Greetings Families,

April was a month filled with activities, art projects, and provocations about ways that we can save our planet. The teachers took time to read stories, have conversations, and invite questions about ways to recycle, protect our oceans, and be environmentally conscious. We enjoyed seeing their earth themed invitations to play. Miss Lia, has done a beautiful job of re-framing the EEC garden beds in preparation for new growth. Her biggest project will be to create a community garden for families to visit, tend to, and pick from in the future! 

The children are intrigued by the changes they have seen outdoors with the addition of our plants. One project that the Tiger classroom enjoyed was making bird feeders that can be seen hanging on the trees behind our play yard. The Chameleons classroom were all about recycled art projects where they used recycled material to transform into unique creations. These were also entered into the community Earth Day competition! 

During circle time, the teachers encouraged children to share ways that they help protect the environment at home and in their neighborhood. Some ideas were things like bike to school, keep trash in the trash can, use the compost, turn off water when not using, and pick up trash at the beach so that it doesn't end up in our oceans! These are great ideas to get involved on a community level, in addition, if you would like to be more involved in how your community helps to keep our Earth clean, go to https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/. Click on the Government drop down menu and go to the public works section. From the left side menu, click on 'Recycling, Compost, Garbage' where you will find 'Waste 101' and other links to events, information, and tips to get your family involved!

April showers bring May flowers, and they are certainly blooming. We invite you to bring in flowers from your garden to sweeten up the classrooms, classroom environments or the admin desks! Please keep a look out for baskets outside your child's classroom for collection in the month of May. 

Lastly, we are excited to invite you all to join us at the May 5th launch of the EEC Community Coffee Chat where the EEC team will be sharing insight into working with a mixed age model in a Reggio inpsired way. Attendance is not required, however, this is a great opportunity to be informed as well as share your experiences thus far. Special guest Amy Kaiser from the organization Program for Infant Toddler Care will be joining us to share her expertise in the field of education and specifically answer any questions you may have about mixed age group classrooms. In addition, the EEC teachers will also be sharing their observations thus far teaching in a mixed age model. This meeting will be recorded. 

As always, we appreciate your support of our awesome school. If you are looking for more great resources, activities or literature to read, please go to our resource tabs to see new links and recommendations.

Kindly,

Kristen and Natalee