ECP and Elementary Updates, Fall 2020
EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAM
| In response to the need for social distancing, Harmony’s Early Childhood Program scaled back from our normal enrollment of 21 kids and started a pod of six children and one teacher in an outdoor classroom set up on our little playground. We’ve adopted several protocols for preventing the spread of coronavirus, such as taking temperatures upon arrival and wearing masks when entering the building for trips to the bathroom. The big positive from all this has been the time outdoors. We’ve had wonderful weather and the kids have enjoyed swimming and water play, making art with things we find in nature, taking our annual signs of fall walk, snuggling up on the bean bags to read books, and tons of imaginative play. |
| — Linda Lewis, ECP teacher |
ELEMENTARY
The Elementary is off to a great start with our distance learning. At this time, all the classrooms are meeting in small groups over Zoom for their lessons, routines, and themes. Each classroom is also providing opportunities for the kids to see each other during in-person time at and away from Harmony. Here are updates from our teachers! — Jen Ruff, K-6 teacher
The Lower Elementary Classroom (Laura Beth and David’s class) is doing small reading and math groups over Zoom. They play games, listen to stories, and get to know each other better. They start every morning with mindfulness and have read aloud over lunch time. They just finished The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo and are now reading the Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson. They have been taking walks and playing during their in person meet ups on Fridays, trying to create as much “normal” during that time as they can.
.
The Upper Elementary Classroom (Lana, Todd, and Zevon’s class) has been meeting with small groups over Zoom for homeroom, math, and language arts. Lana has been leading some fantastic book clubs while Todd and Zevon have been reviewing and exploring math concepts. Every Friday, they have a variety of activities including fishing, creek stomping, hiking, art projects, and animal observations. For themes they have been working with guests from the Middle Way House on some amazing life skills lessons. They also have worked on developing some conflict resolution skills.
The K-6 Classroom (Jen and Adam’s class) has started their year with an animal science unit. The kids are researching different animals and learning all about classification, basic animal anatomy, life cycles, diets and food chains, habitats, and animal behavior. This work happens in small groups over Zoom and also during in-person learning.
They have a zillion book clubs started — Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder, a basketball book club that just finished a Lebron James biography, the Zoey and Sassafras (by Asia Citro) book club, a club studying nonfiction texts, and a book club focused on the beginnings of the United States (reading Chains and Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson).
As you can imagine in a multi-age classroom, the kids are learning a wide range of mathematical concepts — writing numerals and numbers through 20, multi-digit addition and subtraction, strategies for multiplication and division, and foundations in decimals, fractions, percents, and ratios! It’s a lot, and it all happens over Zoom!
Subscribe to Harmony’s newsletter here!