This Week in the Oak Room

Hopefully you are hearing all about India at home.  This week we will continue our study of Asia with a focus on China.  The Chinese New Year is coming soon, which brings with it a lot of fun activities and an excellent opportunity to learn about this fascinating country.  As always, any artifacts from home are most welcome for sharing!

We are hoping to have our full class back in the next week.  Illness has been affecting many families.  As always, we have taken measures to sanitize the classroom daily and encourage frequent hand washing.  We suggest to the children that they should be washing their hands, with soap, for as long as it takes to sing the ABC song.

Since this is the year of the snake for Chinese New Year, we will be learning all about these fascinating creatures for our newest science lesson.  There are many questions to be answered about where they live, what they eat, why they are cold-blooded, etc.

Our peace lessons this next week will be centered on helpful and hurtful language.  We will be having discussions about name-calling, how words have power and perhaps most important, what happens when you can’t “take it back.”  In my most recent readings on this subject, I have learned that name-calling and hurtful language is often a result of a child feeling powerless themselves, or can just be testing new language options to see “what happens.”  I encourage parents and guardians to come up with a system for you and your child to let them know when they have used words that are hurtful.  I liked the suggestion in this month’s “Tomorrow’s Child,” to use a single word, such as “ouch,” for a reminder.

Child quote of the week:

“Do you know what movie I saw when I was just a little kid?” – Emery

 “All our handling of the child will bear fruit, not only at the moment, but in the adult they are destined to become.” – Maria Montessori