole and zoomed in picture of different vehicles.

Winter wrote a sentence about a picture. "The duck was crossing the street."

Maddox and the 9 Layout

Maya and her "sand castle"

Carlos matched different animal patterns.

Santi chooses the Intro Tray to the Decimal Places several times a day!

Caleb created his own story using our story basket.

James and the Sound Box #1.

Sebastian completed the 20 Board.

Solomon and Maddox during Guided Reading at Kindergarten time.