Dear Families,
We are so appreciative of all the engagement you and your children have been dedicated to throughout the transition to remote learning with us. We want to share with you some of the benefits to your child’s development that this virtual work together is supporting. There are four main developmental domains of learning that the virtual work we do together with you and your little ones are supporting, they are language, cognition, physical development (gross and fine motor), and social emotional. Below we will discuss further how these domains of learning are being developed through our interactions.
Through our Zoom Meeting we are all supporting the children’s receptive and expressive language; the more words they hear, the more language they can retain. Through the movement videos we share with you like Baby Yoga, and Action Songs children to continue to develop their gross-motor skills and learn large muscle movements, as well as build their strength. Children also learn to master and develop their fine motor movements through the different art projects we do together, such as finger painting, utilizing play dough and collaging. During our Zoom Meetings we sing some of the children’s favorite circle time songs. By singing these favorite songs with the children, we are encouraging them to sing along with us which supports their overall cognition. This simple and fun activity helps promote memory and word identification in children. Our children are also learning how to identify noises and sounds through the activities we have assigned such as making homemade music shakers. Children are constantly learning and developing their social-emotional skills as we, their teachers and families, model different emotions and behaviors for children to learn. Children look to the main adults in their lives as role models to emotional understanding. We are responsive to the emotions and behaviors of every child. This helps to maintain trust between teachers and each individual child. We also utilize stories that discuss emotions and describe to children how the characters are feeling and why.
We just wanted to share with you all some of the developmental benefits to this wonderful work you are doing with your children. We really appreciate your participation in distance learning with us. We hope you are enjoying this experience with us as much as we are enjoying with you and your children.
Thank you,
Irina, Ayesha, Lauren and Nayisha
Dear Parents and Families,
We want to thank you all for your patience, support, and dedication these last few months as we made the transition to remote learning. There have been many changes and challenges along the way, and we appreciate every one of you for sticking with us.
Our first priority is always the children and supporting them in their development. Although that looks a little different now than it did when we were in the classroom, we are still working hard to ensure that they are being supported in all developmental areas, as well as being stimulated in ways that will challenge their thinking and encourage continued growth.
We have outlined below the ways that we have been authentic in our continued commitment to help support your children’s developmental growth. We have detailed each domain below so that you can gain a deeper understanding of the work we are engaged in with your children as they continue to develop and achieve milestones in our virtual classroom setting
Language development: We support language development through songs, repetition, read alouds, and modeling. We incorporate both Spanish and American Sign Language (ASL) into our Zoom sessions to further support the children’s acquisition of the English language and their home language, as many of our students are bilingual. We consistently review colors, numbers, names, body parts, foods, etc., to help children retain the information better and to practice their pronunciation of the words. We model proper language by narrating our actions, expanding upon what the children say and describing what is happening around us. This allows children to organize their thoughts and better understand what is taking place now and what will happen later.
Social-emotional development: We support social-emotional development by providing a space for children to see and interact with their peers, as well as their teachers. Children are encouraged to express their feelings with their school community. Teachers model self-regulation skills by waiting their turn to speak, acknowledging the challenge of waiting, and talking about their feelings with the children. The children have already begun to show preference when they see a familiar child’s face on the screen, demonstrating awareness of their classmates and acknowledging their friendship.
Physical development: We support physical development by providing opportunities for children to exercise both their fine and gross motor skills. For gross motor development, we encourage children to walk, run, jump and move their bodies with yoga, nature walks and scavenger hunts. We use music and movement activities to learn about our bodies, such as “Heads Shoulder Knees and Toes”, and we encourage children to move along with us as we label each body part. For fine motor development, we encourage children to make art, in which they scribble with crayons and use paint brushes to make broad strokes. We engage the children in activities that promote and support finger movement, such as fingerplay songs like “Where is Thumbkin?” and when we use ASL to recite the alphabet. Additionally, we model how to eat using utensils, which encourage the children to do the same.
Cognitive development: We support cognitive development by inviting the children to engage in discovery, exploration and problem solving that leads to learning on a daily basis. Children are learning to navigate Zoom and other technology on their own, gaining independence and life skills that can be applied to other areas. While on Zoom, we talk and ask questions about what they are doing or experiencing in an activity, giving them time to respond with their actions or words.
We hope these explanations of burgeoning developmental milestones provide clarity of our intentions behind every activity we plan for your children and that it helps you to better understand the simple ways in which you can support your child’s development at home and on the go.
Although we cannot be together in person, we hope that our carefully created plans are helping your children continue their journeys of learning and growth.
Warmly,
The Twos Teachers
Dear Families,
We are very pleased to be able to continue to work with you and your wonderful children by way of remote instruction for the Fall 2020 semester. We want you to know that it is truly a joy to continue to see our student’s faces and engage in conversations with the children each week during our virtual meeting times.
These special meeting times during the week are designed to support the connection and engagement shared between the teachers and children while also supporting the continuation of growth, particular to 4 developmental domains including language, cognition, physical and social-emotional development. We would like to share some of the ways in which our meetings fully support these areas of development.
When referencing language and how it is used during our virtual meeting times, the teachers try to encourage the children to communicate verbally through sharing personal stories or even a home item or a favorite toy at times. The purpose of this is to help the children become more comfortable speaking within the group. The teachers will also try to incorporate thought provoking questions about these items such as “What are some ways your toy can move”? or “What types of sounds can you create using your items? Besides asking questions, we also feel that it is important to give the children the opportunity to speak freely and offer their own thoughts and ideas during our meetings. This could include a song to share, sharing about an experience with family or simply talking about how they may feel at that particular moment. There are also moments when we will have the children take turns in order to have them understand the importance of listening, respecting as well as responding to others when it is their time to speak; although at this age the children are still learning how to effectively do this. Please note that this is typical. Another strategy that you may notice being used is when the teachers incorporate more vocabulary by modeling for the children a variety of words that can be used. This is intentional and mindful. Your child’s voice matters in this world and one of our goals is to help the children confidently express themselves verbally using language that can be easily spoken and understood over time.
We have been connecting with you and the children via Google Meet or Zoom Meetings in order to share and exchange information in the best and most direct way possible that mirrors in person encounters. On a daily or weekly basis we try our best to provide activities/resources that can enable and support you with different experiences that can help promote and encourage the growth of social-emotional development through various activities. The virtual classroom has enabled us to provide a setting that is like the classroom where children and families can come together and interact in a comfortable and friendly environment. One of our goals is to provide a supportive environment with parents and teachers by creating and sustaining friendship(s), encouraging acceptance and sharing, guidance for turn taking, and giving positive feedback. The remote schedule that we have provided on Google Classroom allows all families to gather together and share experiences as we would in a physical classroom and create family engagement opportunities such as asking families to share moments together, dancing, outdoor experiences or just simply doing an activity at any given time throughout the day. For example, the photos/ videos of the children that are shared, making music and helping out around the house; sharing a story with us at meal time. These moments are usually things that we would do together during circle time, breakfast/lunch or snack time or other daily routines. Creating a time for social and emotional interaction is something that we also consider and try to offer even virtually. The videos that we offer, create and assign are encouraged to be shared with your children so they can experience interaction and engagement even when we are not able to physically be with them.
Through our remote work and live morning meetings we strive to promote cognitive development. Cognitive development is your child’s ability to learn, think and problem solve. Asking questions is a great tool to help your child in this area. You may hear us ask questions that begin with “What do you think? Why do you think that? What do you think about…?” Or we may incorporate and use phrases like “I wonder how/why/when”. These are meant to extend your child’s thinking and spark further curiosity. This method is also something you can try at home in your daily conversations with your children. A great way to reply to a child’s question is by asking them “What do you think?”. This will allow you to gauge your child’s understanding on a topic, learn about their thinking process and also promote confidence in them by making them feel that you value their thoughts and opinions. Questions are also a great way for helping your child to develop concepts such as cause and effect, order/sequence, now, later, first, last, next, big and small, numbers and counting, colors and shapes.
Observations are also an important part of cognitive development. During our meetings you may hear us use phrases such as “I see” or “Look…” We use these phrases as a way to model building connections during our meetings. We may use colors, shapes, texture or items that children have to make connections to and with such as one child’s yellow bow and another’s yellow toy. Modeling these phrases and thought processes are an important part of our daily life in the classroom. It is a way of promoting further curiosity and extending learning in topics that your child is interested in. Our daily schedule is also packed with songs; read a louds, music, articles, and meal ideas that aid in promoting and building connections for you and your child. You may find dancing read alouds on days on a Free Dance Friday or a book on family during Weekend Show and Tell. We also try to provide meal and snack ideas that might coincide with the season. There are many ways in which we strive to promote cognitive development through our remote work that you can use throughout your day at home together.
Through our virtual classroom, we also try to incorporate activities that promote the physical development of the children. As the children engage in our classroom routine and activities we aim to build the growth of both their fine and gross motor skills.
Children utilize their fine motor skills as we sing songs together and we use our fingers to count down to sing and move our fingers during finger-plays like the Turtle Song and the Itsy Bitsy Spider. As the children coordinate music with small movements they are sharpening and developing their fine motor skills as well as developing hand eye coordination. Some finger-plays that we sing, such as the Wheels On The Bus, require that the children use big movements which allows your child’s entire body to experience the fun and encourages physical development using both big and small muscles.
During our Zoom sessions we embed physical development within our activities with the children. As we plan for the children, we keep their physical development in mind, while also considering the benefits of physical activity on children’s overall development. For example, creating and using musical instruments with objects found around the house promotes both fine and gross motor skills in a variety of ways. For instance, drumming with an open hand can help build gross motor skills, while learning to tap on objects while grasping another object like a pencil, strengthens fine motor skills. As we continue to work together virtually, we will continue to incorporate and encourage activities throughout our daily routines that promote optimum physical development and encourage a supportive environment for movement and exploration.
As we navigate our way through these changes from in person learning to remote instruction we want you to understand that your child’s ongoing development in these 4 major areas will always be taken into account as we plan for each week.
Together we can help and support the children at each developmental milestone throughout their learning journey with us.
Warmly,
The Threes Teachers
Dear Families,
As we continue our journey together, we would like to thank you for your participation and involvement in our virtual classroom. During these unprecedented times, we are trying to create a sense of community and normalcy for children through our classroom activities and zoom meetings. Although our interactions are now virtual, we want to continue to support your children’s development by providing you with activities that support and build on your child’s academic success at this time.
Through our interactions during our ZOOM meetings and our non- virtual days, our goal is to provide opportunities to promote development of language, cognition, social/emotional, and fine/gross motor skills. We plan our lessons around these four developmental domains to make sure your children receive the most appropriate education and interaction that we can provide during these times. Our 3 ZOOM sessions each week allow your children to interact with their peers, communicate with their teachers as well as have open discussions on the topics being shared during these meetings. Having read a louds asking open-ended questions during these read a louds invites the children to work on their cognitive as well as communication and language skills. They are learning to recall story events, collect their thoughts as well as express their feelings on the stories being read. Our ZOOM meetings on Fridays are more flexible and allows for the children to share anything that they may find interesting and would like to share. This gives children an opportunity to express themselves while also learning self- control, the ability to listen to others as well as reply back to their classmates. This type of interaction helps the children with their social and emotional development.
While we are not in the classroom, we are still following the same set of rules that we would if we were having circle time. It is important for children to learn how to wait for their turn, respect and respond to the children/teacher that is talking at that moment, learn to be patient and learn how to regulate their own emotions. We also try to incorporate dance and songs into our virtual classrooms. Songs help children with recall and memorization and dancing promotes their gross motor skills. Movement is important right now especially that we are at home and may not be getting to go outside or move around as much as we used to. Incorporating movement into our lessons helps children continue to develop their gross motor skills by moving their whole bodies. Our learning experiences help children with their creativity as well as developing their fine motor skills. On our non virtual days we provide materials and pre- recorded videos that are aligned with the week's topics as well promoting all 4 of these developmental domains. We cannot stress how important it is for your child to continue to work on the activities that share on our non-virtual days and continue to have some sense of normalcy in their lives. Although we would all love to be back together, we are truly trying our best to make this experience as pleasant and enjoyable for you and your child. We are always here for you and if there is anything you would like us to incorporate into our lessons, we are always open for any suggestions or ideas.
Thank you for supporting us and allowing us to continue to interact and teach your children.
Truly,
The Fours Teachers
