ashley_kindergarten

Welcome to Ashley 2018-19 Kindergarten Class!

Dear Families and Friends,

I am feeling electric as I write this letter to you, surging with excitement as we prepare for the upcoming school year together. For families who have spent this past year with me, welcome back! I miss chatting with all of you and spending my days immersed in the whimsy and wonder of your children. For our new families, welcome to the Earth School! We are blessed to have you join us and are eager to have our community enriched by your presence, experiences, and love. I have such a great feeling about this year, and I hope you all do too.

I am Ashley, and I will be your child’s Kindergarten teacher this upcoming year! I am thrilled to be on this adventure with you all. For our newcomers (or anyone who wants a reminder), I am pleased to share that I am embarking on my eighth year teaching Early Childhood, and my third year working at the wonderful Earth School. I have an undergraduate degree with a concentration in writing, arts, and sciences, and a graduate degree in education, both from Sarah Lawrence College. I am passionate about teaching, art, social justice, reading fiction and comics, cooking, and of course, eating! I was born and raised in Brooklyn by a single mother with three children, and am very close-knit with my family. I continue to live in Brooklyn, with my pup, Landry, and partner, Dan. This summer, I toured my mother through Rome, Florence, and Naples, Italy, and happily ate my way through every city. I will also spend some time in Boston and Washington, D.C., and in August, I head to Scotland with Dan. I was happy to have some time this break to catch up on the stack of books by my bedside table and have a chance to experiment with new recipes. What adventures did you get into this summer? I cannot wait to hear about everyone’s vacation: the books read, the games played, the parks visited, the treats eaten, and the cities traveled.

I have a lot of ideas about curriculum blossoming in my head and I am excited to partner with children to see where it all will go. As we pursue academic learning, we will equally focus on our social-emotional intelligence, which is one of my greatest priorities as a teacher. There is something that I would like for all of us to keep at the forefront of our minds this year: how do we nurture our souls? A friend recently told me that when someone became ill, sad, or lost in shamanic societies, the medicine person would ask them four questions to help them realign and heal. Those questions are:

- When did you stop dancing? - When did you stop singing? - When did you stop being enchanted by stories? - When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?

As I consider these questions, I think about what brings us joy, hope, and unity as a community. I expect that our classroom will be filled with movement, song, storytelling, and the quiet reflection that it takes to build wisdom and creativity. I hope this school year will animate, empower, and feed all of our souls.

Can’t wait to see you all soon!

Love, Ashley

Please find information below to help prepare you for school:

Kindergarten at the Earth School

At The Earth School, we value the children’s ideas, thoughts, and beliefs in the classroom. We are committed to supporting children in their development and helping them learn through play and discovery. Teachers strive to provide a nurturing and stimulating environment in which children’s interests and strengths are celebrated. Our hope is that during Kindergarten, children continue their deep love for learning, grow their awareness of themselves and others, and build confidence to pursue their interests. In various ways, teachers strive to offer children a range of choices that allow them to engage in activities that provide both practice and challenge. Throughout the year, teachers plan and reflect on curriculum to meet the needs of each individual student as well as the class and its collective interests. This means that although some of our curriculum is planned prior to knowing the children, some curriculum emerges out of student interest and excitement for new topics.

At the Earth School, we encourage a strong family/teacher/school partnership and there are many ways for families to take part in our school community. Some examples of involvement include being a class parent, being part of the Parent Association, or volunteering for school events or trips. In the classroom, you are welcome to come in and celebrate your child’s birthday, honor a cultural event, share a snack, or read a book to the class. I hope we can come together during the year if there are any skills, talents. or bits of knowledge you wish to share with the class as we embark on classroom studies. We welcome your input and any new ways to bridge the home and school environment!

Building classroom community is most important for making a happy, safe, and nurturing environment at school for both children and families. As we merge new families and old this year, we will continue to focus on getting to know each other, and embracing each other’s identities, cultures, strengths, and contributions to our community. In class, we will spend the beginning of the school year considering our rights and responsibilities to ourselves and each other, practicing self-care routines, and fostering independence. As always, we will focus deeply on social-emotional learning. In Kindergarten, we will continue to learn how to identify, understand, and express our emotions as well as develop strategies to cope and manage our big feelings. By seeking to understand how others feel, we will be building empathy and learning about acceptance. Ultimately, we will strive to learn and practice respectful and kind ways to coexist as well as peaceful ways to resolve conflicts. At the Classroom Kick-Off Evening in the fall, we will talk in depth about the curriculum and how this is implemented in our classrooms.

Supply List

For Your Child:

• • A change of clothing – A Ziploc labeled with your child’s name, filled with extra underwear, socks, tops, bottoms, and shoes that your child can put on by themselves

  • A reuseable water bottle or cup, marked with your child’s name – for drinking water in class (Earth School is officially committed to banning single-use plastic water bottles to reduce our waste)

  • A family photo(s) to keep in class – *Important - necessary tool in forging home-school connection, which will aid in transitioning into school* - A blue paper folder for Earth Science labeled with your child’s name, and “Earth

Science”/”EMMY”:

Necessary Classroom Supplies – *These supplies will be shared and used by the whole class*

• • 2 rolls of paper towels (if possible, rolls with select-a-size sheets)

  • 1 box of tissues

  • 1 package of unscented baby wipes

.Optional Supplies – *We are grateful for anything that you are able to share with our class*

• • 1 bottle of non-toxic spray cleaner

  • Watercolor paper

  • Packing tape

  • Black felt tip pens

  • Glue sticks

  • Scotch tape

  • Dish towels, for cleaning up spills

  • Colored masking tape

  • DIshwashing liquid

  • Sponges

  • Gallon Ziploc bags

Optional Materials/Found Object Contributions

• • Loose parts materials like buttons, beads, corks, keys, mosaic tiles, nuts, bolts, bottle caps, soda can tabs, etc. - Natural found objects like seashells, sea glass, rocks, twigs, pebbles, acorns, pinecones, sweet gum, dried flowers, bones, etc. - Maps from museums, gardens, buildings, cities, transportation systems, etc. - Scarves, hats, ties, gloves, etc. – for dress-up

If you are interested in donating extra items that will contribute to our class culture such as literature, music, art book, art materials, manipulatives, puppets, etc., please check out our Amazon wishlist: http://a.co/6s9WSsQ