Curriculum Corner: ‘A week in the life of an Amethyst’
“Curriculum Corner” is a bi-weekly column written by Blue Mountain School teachers to share insight and school happenings. Blue Mountain School is a progressive, contemplative school in Floyd where intentional curriculum planning is part of the everyday.
By Iris Flad and Mya Cockram,
Amethyst teachers (serving Pre-K)
Monday
Happy Monday Amethyst Families! We started our morning with our school-wide circle. We practiced breathing, turning on the left and right sides of our brains, and met a new Blue Mountain School student.
We returned to the Amethyst classroom to enjoy music with Kris and Julia. We continued to explore the new drums, and we learned two new songs. One was about a scarecrow with a flippy floppy hat, and the other one was “The Ghost of John.” We always enjoy starting off our week with Music with Kris.
After Music, we had our morning choices. Mya had an art project making The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We used paper towel rolls, paper, glue, dot markers, and markers to decorate our caterpillar. Then we filled the tubes with beads, using the same colors and numbers as food the caterpillar ate.
At Circle, we used our caterpillars to read the story “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. We shook our caterpillars to make the beads rattle, and we created cocoons with our hands. It’s always fun to make a story come to life in our classroom!
We had a snack followed by some time on the deck, where our friends made letters with Iris. We had a recess where our friends enjoyed playing tag, in the sandbox, and swings
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Tuesday
Good afternoon! We started our morning practicing mindfulness with Jagadisha. We enjoyed the fresh air and natural sounds while practicing on the deck.
Today we turned pictures of ourselves into monsters. Our friends had a lot of fun adding eyes, mouths, and horns onto their cut out bodies. While friends waited their turn, they read books with Mya, built with duplo Legos, and played with the toy cars.
Iris lead circle today. We started with the song, “Open, Shut Them” and then read the book, “Go Away Big Green Monster” by Ed Emberley. We then talked about how adding eyes and mouths to our cutouts changed the emotions of our monsters. We then looked at monster cards that had different emotions and practiced making faces of the emotion, while talking about what makes us feel that emotion. Many friends shared that they feel loved when they get “hugs from mommy and daddy.”
During recess our friends enjoyed the sandbox, bikes, and the swings.
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Wednesday
Hello, families. We are so excited to go to Turner’s Family Farm’s Pumpkin Patch with both our Amethyst and Opal friends! We would love for any parents who are able to join, come with us and if able, help with transportation.
Students will enter the corn maze, go on a hayride, and take home a small pumpkin. Please be aware while packing your child’s lunch that it will be a picnic-style lunch, and we may not have the normal resources like a table while eating.
Thank you and we can’t wait for our fun pumpkin patch field trip!
Thursday
Happy Thursday, families. We had a fun, exploratory morning. We started the day with Lore, continuing our exploration of the color orange. We mixed red and yellow paint to create different shades of orange to add to our pieces.
After Art, we gathered around one of the big tables and cut a hole in a large pumpkin. We explored the inside by first looking, then touching, and then finally pulling out the insides and really feeling the different textures of the pumpkin fibers or as they call it, the “goop.”
We noticed this pumpkin had a lot of seeds, which brought the conversation of eating pumpkin seeds. Some friends had eaten lots and others had never tried them. Our friends were very interested, and due to the large amount of seeds, we decided to roast pumpkin seeds.
First, we finished carving our class pumpkin (our friends named it “Bob”) and had our regular snack. After snack we worked together to clean and dry the seeds. Next we talked about seasoning. Our friends had different ideas but we landed on adding salt, pepper, and everything bagel seasoning. We mixed together our seeds, a tiny bit of vegetable oil, and plenty of seasoning. Next, we placed them on two pans. Half of our friends helped carry ingredients back to the main kitchen and watched Iris put the seeds in the oven and the other half of our friends came to watch Iris pull the seeds out of the oven and then did a taste test. We decided they were ready to be left out of the oven.
We let them cool off over recess and enjoyed a small amount with our lunches. The rest of the seeds are in labeled bags to bring home for our friends to enjoy with their families. They can’t wait for you to taste them!
With love,
Iris and Mya
Blue Mountain School is currently accepting enrollment for the Amethyst class. Reach out to Tammie@bluemountainschool.net for more information.
“Curriculum Corner” is a bi-weekly column written by Blue Mountain School teachers to share insight and school happenings. Blue Mountain School is a progressive, contemplative school in Floyd where intentional curriculum planning is part of the everyday.