Nurturing Classroom Community in the Wonder Primes
The Wonder Primes are now in their sixth week of school and we are proud of how much they have grown as a community over the past weeks. We spent the past few weeks really getting to know each student and their unique needs and interests. We have been present with the students, offering familiar favorite activities and scaffolding play to support them as they learn about each other. We have watched the Wonder Primes become stewards of our classroom by establishing clean-up routines that help teach the students how to care for our space. We are learning self-help skills and independence as we learn where our cubbies are, how to get our own lunch, snacks, and water bottles, set up our cushions for morning meeting, and attempt to put on our own shoes and coats. We have established familiar routines based around the most important needs of eating and sleeping and students have come to rely on our schedule for stability and security. Our students are helping set up their own nap mats and even put the mats away at the end of our rest-time. We notice that as the students become more comfortable and engaged with their environment, they are also playing more, caring for each other deeply, and branching out to learn more about our outside spaces and the bigger center school community.
We are seeing a growing awareness of the needs of others in the classroom. When one child is sad, the other students are offering hugs, kind words, toys, or helping each other find their things like shoes or water bottles. There is a palpable sense of community as we work together to meet everyone’s needs. Transitions can often be stressful in our classroom because we have to wait for each other so that we can move together as a group. We are learning to be patient, notice that others are still “getting ready” and being flexible with our needs. As we become used to moving together as a group, we are seeing more spontaneous play and joy happen without teacher scaffolding. Children are finding activities that they enjoy and inviting their friends to join them when teachers are busy attending to needs such as bathrooming, sweeping, or sitting with snackers. Our climber in our classroom has become a social hub especially during transition times where students joyfully play together creating new techniques for sliding as a group. “Watch my belly slide,” “slide together,” “feet first slide!” They are harmoniously sharing space, enjoying each other, and creating games together.
As our classroom community grows together, we are becoming comfortable with the wider Center School community. We walk around campus meeting Mups running laps around the school, Woods primes frolicking in the meadow, Middles jogging down the driveway, uppers running to greet us from their classrooms, and so many friendly teachers always offering a smile and a Hello. Most of our students love All School days when we can all come together and see the friendly faces of each other as we share in songs, games, and sharing. Now that we have the first 6 weeks behind us, we are looking forward to the richness that we will discover together as we continue to learn and grow throughout our school year. We will be diving deeper into our emergent curriculum as we continue our ramp explorations. We will offer more opportunity for stewardship by creating a job chart in the classroom. We will also continue to learn how to care for each other as we learn about emotions, family, and ourselves. We are excited and filled with wonder about what this group will learn and create together as we head into the fall and winter months.
