This year's Kindergarten group is twelve children strong.  All of them attend full day, and they are already making the most of it.  In our first week, they played in the loft with such abandon that they were unable to complete the clean up in the allotted time--twice.  They didn't like that the loft was then closed for the next activity time, and both times a small group went up and completed the clean up.  At a snack discussion they suggested and agreed to not dump things on the floor or mix things together, creating large amounts of sorting work,  They'll try out their solutions next week.  This is work that every Kindergarten group confronts at some point, but to do it in the first week is something I've never seen before.

     And they did so much more.  They made hallway agreements and used the hallway for big block construction each day.  Two children completed the September calendar independently.  They had meetings to solve problems, like reckless trike driving and how to include everyone.  We used rhythm instruments during songs.  End of the day jobs, which are notoriously challenging at the start of a Kindergarten school year, were completed with relative ease.  They planned for shape days, not only listing the shapes they want to include, but also helping categorize them to fit the number of days in the week.  They noted the relationships among squares, diamonds, triangles, and rectangles.  They completed their first self-portraits for our birthday chart, and they had a wonderful time listening to The Hungry Thing books and participating in the rhyme play.  A small group of children made our first batch of granola for our first forest Kindergarten morning. 

     It was a wonderful, whirlwind of a first week with many old friendships rekindled and more new friendships begun.  I can't wait to see what this group does next!