Austen Riggs Nursery School

Hello, SEPTEMBER! 🍁

Story time with Miss Jenny from is always a thrill! Bringing in some outdoors and making puddles! We really have a lot of fun

It’s not even Wednesday yet!! ☀️😍💦🏖️🚗🚒🚙🚛

Tell me it’s summer, without telling me, it’s summer! ☀️🕶️🍉💦

Summertime and feelin’ fine…

Summertime is such a wonderful time of year for water play, mud pies, running through the sprinkler and digging holes in the sand to fill them up with water! Play is incredibly important for children’s development of so many skills. Friendships are made, collaboration and negotiation are discussed, and laughing through the fun is inevitable. First week of summer session has come to a close

Morning fun 😎☀️🏝️

First day of summer session!! We are so fortunate to have so many wonderful families joining us this year!

End of the school year vibes 🎓💜 on to summer session fun! ☀️🕶️

When we discussed our multifaceted play space and decided what to create next, we made a list with the children. When they decided what was next, the teachers gathered materials for the space and created a medical office for them to explore and gain a better understanding of the body, being a nurse, doctor, and patient. They role played and acted out what it is like, from their perspective, to go to the Doctor. They have all enjoyed playing different roles and we have enjoyed scaffolding their learning and understanding through discussion and experience. We love making connections to the real world around us and guiding children through their in depth and hands on learning. Is there a Dr. in the house? There might be 8 new doctors in the making in the next 20 years 💜 We also had a special guest last week, Sarah Mack, author and illustrator of children’s books. She read her books to us and talked about her creative process and illustration techniques. We started exploring the ideas of our own book making. We had another guest, Kate Bailey, who taught us book binding and covering techniques to use to cover our own books 💜 We have been discovering number sense; counting, adding and subtracting in multiple ways💜 We also finally had some beautiful weather to be able to break out the watering cans and buckets to make mud pies, puddles, digging holes, and potions 💜

Our Art Show is always a wonderful celebration of the culmination of their artwork over the school year. It tells a story of each child’s journey through the world of art. Our families enjoyed seeing the carefully curated bodies of work by our amazing art teacher J and our Gallery Manager and Instructor at the LDG, Chalice Mitchell. The show is up until next Wednesday 💜

Sock puppet haircuts, colored pencil drawings, painting our ceramics, playing music on the drum, stretching for yoga, playing with light…

So many amazing moments each day. Love seeing the children checking in on each other, helping each other, learning together, and building strong relationships while exploring all we offer 💜

What a fun experiment we have had with Pumpkin Jack! We are so excited to take these amazing sprouts out to our garden to plant and see how many pumpkins we can grow!

What do you know about fairies? Did you know there is a difference between fairies, pixies, and nymphs? What would your fairy house look like if you made one from our recycled materials? We drew plans, played with fairies at the table, talked about where we think fairies come from and started to build fairy houses. 🧚🏼‍♀️🧚

We visited Michael in our ceramics studio to explore clay! We learned about what clay is made from, how we can mold it on the potter’s wheel or by hand. We made birds nests and eggs and they will be painted and fired in the kiln! We can’t wait to see the results of what we made!

We recently made a visit to our wood shop to learn more about what kinds of things you can make and some of the tools that are used. We learned that safety is #1! We also added to our collage and pretended to make salads from our outdoor gardens.

Beautiful start to our day with the sun shining warm upon the face. ☀️

That morning light…capturing the beauty and essence of the blooms we brought in from outside for us to study, wonder, draw, smell, touch, and wonder about more. We also opened “pumpkin Jack” which we preserved in soil since early November. We watched as it decayed over time and then finally it is sprouting new life for us to watch grow! We have written down our observations over time and will write a book about it for our classroom. I also included a shot from our earth day fun and a discovery of a “rolly polly” found in the dirt

Creativity and imagination are running wild this week! When children are given opportunities to choose their area of exploration, it can lead to more discoveries and greater sense of accomplishment.

Our visit to the inspired us to create our own bakery in the classroom! We used a recipe to make “dough” to use in our bakery. We have aprons and special tools to make different shaped cookies and other baked goods to sell. So much fun to learn about the businesses in our community!

Watching a video of an eclipse on our Mystery Doug video! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jep92qf39UQ&pp=ygUabXlzdGVyeSBkb3VnIHNvbGFyIGVjbGlwc2U%3D

We continue to explore letters, watch nature unfold, emulate engineers, architects and builders in designing and constructing grand structures, and explore the outdoors in all of the weather it provides!

These children always amaze me with their curiosity and creativity 💜

We hope you had a chance to get outside in the fresh air today! The ground is getting softer so we can use our climber again! Happy people today 💜 Happy Weekend to our friends and families!

Awaiting the arrival of the eaglets of Jackie and Shadow! 🦅