The month of May didn’t just usher in the well-loved season Spring, but the School-age 2 children in John Sweeney demonstrated this month a deepened understanding of one of our core values here at RisingOaks – community, where everyone who is a part of our growing organization feels at home.
With the season of spring within us, we witnessed an expanded and more varied array of outdoor activities participated in by the children. One of them was the Earth Day cleanup that we did around the park behind the school. We are delighted to share that the children have kept their promise of being responsible stewards of the environment in this impromptu activity. We wrote a story on their commitment to being caretakers of Mother Earth back in March. The whole group was ready for their task and picked up all sorts of trash like plastic lids, wrappers, and straws. Theo got an armful of bottles from the bike racks while Simon found a poop bag under the bushes! In this activity, the children demonstrated an increasing helping behavior, which is one of the important domains that form their social skills.
The following week, educator Tina brought a bouquet of fake flowers. These and some empty pots were laid out on the table. The children were excited to see bright, colorful flowers that mirror the ones that they see growing in their own gardens. Finn, Avika, Lukas H, and Dammy made beautiful flower arrangements of pink and yellow roses, and added some purple orchids for texture. The next day, Mira set up a restaurant in one corner of our classroom and used the fake flowers as part of her table arrangement. She got immediate customers like Ini who took the burgers right away!
With more sun we’re getting these days, we decided to make colorful sun-catchers next. We cut strips of cello sheets and taped them together in the shape of a heart. It entailed a lot of patience to work with cellophane and plastic. But all their hard work and use of fine motor skills paid off the following afternoon when we brought our sun-catchers out. The children marveled at the corlorful shadows! This was a great topic around how cellophane, with its translucent characteristic, was able to cast colorful shadows on the ground. This was especially interesting to the children who would normally see shadows as dark shapes of things around them. Using the Early Learning for Every Child Today or ELECT document as our reference, our observation of their interest on this topic reveals to us a growing positive attitude towards learning by showing curiosity and appreciation of the unique properties of the things around them.
This month, we were also joined by our high school student volunteer, Kyle. He aspires to become an early childhood educator someday. The children gave him a warm welcome on his first day. Kyle is gradually making meaningful connections with every child in our program by engaging in their chosen play and offering activities that align with their interests. At RisingOaks, we believe in the importance of a strong community, where everyone, including our volunteers, feel a high sense of belonging.
The season of spring can truly be a great reminder for all of us of the beauty that comes with the changes that we see around us, like the various colors, flowers, and new people that we meet. It is exciting to witness the children’s growing adaptability in making connections of their lived experiences at home and school and applying them in their play and crafts, such as their documented use of the fake flowers and sun-catchers. Critical life skills are also developed as they learn to navigate new social interactions when meeting new people that they share their space and time with. As the warmer months approach, we can only look forward to hearing similar stories from our parents and families in observing these adaptive and interpersonal skills growing as the children spend more time with their family and friends for the coming summer. We’ll be all ears!
